A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind

by Harriet A. Washington

Overview

A "powerful and indispensable" look at the devastating consequences of environmental racism (Gerald Markowitz) and what we can do to remedy its toxic effects on marginalized communities — featuring a new preface on COVID-19 risk factors.
 
Did you know...
 

• Middle-class African American households with incomes between $50,000 and $60,000 live in neighborhoods that are more polluted than those of very poor white households with incomes below $10,000.

• When swallowed, a lead-paint chip no larger than a fingernail can send a toddler into a coma — one-tenth of that amount will lower his IQ.

• Nearly two of every five African American homes in Baltimore are plagued by lead-based paint. Almost all of the 37,500 Baltimore children who suffered lead poisoning between 2003 and 2015 were African American.

 
From injuries caused by lead poisoning to the devastating effects of atmospheric pollution, infectious disease, and industrial waste, Americans of color are harmed by environmental hazards in staggeringly disproportionate numbers. This systemic onslaught of toxic exposure and institutional negligence causes irreparable physical harm to millions of people across the country-cutting lives tragically short and needlessly burdening our health care system. But these deadly environments create another insidious and often overlooked consequence: robbing communities of color, and America as a whole, of intellectual power.
 
The 1994 publication of The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of a renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray, arguing that IQ is a biased and flawed metric, but that it is useful for tracking cognitive damage. She takes apart the spurious notion of intelligence as an inherited trait, using copious data that instead point to a different cause of the reported African American-white IQ gap: environmental racism - a confluence of racism and other institutional factors that relegate marginalized communities to living and working near sites of toxic waste, pollution, and insufficient sanitation services. She investigates heavy metals, neurotoxins, deficient prenatal care, bad nutrition, and even pathogens as chief agents influencing intelligence to explain why communities of color are disproportionately affected — and what can be done to remedy this devastating problem.
 
Featuring extensive scientific research and Washington's sharp, lively reporting, A Terrible Thing to Waste is sure to outrage, transform the conversation, and inspire debate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316509442
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	268,712
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Harriet A. Washington has been the Shearing Fellow at the University of Nevada's Black Mountain Institute, a Research Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, a senior research scholar at the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University, and a visiting scholar at DePaul University College of Law. She has held fellowships at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Stanford University. She is the author of Deadly Monopolies, Infectious Madness, and Medical Apartheid, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Oakland Award, and the American Library Association Black Caucus Nonfiction Award.

Table of Contents

Preface: Environmental Racism Goes Viral ix

Introduction: IQ Matters 3

Part I Color-Coded Intelligence? 21

Chapter 1 The Prism of Race: How Politics Shroud the Truth about Our Nation's IQ 23

Part II The Brain Thieves 59

Chapter 2 The Lead Age: Heavy Metals, Low IQs 61

Chapter 3 Poisoned World: The Racial Gradient of Environmental Neurotoxins 112

Chapter 4 Prenatal Policies: Protecting the Developing Brain 159

Chapter 5 Bugs in the System: How Microbes Sap U.S. Intelligence 207

Part III Mission Possible: How to Bolster the Nation's IQ 239

Chapter 6 Taking the Cure: What Can You Do, Now? 241

Chapter 7 A Wonderful Thing to Save: How Communities Can Unite to Preserve Brainpower 271

Glossary 293

List of Known Chemical Brain Drainers 299

Acknowledgments 305

Notes 309

Index 355

What People are Saying About This

Author of Lead Wars - Gerald Markowitz

“A Terrible Thing to Waste is a powerful and indispensable book for anyone who cares about a just and healthy future for all Americans. Harriet Washington asks the critical questions that get at the heart of racism and inequality in health, income, social welfare and power in 21st century America.”

JD, Features Editor, History News Network - Robin Lindley

“In her groundbreaking new book, A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer and bioethicist Harriet Washington explores how environmental racism damages young minds, particularly the minds of impoverished African American children who are exposed inordinately to toxins and pathogens in marginalized communities. She writes lucidly of how pollutants such as heavy metals and neurotoxins injure developing brains and recounts vividly case after case of the devastating cost to human brains and bodies. As she demolishes racist notions of inherited intelligence, she describes the medical consequences of horrific environmental catastrophes that have largely been forgotten or overlooked. Revelatory and compelling, Harriet Washington's A Terrible Thing to Waste is the Silent Spring for the 21st century.”

Host of Person Place Thing and original author of New York Times Magazine’s The Ethicist column. - Randy Cohen

“It’s amazing how far you can get if you just study the data. And have a keen analytical mind. And are a gifted reporter. With a sense of social justice. By which I mean, if you are Harriet Washington. She methodically indicts environmental racism and its catastrophic effects, particularly on the cognitive abilities of America’s children, a reminder that what we’re told is immutable — our social conditions, our ‘intelligence’ — is nothing of the kind. The news she brings is grim, but she leaves the reader feeling not paralyzed by despair but determined to act.”

