After reading Racial Capitalocene by Francoise Vergès and New York’s Invisible Climate Migrants by Sophie Kasakove, I learned that minorities tend to live in poorer conditions with various risks due to financial concerns. “Three out of every five Black and Hispanic Americans lived in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites”(Vergès). and “people of color make up the majority of those living in host neighborhoods within 3 km of the nation’s hazardous waste facilities”(Vergès). Living near waste sites could lead to health concerns since the neighborhoods in these areas are likely to be polluted due to the accumulation of wastes over time. Meanwhile in Canarsie, the neighborhood is unsafe due to the predictable floods that could occur at any time. Despite this, minorities were left with no choice but to live here since the rent in New York City is so expensive and they can not afford to live in normal neighborhoods. “In the Rockaways, in Queens, and Brooklyn’s Canarsie, the median asking rent is $1,837 and $2,000, respectively, compared with an overall median of $2,199 in Queens and $2,500 in Brooklyn, according to StreetEasy”(Kasakove).
Instead of helping residents with their financial difficulties, FEMA increased the prices of flood insurances in order to “pull itself out of $20 billion debt”(Kasakove). The real estate was also taking advantage of this situation by offering cash to buy homeowners of Canarsie. Residents that sold their properties were forced to “move south, while others returned to the Caribbean islands they’d emigrated from”(Kasakove) because “[With] the house you sell here, you can’t afford anything anywhere”(Kasakove). This shows businesses only care about profits instead of helping the struggling minorities. Another example would be the genetically engineered trees in Racial Capitalocene which the company presents itself as a “leading global provider of conventional and next generation plantation trees”(Vergès) that cares about the environment. In reality, the company uses eucalyptus for profit in paper industries that “contribute to the depletion of water, desertification of soils, and loss of biodiversity”(Vergès).