By Cherranda Smith
Feb 23, 2021
Marsha Jackson is a resident of the south section of Dallas, Texas who worked to get an illegal toxic waste dumping site removed.
The waste site, named Shingle Mountain, is a 60-foot tall pile of discarded roofing shingles that crept into Jackson’s backyard.
The pile spans more than a city block and spreads “just a few feet away from my bedroom,” Jackson told
The Washington Post. It started to form after white businessmen,
Christopher Ganter and
Cabe Chadick, decided the area was ideal for a dump site in 2017. They purchased vacant land and directed truck drivers to the area to avoid fees from a landfill. Ganter then set up an illegal operation to grind the shingles down to dust, a process that puts toxins and glass particles in the air for Jackson and her surrounding 100 neighbors to inhale. The two men faced multiple lawsuits for their illegal operation that didn’t have the necessary state permits to begin with.
Dallas Woman Fights Against Environmental Racism In Her Neighborhood
binnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from binnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
BET, Soledad O’Brien Launched a New Series With Shingle Mountain Disrupt and Dismantle explores racist policies that disenfranchised Black and Brown Americans. They kicked it off in Dallas.
By Matt Goodman
Published in
FrontBurner
February 23, 2021
3:02 pm
On Sunday, BET premiered the first of six 40-minute episodes for Soledad O’Brien’s new miniseries, which is titled “Disrupt and Dismantle.” The reporter and editor found stories across the country that showcase the impact and longstanding trauma created by racist policies that disproportionately affect communities of color. O’Brien starts in Dallas, next to Marsha Jackson’s home, where a pile of shingles that weighed somewhere between 50 and 100 tons has stood for years.
As Dallas works to move the mountain and get through its lawsuit with Jackson, neighborhood residents are trying to ensure that another environmental disaster doesn’t end up right outside their windows. But, they say the city isn’t listening to them. We just want our community to be green again, so we can enjoy our animals, our pets and be able to grow us and feel what it’s like to have a garden, Jackson said. Jackson is also the president of Southern Sector Rising, a nonprofit that deals with systemic racism in Dallas’ zoning practice.
There were gaps in city of Dallas zoning changes made throughout the ’80s, which were intended to protect people from hazardous industrial uses. But the measures left out and damaged majority non-white neighborhoods. As a result, land next to these residential areas became industrialized.
BET is showcasing a groundbreaking new series for Black History Month focusing on the deep-seeded inequities of Black communities in the United States. Executive producer and host Soledad O'Brien joins CBSN with more. "Disrupt and Dismantle" will air as part of the "Content for Change" initiative on BET, a division of ViacomCBS.
vimarsana © 2020. All Rights Reserved.