WHITES ARE POLLUTING BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS IN RACIST L.A.

LA Times writer faces furious backlash after claiming rich white drivers are 'polluting the air' breathed by the city's black and Latino populations

 

Daily Mail 

March 10, 2023

 

Sammy Roth, an Energy and Environment reporter for the LA Times, has come under fire for a piece claiming white drivers are 'polluting the air' of black and Latino citizens

 

An LA Times writer is facing a furious backlash after claiming white drivers are 'polluting the air' breathed by black and Latino citizens.

Sammy Roth cited a study that calls the city's freeway planning 'racially motivated' as it means white people living in LA's suburbs drive through diverse neighborhoods every day on their way to work.

But Roth's piece has been slammed as 'idiotic' on social media, while Twitter slapped an inaccuracy warning on it before later deleting it.

 

 

LA is the most polluted city in the US, according to a study by IQair in 2021. 

 

In his work the writer referred to a University of Southern California report that found LA residents 'who drive more tend to be exposed to less air pollution — and Angelenos who drive less tend to be exposed to more pollution.' 

The study - 'Local Inequities in the Relative Production of and exposure to Vehicular Air Pollution in Los Angeles' - was authored by professor Geoff Boeing, with whom Roth spoke.

'He told me it largely comes down to the shameful history of Los Angeles County’s low-income communities of color being torn apart to make way for freeways — a history that has been extensively documented by The Times,' Roth, who is the paper's Energy and Environment reporter, said.  

'Today, many residents of the county’s whiter, more affluent neighborhoods — who were often able to keep highways out of their own backyards — commute to work through lower-income Black and Latino neighborhoods bisected by the 10, 110 and 105 freeways and more.'

The university report was published in the peer-reviewed Urban studies in January this year. 

Its abstract states: 'Decades of racially-motivated freeway infrastructure planning and residential segregation shape today's disparities in who produces vehicular air pollution and who is exposed to it, but opportunities exist for urban planning and transport policy to mitigate this injustice.'