Political Quotes

“Today members of the Congressional Black Caucus rise to expose the truth about minority health disparities in our health care system. Many of my colleagues will outline the ongoing racial divide when it come to minorities' reliance on emergency and ambulatory services, the issue of access to health care and how minorities are disproportionately uninsured. Others will talk about the leading illnesses and health conditions that kill more Blacks and Latinos than Whites because of social and economic community distrust of the health care system. However, tonight I want to bring attention to the increasing minority health disparities connected to environmental racism. The simple fact is the environment affects your health, and Blacks, Latinos and other people of color are suffering and dying because of toxins in the environment. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. laid the groundwork when he declared that 'we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.' The metaphors of nature are the metaphors of life, and that is fundamentally where environmental justice begins and ends. Unfortunately, the waters themselves in much of the world are tainted, and the toxic streams flow all too often through neighborhoods at the economic margins of society, particularly minority neighborhoods. Far too often, the issue of minority health and the environment is ignored.”