Toxic inequality
In 2014, lead began leaching into the water system in Flint, Mich., a majority African-American city where more than 40 percent of residents live below the poverty line. In August, severe ground contamination forced more than 1,000 inhabitants from their homes in East Chicago, Ind. The highest levels of lead- and arsenic-poisoned soil were found in the West Calumet Housing Complex, home mostly to low-income minority families. The findings were chilling, especially because elevated lead levels are known to be particularly harmful to pregnant women and children. “Lead exposure can affect nearly every system in the body,” according to the Centers for Disease Control. Mounting evidence suggests the crises in Flint and East Chicago are not isolated incidents. According to Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson, they are just two more examples of the “ecology of toxic inequality,” or the theory that higher lead levels in the blood are often directly tied to racial...