Puerto Ricans are Americans, Treat Them Like it
Kyle on the Interaction of Racialized Bodies and the State
Daily Blog #16
I wrote this for school.
I got a B.
After reading about the treatment of displaced Puerto Ricans in Florida, I felt like this was a good time to share this. If there are any shortcomings please tell me, but please remember that I warned you, I got a B.
The concepts of ‘race’ and ‘state’ are both abstract in nature and byproducts of human society. Where topics involving race and state intersect we, for the most part, see a disparity in the treatment of people of certain races by the state. I would like to present the events that occurred in Puerto Rico starting on September 16th 2017 because of Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States located within the Caribbean that has experienced what the media portrays to be a lack of support from the US government. I aim to analyze the events that occurred after this in a way that will prove that this is an example of environmental racism, explore the role of the state in perpetuating environmental racism and show the relationship between racialized bodies and the state.
The state is a set of institutions and their related personnel that has a high degree of centrality with political decisions and a defined boundary marking the territorial limits of the state. State theory has typically framed the state as an organizational actor or as a set of organizational resources through which other agents, such as classes or elites, act (Painter, 2006). The state is directly or indirectly involved in day to day life and responsible for infrastructure as well as lawmaking within its boundaries. The state governs individuals within the space that Is claimed as their jurisdiction and these individuals interact with the state, directly or indirectly, on a daily basis.
Race is a social construct that is created by the dominant group in a society. Race has no biological or real backing behind it and is rooted only in societal norms and the human need to categorize. People create a sense of otherness when interacting with people of different races. People of certain races have been disenfranchised and are subjected to different levels of exposure to harm than other races. Race has no coherent or concrete definition.
After Hurricane Maria, the island of Puerto Rico was devastated and 85 percent of the island was without electricity, several remote communities were not visited by relief workers, the death toll is in the double digits and 100 people are missing (BBC, 2017). President Donald Trump has shown a lack of sympathy towards the plight of the people of Puerto Rico even though they are American citizens, his response has been compared to “a paramedic gazing at a screaming man trapped in a wrecked car and saying: ‘You’re quite overweight.’” (BBC News, 2017). The President is a representation fo the state and his actions show the stark contrast in how people of different races are treated in times of need.
In the case of the island of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is a part of the United States and depends on the state for support and relief. News outlets have pointed out that the lack of support from President Donald Trump is due to racial bias. The Trump Administration delayed sending military personnel and relief until after the hurricane made landfall and reduced the amount of ships that can send aid to the island (Lluveras, 2017). President Trump himself has threatened to withdraw federal aid from Puerto Rico and did not arrive to survey the wreckage until two weeks after the Hurricane Maria struck. This in contrast to the incidents in Texas and Florida where they experienced immediate relief and support (Lluveras, 2017). Here we can see the state is performed by personnel and the unequal spread of support and resources. Texas and Florida are states that are predominantly Caucasian, while Puerto Rico is predominantly Hispanic. This disparity in terms of exposure to harm and limiting of access to resources between locations with differing racial makeups is an example of environmental racism.
The state has a certain responsibility to its citizens that reside within the space of the state. We interact with the state whenever it provides infrastructure or relief. In the case of Puerto Rico, there seems to be an uneven distribution of resources from the United States government. On September 2nd, 2017, President Donald Trump asked Congress for 7.8 billion dollars to help rebuild Houston (BBC News, 2017), no such request was made for Puerto Rico. Here, we see the state interacting with itself — a public servant, the President, interacting with a government body, Congress. The issue here is that, through the actions of the President, the state is expressing a blatant bias in terms of who gets support in times of need. The state is perpetuating environmental racism by focusing on the space under their jurisdiction which is geographically closest and populated by individuals who are more similar while people that are still legally Americans, located within the Caribbean and who are not as racially similar suffer. The United States is continuing a long history of colonists mistreating their colonies, Puerto Ricans are legally American and technically reside within the country, but are treated as second-class citizens by the state and receive fewer resources from institutions and compassion from public servants like the President because they are racialized bodies and not what many would consider typical Americans. The concept of race has no real definition and is a social construct, it stems from the categories made by the dominant group in society and here it can be seen that there is a stark contrast in how the state interacts with spaces occupied by bodies of different races. Puerto Rico, a US territory, has no representative in Congress which drastically cripples their ability to work in their best interests as they lack representation within the state (Lluveras, 2017). US territories within the Caribbean have residents who are technically American citizens, but can not vote or represent themselves in Congress, they are inhabited by mostly racialized bodies and these individuals are treated like second-class citizens by the state. There have been studies that prove that Americans are less likely to send relief or aid when the victimized population is not white (Lluveras, 2017). We can see the intersection between environmental racism and the state here as these people in US-Caribbean territory reside in an area more susceptible to tropical storms, but are not given a voice in decision making within the state that would allow them to negotiate policies that ensure their support from the state. The state creates an infrastructure and system that allows people who reside within certain spaces with certain demographics to be involved in decision making and to interact with the state at that level, while others are left to let others make decisions for them.
Historically, states behave differently when interacting with people who are racialized. The United States has a long history of mistreating and not allowing rights to individuals who belong to minority groups, spanning from the mistreatment of Native Americans, slavery, Jim Crow and now relative ambivalence to the state of Puerto Rico, people without clean water in Flint, Michigan (Lluveras, 2017). When one group of individuals is given the majority of representation in government, the needs of other groups may be ignored. When President Donald Trump visited Puerto Rico he did not venture into the deeper parts of the island that were hit the hardest by Hurricane Maria (Hernandez & Johnson, 2017). The President also visited “an evangelical church that’s especially popular with conservatives and mainland Americans who have moved to Puerto Rico” (Hernandez & Johnson, 2017). This is a representative of the state focusing on things that represent same-ness and are easily relatable to mainland Americans. The condition of those most affected by the disaster are not explored and their needs are not met because they are categorized as different and not given a voice. In reference to generators bringing power back to the island, President Trump is quoted as saying “The power grid, honestly, was devastated before the hurricanes even hit — and then the hurricanes hit and they wiped them out, again, the job that’s been done here is, really, nothing short of a miracle. It has been incredible” (Hernández & Johnson, 2017). The issue with this is why part of the United States, a country that is seen as a haven for immigrants, has such poor infrastructure before a hurricane. In contrast to President Trump’s feelings of accomplishment with Puerto Rico, community leaders in the most devastated parts of the island say that “for days, the shelters had no generators. The hospitals were without water. With the roads covered in mud and debris, help was not coming quickly enough” (Hernández & Johnson, 2017). The lack of support from the US government is most apparent when looking at this account from community leader Miranda Torres. “We would tell them we needed tarps for roofless homes and they’d say, ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ but then they didn’t have anyone to drive the trucks to deliver the supplies. I’d go to the command center to spend four or five hours there listening and advocating for my city. It was frustrating” (Hernández & Johnson, 2017). There is not equal representation or a voice for Puerto Ricans in the United States government, the state has left their citizens in the Caribbean to fend for themselves to a greater degree than those in Florida or Texas.
We subjugate people in our society to more harm and fewer resources because of socially constructed differences that hold no ground from an academic perspective. The state is an inhuman entity that is comprised of and acted out by individuals, but the predispositions of humanity still influence this entity. People interact with the state in varying ways and race plays a large part in this.