Editorial Reviews

05/06/2019

In this searing indictment, scholar and researcher Washington (Medical Apartheid) pores over decades of examples and evidence to assess the damage that “environmental poisoning” has on communities of color. Washington persuasively argues that environmental toxins are much more prevalent in areas where marginalized people live, inequitably harming the brains, health, and future of black, Hispanic, and Native American children; she identifies the consequences as a “collective loss” for the nation and staggering medical and economic costs. Washington offers anecdotal evidence and damning data—on, for example, polychlorinated biphenyl pollution in Anniston, Ala.; ongoing lead poisoning in Flint, Mich., and in Baltimore; and air contamination with pesticides (in Triana, Ala.) and arsenic (in Fort Meyers, Fla.)—to argue that the U.S. should no longer let “industrial greed” trump public safety concerns. She also makes a persuasive presentation of “brain drainers,” including toxic chemicals, substances such as tobacco, vermin, and dangerous microbes, that produce “reduced mental functioning” and “horrifying cognitive symptoms” and disproportionately affect minority populations. The structure of the book leads to frequent repetition, and the intended audience seems to switch from policy makers and Washington’s fellow researchers to parents, as in the third section, which lists actions that might limit or ameliorate children’s exposures to toxins and suggests ways communities might organize in their defense. Nonetheless, this urgent chronicle of ongoing damage will be eye-opening for many readers. Illus. Agent: Lisa Bankoff, ICM Partners. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Deeply researched, well written and timelier than ever, A Terrible Thing to Waste will necessarily transform public and scientific debates over urban decay, environmental policy and reported racial differences in IQ...Eye-opening."—Amy Brady, Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)

"It's amazing how far you can get if you just study the data. And have a keen analytical mind. And are a gifted reporter. With a sense of social justice. By which I mean, if you are Harriet Washington. She methodically indicts environmental racism and its catastrophic effects, particularly on the cognitive abilities of America's children, a reminder that what we're told is immutable — our social conditions, our 'intelligence' — is nothing of the kind. The news she brings is grim, but she leaves the reader feeling not paralyzed by despair but determined to act."—Randy Cohen, host of Person Place Thing and original author of New York Times Magazine's The Ethicist column

"A Terrible Thing to Waste is a powerful and indispensable book for anyone who cares about a just and healthy future for all Americans. Harriet Washington asks the critical questions that get at the heart of racism and inequality in health, income, social welfare and power in 21st century America."—Gerald Markowitz, author of Lead Wars and Distinguished Professor, John Jay College, CUNY

"In her groundbreaking new book, A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer and bioethicist Harriet Washington explores how environmental racism damages young minds, particularly the minds of impoverished African American children who are exposed inordinately to toxins and pathogens in marginalized communities. She writes lucidly of how pollutants such as heavy metals and neurotoxins injure developing brains and recounts vividly case after case of the devastating cost to human brains and bodies. As she demolishes racist notions of inherited intelligence, she describes the medical consequences of horrific environmental catastrophes that have largely been forgotten or overlooked. Revelatory and compelling, Harriet Washington's A Terrible Thing to Waste is the Silent Spring for the 21st century."—Robin Lindley, JD, Features Editor, History News Network

"An unflinching look at environmental racism in black and brown communities."

—Angela Helm, The Root

From the Publisher

2019-07-02
A veteran journalist and scholar reveals the long-ranging impacts of environmental racism on black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities.

In this heart-wrenching exposé, the author of Medical Apartheid (2007) zeroes in on the "chemical Armageddon" that has "preferentially affected" black, Indigenous, and Latinx peoples with "chemicals known or strongly suspected to lower intelligence." To frame her thorough study, Washington (Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness, 2016, etc.) uses the flawed metric of IQ scores. Though she acknowledges their faulty premise and biased administration, she uses them to describe cognitive impacts because the scores serve as "a predictor of success in school, social settings, work achievements, and lifetime earnings." Citing cases around the United States, Washington clearly presents her research on the expansive effects of toxins, heavy metals, and even drugs that are disproportionately funneled into marginalized communities of color: lead contamination in Baltimore and Flint, where the "water's lead levels were so high that it fell into the EPA's classification for hazardous waste"; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) poisoning in Anniston, Alabama ("a PCB concentration of just 5 parts per billion in a pregnant mother's blood can have adverse effects on a developing fetal brain"), and the forced implantation of the toxic Norplant ("a surgically inserted contraceptive that can be removed only by a physician and lasts for five years") in black and Latin women. Along with many other well-documented examples, these injustices reveal a chilling reality: Marginalized people of color face not only rampant public health impacts, but also societal blame for their plight. The author also offers "steps that individuals can take to fight for a less toxic environment," uplifting the grassroots environmental justice organizing of black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities. She also provides a helpful glossary and long list of "Known Chemical Brain Drainers." The book falls short only in its lack of a discussion of ableism and its role in marginalizing those with altered cognitive development.

A devastatingly important read.

Kirkus Reviews