DC Government Is Poisoning A Black Neighborhood With Gas Chambers
Over the weekend, I heard on CNN, that America was moving towards the path of Hitler and Nazi Germany. The end goal or final solution of Nazi Germany, was exterminating Jewish people by death by Gas Chambers.
What if I told you that is already happening, (to an extent) in the nation’s Capitol, 4 miles away from the White House. Yet there is no citywide outrage or even national outrage.
One may think I am being extreme ,but let’s look at the facts:
1. It is historically documented that Nazi Germany was inspired by America’s system of Apartheid known as Jim Crow.
2. Nazi Germany studied America’s segregation laws and how America forced/concentrated Black people in separate locations in America.
3. After Black people were concentrated into these set locations, the government built and continues to build toxic waste facilities/toxic industrial sites (Gradual Gas Chambers) in Black neighborhoods that poison the community with deadly chemicals.
Unlike the Gas Chambers used during the Holocaust, the Gas Chambers I am referring to in DC, don’t kill you within minutes. They kill you gradually over the years, through poisonous gases that cause a slow and painful death. They are Gradual Gas Chambers.
Poisonous Gas that kills you, years later, is still Poisonous Gas that kills you.
For the past 30 years, these Gradual Gas Chambers (toxic waste facilities) have been been poisoning two predominately African American neighborhoods adjacent to each other, in Northeast Washington, D.C, called Langdon Park and Brentwood.
These Gradual Gas Chambers, are polluting and poisoning the bodies of humans, from the elderly to children.
Gradual Gas Chambers pollute the air with toxic chemicals that cause cancer, heart , kidney, and lung diseases, and psychological disorders. By breathing the air in this neighborhood you are risking your life.
As seen in this Washington Post Article from August 1993, (a week before my mother gave birth to me) ,my parents noticed workers laying the gas lines for the Gradual Gas Chambers, along the street, across from our house. These work men were building a Gradual Gas chamber (toxic waste facility) that planned to burn petroleum right outside our house.
My mother stated that she and my father toured the facility and that they couldn’t even stand there, because of the fumes.
Fortunately my parents were able to organize our community with petitions and managed to prevent that specific Gradual Gas Chamber from burning petroleum.
Despite this victory, multiple Gradual Gas Chambers have continued to operate in that neighborhood for that the past 30 years.
One of these Gradual Gas Chambers, brings garbage from outside of DC. In a 2015 National Geographic article , about the same toxic waste center in DC, Morris L Shearin, Sr. (now deceased),pastor of Israel Paptist Church for 27 years , said,
“The trash is from Virginia, Delaware, wherever they can find it. It’s coming from everywhere, they will dump a load off on Friday and close the doors over the weekend. And when they roll that door up after the weekend, it is awful in this community.”
Michelle Bundy, a DC resident who lives in Brentwood, spoke about the issue in a 2014 city council hearing, and said this:
“The odor is so bad there are no words in the dictionary to describe [it],” she said.“We sit as hostages held inside our home during Indian summers 24 hours a day. Some of my neighbors are 85 years old and older, and they view this as a form of disrespect. They cannot sit on porches and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Our children are classified as underachievers, but they…cannot enjoy natural vitamin D. They cannot breathe the air.”
This is the reality and frustration of the residents of Langdon Park and Brentwood. In an interview during a local Fox 5 DC news segment, resident Betty Colson said,
“The rats are bad, the trucks are bad, the dust is bad, the dirt is bad, the noise is bad.”
Langdon Park resident Jeremy Wilcox told The Washington Post that “it’s like the city is telling us we’re undesirable. We are a dumping ground — — Ward 5 is a dumping ground.”
It is worth nothing that another Black neighborhood (Ivy City) a mile away from Brentwood and Langdon Park are going through the same thing. The majority of Gradual Gas Chambers in DC, are located in Ward 5.
