Greetings from
WASTELAND, US A !
by Mallory Culbert @mivcv, @culbert_mallory bit.ly/nevertoldus
123 Main Street #1, Wasteland, USA
America’s
underclass
of
undocumented
workers,
Native
peoples,
and
other
impoverished
peoples function as exploited outsiders contained by what is called “the Core.” The Core relies on functioning advanced technologies, so it designs systems to produce them. Though designed in the Core, these production systems are built in the ‘periphery.’ The periphery is called
that
because
it
is
considered
peripheral
–
minor,
beside
the
point,
irrelevant.
This
parasitic relationship further impoverishes and under-develops the periphery through coerced participation in the global capitalist economy. In the periphery, slavery is not a deviation from the norm, it is designated and regulated through the demands of the ‘Core.’
During 20th century united states, supervision of the growing Black and brown populations became
more
difficult
as
people
gained
more
legal
freedoms.
Other
forms
of
economic
control emerged: bail, fines, and other legal fees became the basis of what is now the PrisonIndustrial Complex (PIC). The core-periphery idea illustrates the relationship between lowincome areas within the united states & the u.s. PIC, itself: slavery and coerced labor exist as a means of social control. The State itself continues to produce a labor surplus by utilizing underpaid prison labor.
The strength of the core state is dependent upon the weakness of the periphery. So, the u.s. Government
wages
a
War
on
Drugs
and
puts
hyper-militarized
police
in
Black
and
brown
communities to terrorize and crush all mutual aid efforts for community revitalization. The global Prison-Industrial Complex is supported by the us military. The us polices and punishes Black and brown people across the globe simply because that’s the only way to maintain carceral capitalism (the system that allows such cheap labor)–through maintenance of a Core and a Periphery.
NEXTdistro
123 Main Street #2, Wasteland, USA
The united states was built on policies to manage the location of non-white people.
Redlining,
which
restricted
Black
access
to
credit,
kept
property
ownership in white hands and to this day is responsible for much of the racial wealth gap. This practice isn’t historically suspended, though. It is one of the products
of
the
legacy
of
racialized
waste
and
racist
waste
distribution
practices in the united states. These practices pushed waste and pollution of developing
industry
communities.
These
into
immigrant
same
communities
and
Black
were
already
neighborhoods considered
and
socially
“dirty” in contrast to “pure whiteness.”
In
the
united
states,
proximity
to
‘trash’
(objects
and
people)
has
had
a
historically negative correlation with proximity to whiteness– the embodiment of
social
and
inseparable slavery,
economic
from
and
the
success.
prison
waste
The
system:
facility
us
waste-management
incarcerated
placement
is
labor
is
system
legalized
determined
is
racial
according
to
neighborhood racial and class makeup. White supremacy is enacted in part by regulatory non-compliance on the part of large-scale polluting enterprises– prisons, oil and gas industries, the united states military– who systematically choose to disregard laws in place as protections of human health and the environment.
“[Prisons]
function
monstrously-large,
like
a
small
city
unsustainable
packed
city
in
into
the
one
United
building” States,
[1].
Like
prisons
any
import
goods using fossil fuels and export waste and slave labor. In the US, many prisons
produce
Prisons
are
create
health
communities.
waste
and
overcrowded hazards In
2006,
pollution
hotbeds
for
the
the
of
far
beyond
easily
inmates,
staff,
Associated
local
and
transmittable
Press
local
federal
wildlife
reported
limits.
diseases— and
that
they
nearby
Alabama
correctional facilities were dumping human waste, toxic chemicals, and other raw sewage into state waterways at twice the legal limit.
NEXTdistro
1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-30/how-mass-incarcerationtakes-a-toll-on-the-environment-nearby-communities-and-prisoners)
123 Main Street #3, Wasteland, USA
Prisons
across
the
country
are
built
close
to
toxic
incinerators or on top of toxic landfills. They are built upon and
corporate jobs
benefits
to
rarely
Californian
lies,
the
promising
nearby
come
towns,
to
economic
community. fruition.
researcher
At
Ruth
prosperity
However, least
in
Wilson
those rural
Gilmore
found that an average of less than a fifth of prison jobs
actually
go
to
current
residents
[1].
These
communities, burdened by poverty, unemployment, and a
lack
of
political
power
may
choose
to
accept
hazardous facilities—but only because they absolutely have to. Exploited people are expected to not fight back
against
the
concentration
of
military
power
in
the hands of their oppressors and commitment to the cause. being and
White is
americans
wrapped
cultural
up
in
dominance.
are the
taught
that
maintenance
That
is,
the
their of
well-
military
expansion
of
prisons and further separation from their own waste.
NEXTdistro
1. http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/building.html#_edn11
123 Main Street #4, Wasteland, USA
Since
2018,
world’s
the
recycled
year
China
waste,
stopped
local
accepting
governments
have
the
been
under fire for using prison labor to cut costs and corners in local recycling programs and other public services [1]. Before 2018, it was completely legal for corporations— including private prisons— to export waste to the Global South for much cheaper than disposing of it properly in the US. US companies once mixed one thousand tons of hazardous
waste
Bangladesh attempted
[2]. to
into In
a
shipment
another
convince
of
fertilizer
example,
the
US
Marshall
sold
to
companies
Islands
that
imported wastes “could be used to build up landmass” and
ensure
that
islands
wouldn’t
be
vulnerable
to
increases in sea level expedited by global warming (of which the US is heavily responsible).
As
for
policies products
“recycling,” still like
allow
international
for
the
batteries,
shipping
cell
trade of
phones,
deregulation
post-
heavy
consumer
metals,
e-
wastes, and lead to be shipped to southeast Asia for disposal.
NEXTdistro
1. https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-importing-wastehas-stalled-global-recycling 2. Faber, Daniel. 2008. Capitalizing on Environmental Injustice: The Polluter-Industrial Complex in the Age of Globalization. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.