Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Ralph Nader, Environment & African Americans

We are not aware of any African American professionals who have ever worked for Ralph Nader's flagship environmental organization, Public Citizen. If anyone has information to the contrary, we will post it here. If we are wrong, we will apologize and delete this article. Admittedly, Nader is an American icon, notwithstanding his obtuse runs for the presidency. Of course, this exclusion of Blacks is par for the course in the environmental movement. In fact, it is just one more of many examples of the anti-Black participation mode of operation that clearly marks the history of the mainstream environmental movement.

UPDATE (6-12-08): [Consider this article deleted] Donna Edwards is quoted in published reports that she worked for Public Citizen. It must have been a very short employment because we never saw anything about it while she was there. And she is not shy. So they, like some of the other groups, have satisfied the 'one Black' rule so now they rarely to never have to hire another one.

Ralph Nader's avoidance of including Blacks is not only consistent with the historical discriminatory practices of traditional green groups, but appears to match the current segregated status of the environmental movement. This is part of a pattern and practice of this $6 billion sector to keep resources and attention away from Blacks and the African American community. The historical hiring practices by the leadership of environmental groups make George Bush look like Martin Luther King, Jr. and make President Bush's Administration look like the NAACP. Ralph Nader resigned from Public Citizen in 1980 and has formed or helped form over 40 other groups. We do not know about the African American composition of the other groups. Now our guess is that instead of simply hiring a Black person, Public Citizen will vilify us or simply ignore the situation like most of the other environmental groups.

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