What is going on in Ward 5 DC is not an isolated crisis. All across predominantly Black neighborhoods in America, there are Gradual Gas Chambers poisoning the residents.
Studies show that being Black is the biggest predictor of if you will live in a neighborhood being poisoned by Gradual Gas Chamber.
According to a 2007 study called, “Toxic Waste and Race at Twenty,” stated that, “more than half of all communities that live near toxic hazardous waste sites, were communities of color.”
A 2018 study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), called, “Disparities in Distribution of Particulate Matter Emission Sources by Race and Poverty Status”, found that African-Americans suffer the most from environmental pollution.
The results showed that African Americans deal with a “54 percent higher health burden, compared to the overall population in America.”
One might say “well this is just a poverty issue and not a race issue.”
According to a 1987 report, race was the number one factor determining who would be polluted.
A 2008 study called, Race, Income and Environmental Inequality in the United States, showed how African American households with incomes between $50,000 and $60,000 live in neighborhoods that are more polluted than the average neighborhood in which white households with incomes below $10,000 live.
A study done by the University of Minnesota in 2014, confirmed that race still played a higher factor than income when it comes to living near Gradual Gas Chambers (toxic waste sites)
Black Americans are 75 percent more likely to live near these Gradual Gas Chambers.
The evidence is clear that Black neighborhoods are targeted for Gradual Gas Chambers.
In Louisiana, there is a town that lies along the Mississippi River, called LaPlace. The black residents in that area refer to it a “Cancer Alley “, due to the the prevalence of cancer in that community. Residents say the high rates of cancer stems from a toxic waste facility in that town. According to the EPA, this site produces 99 percent of America’s chloroprene pollution. The EPA says that it is a carcinogen, meaning it causes cancer. The residents have been fighting to get the facility shut down for years but have had little to no success.
In Langdon Park and Brentwood, DC, the lack of political power of the residents, as well as the officials in DC, have allowed the toxic site to stay. Unfortunately in 2009, DC officials signed an agreement allowing the toxic facility to stay for 25 more years.
In 2021, DC government approved another Gradual Gas Chamber to be built in the area of Langdon Park and Brentwood.
A larger issue embedded with environmental pollution is healthcare. Many low-income families lack healthcare. A community poisoned with several health issues, against their will, deserves free healthcare, opposed to potentially being charged for being a victim.
Can we prove that DC government is intentionally trying to poison my childhood neighborhood?
Intention does not have to be proven to charge a nation with genocide. As shown below in Article III from the 1948 Convention On The Prevention And Punishment Of The Crime Genocide, “complicity in genocide.” Corporations need the approval of local governments in order to building of toxic waste centers in Black neighborhoods in America. These local governments have approved this injustice for decades. The federal government has also continued to cut funding to prevent environmental pollution or has failed to end it. DC government is complicit.
As learned in this Daily Beast article here, pollution is indeed a violent crime. The violence must be stopped. The children and residents of Northeast DC, and other predominately minority, low income communities deserve to breathe and live in a healthy environment as well.
The question for fellow native Washingtonians is , “would a Gradual Gas Chamber be allowed in a predominately White affluent neighborhood such as Friendship Heights?”
Not only does environmental racism devastate the Black community’s health, it also robs us of wealth.
Gradual Gas Chambers lower the property values in Black neighborhoods, thus widening the racial wealth gap.
Gradual Gas Chambers are one of the many reasons as to why billions of dollars have been annually removed from the Black community, through the racially biased housing appraisal system.
As anxiety looms around the fact that DC will be taken over by Nazis, how can we resist Trump and Elon Musk if we can’t even resist a local government who has much less power than the President? Why are Gas Chambers okay if Democrats do it?
If a Mayor doesn’t care if the residents can breathe, why should we expect that Mayor to care to build affordable housing. Those two things can’t coexist.
Thank you for reading. For more information and updates on these Gradual Gas Chambers in NE DC, feel free to check out these News Articles Below: