The Academic Sub-Committee of the ASCP lead by MSU Denver's Christina Foust is building programming around environmental justice this year. We will take advantage of our time off-campus for a virtual book club, focused on historian Carl Zimring's Clean & White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States. Zimring's book argues, in vivid and disturbing detail, that US democracy grew up with environmental racism. From the racist imagery of "dirty" cities (contrasting to Thomas Jefferson's agrarian ideal), to zoning and labor practices that shifted environmental risks away from white people and onto people of color, Zimring's book provides an essential history with which we must grapple as we do sustainability and environmental justice work today.
We will strive to create a dialogic space of deep listening, as participants are likely affected in different ways and with different intensities, by environmental racism. We will also prioritize in each session (and for much of our final session) conversations about what each of us might do next, individually and collectively, to be responsive to environmental racism.
Sessions are scheduled for Sundays from 4-5:15pm on following dates/times. We will email a Zoom link and password within 5 days of session 1.
Please complete your registration here!
September 13 (Introduction and Chapters 1-2)
September 27 (Chapters 3-4)
October 11 (Chapters 5-6)
October 25 (Chapters 7-8)
November 8 (Conclusion and Closing Conversation,
where will we take this learning next?)
Contact Christina Foust (Associate Professor of Communication Studies at MSU-Denver), at cfoust2@msudenver.edu with any questions!
