IN OUR BRAVE NEW WORLD, ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM SEEMS TO BE TOPICAL AGAIN: Or maybe it’s never gone out of fashion.

When the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights tackled this topic, among the witnesses whose “expertise” we drew upon on was a “dancer, storyteller and facilitator” with a “focus on performance and also health and social change communication.” Really.

The only independent empirical research we conducted was a study of the proximity of coal ash deposits to minority neighborhoods. Alas for my progressive colleagues, our staff found that, if anything, coal ash landfills and ponds were more likely to be found near whites. That research was, of course, given no prominence in our report.