Harriet A. Washington - A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind

A bioethicist and award-wining author of Deadly Monopolies, Infectious Madness, and Medical Apartheid, Washington combines extensive scientific research with deep reporting to demonstrate that the black-white IQ gap is not a reflection of inherent racial difference but the product of unequal living and working environments. In a powerful indictment of systemic racism, Washington links studies proving the negative physical and cognitive effects of lead and other heavy metals, neurotoxins, bad nutrition, and poor pre-natal care to the demographic reality that poor Black communities are exposed to these dangers at a far higher rate than white populations.