January 2008
On 19 December 2007, the Chapel Hill News presented a guest editorial by Barry Katz, former head of the Orange County Democratic Party (OCDP) and resident of the area outside the southern Orange urban services boundary, sometimes referred to as the “Rural Buffer”. Mr. Katz equated the Coalition to End Environmental Racism (CEER) and its supporters with being “defamers” of the County Commissioners, wrapping the commissioners in an unsubstantiated halo of all having been “targets of discrimination – racial, religious, gender or sexual orientation – and it must be especially painful to be defamed by these charges.” He goes on to say that CEER and its supporters hurled “scurrilous charges of racism [that] can never become well-intentioned advocacy unless the racism accusations are disavowed and the proponents of those charges repudiated.”
An apparent expert in recognizing destructive name-calling and innuendo, after having called CEER members and advocates “defamers” and “scurrilous”, Mr. Katz opines that “[s]upporters of social justice ought to be able to debate thoughtfully on the basis of facts and accept the outcome of decisions made in good faith…. Too often, destructive name calling and innuendo are used to substitute for weak positions. Terms like “racist” or euphemisms like “social justice” used to characterize the decisions of the current board make me skeptical about the arguments of those who use them.”
Showing his intimate and encyclopedic knowledge of the events leading up to the March 2007 BOCC decision to place a trash transfer station on Eubanks Road (a decision since withdrawn by the commissioners), Mr. Katz says that the “[t]he 2007 decisions of the board about the location of the transfer station are examples of the thoughtfulness of our board when faced with a complex and difficult issue. In my opinion their decisions have nothing to do with racism or social justice.”
Neither Mr. Katz nor the Chapel Hill News bothered to inform their readers that Mr. Katz fought vehemently against the OCDP agreeing to a resolution in support of the CEER goals.
Support for Mr. Katz’s position was published in a follow-up letter by Ms. Nancy Parks, OCDP committee member and fellow anti-CEER OCDP resolution advocate.
Ms. Neloa Jones, CEER co-chair and Rogers Road resident who lives immediately adjacent to the Eubanks landfill responds (in a 20 January 2008 Chapel Hill News guest editorial) by noting that ”[o]ver the years, our Board of County Commissioners and other elected officials for whatever reasons - lack of foresight, possibly; lack of adequately trained support staff; lack of knowledge or sheer will, perhaps - have taken what appears to be the most expedient way out, that is, dumping garbage near a predominately low-income community of color, thus establishing over the past 35 years a trend now described as environmental racism.
For those unfamiliar with the phrase, environmental racism refers to the intentional or unintentional targeting of communities of color as places to locate solid waste management facilities. It also refers to the exclusion of people of color from environmental policy making and land-use decisions as well as having a
broader context that relates to health and recreation and to fire, police and emergency services (see the Coalition to End Environmental Racism, Mission and Goals
at www.rogersroad.wordpress.com)
We believe that to burden only one community with solid-waste management facilities and then locate yet another solid-waste facility in this same community while continuing other garbage-disposal and waste-collection activities is simply and clearly unjust. We believe that to deny basic government services to the residents of this community is simply and clearly unjust.
Many Rogers-Eubanks residents remain forced to drink well water, which is vulnerable to toxic contamination. They remain without fire hydrants that would serve to protect life and property while praying they might somehow be spared should a fire occur. They live without bus service, but watch with incredulousness as out-of-service buses pass through their neighborhoods on a daily basis. They still await the park they were promised 25 years ago when the first municipal landfill was scheduled to close.”
See Barry Katz Letter.
See Nancy Parks letter.
SeeNeloa Jones letter.
If you have sent in a letter in support of CEER that hasn't been published, then please let Hot Orange know. The history of the Chapel Hill News is to publish letters selectively.
