Poverty and Underrepresented People

In 2015, poverty in the United States of America encased 43 million documented people. Of these known people, 24% were Black, 22% were Hispanic, 12% were Asian, and only 9% were White (Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2015, 2016) . Minority groups in the USA include Blacks, Asian Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics. This is a sad but true trend: minorities have a higher rate of poverty. Moreover, African Americans, for instance, are almost 30% more likely to die from heart disease and twice as likely to have diabetes than non-Hispanic Whites (Baker, 2006). A major factor in these statistics is that the spatial distribution of grocery stores and fast food restaurants differ in areas based on the poverty and minority rate.

The University Area surrounding USF is considered a food desert, or a region in which a grocery store or supermarket is found in under one mile. This area also has some of the highest poverty and minority rates in all of Hillsborough County. Dana Stein, a USF graduate, researched the topic of food deserts in Hillsborough County and found 115 supermarkets and 513 fast-food restaurants resided in Hillsborough County (Stein, 2011). The accessibility of fast food and scarcity of supermarkets in poverty stricken food deserts is why almost three-quarters of adults aged 20 or older are obese or overweight especially in low-income or minority areas (CDC, 2009).

I have witnessed this first hand as well during my time here at USF. Back home in Boca Raton, we have very few fast-food chains and a Publix or Whole Foods every few streets. Fast-food, previously inaccessible back home, has become a weekly part of my diet during these last three years and as a result I have gained over 40 pounds. While, I am sure my weight would have naturally fluctuated during these three years, it would have been minimal compared to how living in a food desert has affect my health. As a middle-class white person (although I am Hispanic) I am not underrepresented but so many Americans are and feel the effects daily whether from food distribution or political and social issues.

When underrepresented people are mapped it is clear that poverty itself is divided into clumps where the South part of the United States has a significantly greater number of people living in poverty than the Northern states. This spatial distribution of poverty is one form of systemic oppression. Poverty and systemic oppression go hand in hand throughout minority neighborhoods across the county: food deserts, low quality schools, profiling, dangerous and low paying jobs. Chakraborty and Bosman (2010) report on the dangerous conditions that dry cleaner personnel and the surrounding residents deal with daily. Although this data is not new, one of the main factors that they focused on was the fact that dry cleaning facilities are “generally located in densely populated neighborhoods characterized by rental housing, the proportion of non-White, Hispanic, and low income residents is significantly higher”. Another example is the Tampa Bay port which is 2,500 acres of storage and handling facilities for hazardous materials, petroleum, and other petrochemicals. These are hazardous to the mainly ethnic workers who find these port jobs readily accessible (Chakraborty & Bosman, 2010).

Poverty is the worst form of oppression because the American Dream of working hard even in one of these involuntary exposure jobs and getting that white picket fence home just isn’t a reality. Working hard and keeping a steady job doesn’t mean that houses, food, or otherwise supporting a family is possible and very few truly try to crack the code of poverty and oppression.

Since 2014, there have been at least two big water related crisis for underrepresented people in the United States alone. Both happened because of economic and political agendas. Flint, Michigan has an area of about 34 miles which includes a population of 56.6% Black or African American people and a total of 41.2% of persons living in poverty (United States Census Bureau, 2016). The contaminated water started in April 2014 and two years later in January 2016 was finally considered a federal state of emergency. The year prior, the city council had voted to build a new pipeline to Lake Huron leaving the Detroit water system which would increase the amount of profit for the city officials. While the pipeline was being built, water was being used from the Flint River. This was in April. In September, the water was E. Coli positive and in January of 2015 the levels of TTHM, trihalomethanes, was enough to violate the Safe Drinking Water Act, originally enacted in 1974. One month later, lead was found in the water. To this day, the issues in Flint, Michigan are still not completely cleared up as many residents choose to use bottled water for daily activities (Strupp, 2016). The nearby, majority non-Hispanic White, cities were not affected in this crisis or had the issues resolved quickly while almost 100,000 residents of Flint, Michigan are still suffering (United States Census Bureau, 2016).

Flint, Michigan is not the only example of minorities being pushed aside for sake of politics and profit, however. At the end of last year, the Dakota Pipeline Access Protests reached full swing. Hundreds of people from indigenous nations and other protesters across the country came together in North Dakota to protest the construction of the 1,172-mile oil pipeline which would cross into the Standing Rock reservation of the Sioux. This pipeline interferes with religious tribal burial grounds and will likely cause contamination of the drinking water. The U.S Commission on Civil Right Issues documented the use of excessive force from the police on the Native Americans and protestors (Native News, 2016). This includes the use of water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets on the protestors in freezing weather which caused 17 protestors to be taken to the hospital on that occasion alone (Hawkins, 2016). Furthermore, over 600 protesters have been charged and taken into custody since October, 2016 (Moynihan, 2017).

The protestors at Standing Rock achieved a small victory when former President Obama postponed the construction of the pipeline insisting that an Environmental Assessment was necessary. This assessment determined an alternate route for the pipeline just north of Bismarck, North Dakota which has a population of about 92% Whites. However, they objected because it could damage their drinking water (Sidder, 2016). Additionally, it was determined that a path adjacent to Standing Rock would also be eligible which doesn’t add any impact or environmental justice concerns (Native News, 2016).

However, four days into President Trump’s four-year term, he signed an executive memorandum for the continuation of the North Dakota Access Pipeline among other things. The pipeline construction is very controversial and the methods used to handle the situation promoted social and environmental injustices, however, the non-Native American protestors acted wrongly leaving behind pets and burning trash as they left Dakota. The Sioux Indians even stated that this was a situation best left for the courts (The Blaze, 2017).