How Environmental Injustice Connects to Police Violence

As the nation continues to process the deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, it’s worth keeping in mind that the circumstances of those killings were not all the same. And demonstrators across the country aren’t only protesting police violence against black citizens. They’re also venting grievances about their own stifling living conditions, under which it’s often difficult to ride, walk, or even breathe without police suffocating black lives further.

Place and environment matters when discussing police violence: This is the crux of the University of California, Davis professors Lindsey Dillon’s and Julie Sze’s argument in a forthcoming article for the academic journal English Language Notes.