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Clean and White : a History of Environmental Racism in the United States.

By: Publisher: New York : New York University Press, 2015Description: x, 275 pages ; 23 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781479826940
  • 1479826944
  • 9781479874378
  • 147987437X
Subject(s): Genre/Form: DDC classification:
  • 304.208900973 23
LOC classification:
  • GE230 .Z56 2015
Contents:
Introduction: The biopolitics of waste -- pt. I. Antebellum roots : Thomas Jefferson's ideal ; The decay of the old -- pt. II. New constructions : Searching for order ; "How do you make them so clean and white?" -- pt. III. Material consequences : Dirty work, dirty workers ; Waste and space reordered -- pt. IV. Assimilation and resistance : Out of waste into whiteness ; "We are tired of being at the bottom" -- Conclusion: A dirty history.
Summary: From the age of Thomas Jefferson to the Memphis Public Workers strike of 1968 through the present day, ideas about race-- whites are "clean" and non-whites are "dirty"-- have shaped where people have lived, where people have worked, and how American society's wastes have been managed. Zimring draws on historical evidence from statesmen, scholars, sanitarians, novelists, activists, advertisements, and the United States Census of Population to reveal changing constructions of environmental racism, focusing on constructions of race and hygiene. The bigoted idea that non-whites are "dirty" remains deeply ingrained in the national psyche, continuing to shape social and environmental inequalities.
List(s) this item appears in: 2022 New Titles
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
BOOK BOOK NCAR Library Foothills Lab GE230 .Z56 2015 1 Checked out 12/28/2024 50583020020628
Total holds: 0

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: The biopolitics of waste -- pt. I. Antebellum roots : Thomas Jefferson's ideal ; The decay of the old -- pt. II. New constructions : Searching for order ; "How do you make them so clean and white?" -- pt. III. Material consequences : Dirty work, dirty workers ; Waste and space reordered -- pt. IV. Assimilation and resistance : Out of waste into whiteness ; "We are tired of being at the bottom" -- Conclusion: A dirty history.

From the age of Thomas Jefferson to the Memphis Public Workers strike of 1968 through the present day, ideas about race-- whites are "clean" and non-whites are "dirty"-- have shaped where people have lived, where people have worked, and how American society's wastes have been managed. Zimring draws on historical evidence from statesmen, scholars, sanitarians, novelists, activists, advertisements, and the United States Census of Population to reveal changing constructions of environmental racism, focusing on constructions of race and hygiene. The bigoted idea that non-whites are "dirty" remains deeply ingrained in the national psyche, continuing to shape social and environmental inequalities.

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