Knowledge and Perceptions of Environmental Issues by African Americans/Blacks in Washington, DC, USA: Giving Voice to the Voiceless
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The topic is up-to-date and interesting and the article is easy to read. The structure of the article is mostly clear and abstract and highlights appropriate. In my opinion, there are issues in the manuscript the author(s) should consider for making it publishable. In general, the discussion is heavily missing and this is, frankly, the main problem with this paper. Possible suggestions for improvement are in the following line:
- My major concern is that the paper is not positioned in the environment literature and the contribution is not clearly articulated. Please more clearly position the paper and justify the set-up with the study in the introduction of the paper. Which research the authors aim to address and why it is important to address such gaps?
- The authors are encouraged to strengthen the theoretical underpinning of this research. This may include conducting a more in-depth literature review and strengthen the connections between your findings and prior literature; please see, for example, Del Brio & Barba-Sanchez (2020).
- Your data is the best part of this paper gets a better story of how to get there, but the methodological section should be explained with more details of the information related to sampling (e.g. sample representativeness) as well as the inclusion of tests associated not only with descriptive statistics. I would also recommend adding a table with accurate information about the technical specifications of the study.
- Discussion and conclusions should also include a reflection and critical discussion about results in the light of previous studies as well as provide more convincing arguments about the contributions of your manuscript (reinforce implication to theory with a research agenda and also considering your limitations). I would recommend adding a specific epigraph on the limitations of the study and future work.
- Finally, is there any idiosyncratic environmental dimension by Blacks or is inherent in our culture? It would have been interesting to have groups of participants from different races to dispel the perception that Blacks have less knowledge and interest in environmental issues.
I hope you find the above comments useful and I wish you the best of luck with developing the paper further.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
- My major concern is that the paper is not positioned in the environment literature and the contribution is not clearly articulated. Please more clearly position the paper and justify the set-up with the study in the introduction of the paper. Which research the authors aim to address and why it is important to address such gaps?
Response to Point 1
We appreciate the reviewer feedback and have updated in the introduction the role this paper plays in the environmental literature. Lines 39-66, 74-78,114-120 132-135 of the manuscript shows these updates.
- Authors are encouraged to strengthen the theoretical underpinning of this research. This may include conducting a more in-depth literature review and strengthen the connections between your findings and prior literature; please see, for example, Del Brio & Barba-Sanchez (2020).
Response to Point 2
The authors agree that additional literature would strengthen our argument and we have updated the literature that helps us to strengthen our argument. Our references are double from our original manuscript submission. The reviewer further pointed out that additional reference should strengthen the connections and we agree and new references are used more prominently in our discussion to show the connections between our findings and those in the literature. Lines 217-245, 254-266 and 283-324 were greatly expanded for our discussion.
3.Your data is the best part of this paper gets a better story of how to get there, but the methodological section should be explained with more details of the information related to sampling (e.g. sample representativeness) as well as the inclusion of tests associated not only with descriptive statistics. I would also recommend adding a table with accurate information about the technical specifications of the study.
Response to Point 3
The authors appreciate reviewers’ comments regarding our data set but admittedly was a bit unclear with respect to the technical specification of the study
With respect to the description of the sample, authors agree that perhaps providing a figure to illustrate the demographics will make it easy to identify our sample population with respect to age and gender; however, we note that this sampling was only of African Americans and excluded members of other races from our analysis
Figure 1 and Figure 2 are shown on lines 173-175
With respect to the type of test associated with our analysis, the authors were careful to use chi-squared contingency test and the results are embedded in the chart as the last column. The authors only included results if we found them to be statistically significant. The authors also included the explanation of the use of X2 in the method section lines 202-204
The reviewers request for technical specification was not very clear to us; however, we provided a table that highlighted demographics that perhaps provided a better visual representation of our sample population. If this is not what the reviewer had in mind, we will be happy to revisit this area.
- Discussion and conclusions should also include a reflection and critical discussion about results in the light of previous studies as well as provide more convincing arguments about the contributions of your manuscript (reinforce implication to theory with a research agenda and also considering your limitations). I would recommend adding a specific epigraph on the limitations of the study and future work.
Response to Point 4
Authors have expanded greatly the discussion of our results in light of the previous studies and have significantly revised the discussion setting. Lines 215-223, 228-245, 254-266, 283-333 brings our discussion of environmental injustices into focus with respect to the impact it has on African Americans/blacks in Washington, DC. We believe the African American voice has been silence, continues to be silence regardless of the many achievements made by African Americans/blacks in this county.
We appreciate the reviewer’s comments regarding adding limitations and future works to this study. We have added this in our concluding remarks. Lines 368-377 describes our limitation and future research in this area.
- Finally, is there any idiosyncratic environmental dimension by Blacks or is inherent in our culture? It would have been interesting to have groups of participants from different races to dispel the perception that Blacks have less knowledge and interest in environmental issues.
Response to Point 5
Of the five reviewers’ comments, this was the most intriguing and one that we had not considered in our discussion of the manuscript. While there was some mention of culture in a general sense; however, the first author ponders this thought quite a bit and determine from her own understanding and much of the literature supported the notion that culture plays an important role in the lived experiences of African Americans. And while African Americans were embedded into the environmental landscape upon arrival to this country, they were also keenly aware that environment offered protection from some of the brutality this group of people faced. While this manuscript is not about culture per se, the culture of a people can act as a protective mechanism which increases the resilience of a people to the everyday assaults of living in a country that have built in a structural system that was not designed for most African Americans to succeed. Lines 283-305 and 318-333 attempts to portray this.
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall, I thought this paper would make a decent contribution to the literature on race and environmental concern. I think your main conclusion (as highlighted in the final paragraph) are solid. However, I have several serious concerns about the Discussion section of the paper, mostly with claims that are unsupported by the analysis or the cited reference.
1. Lines 216-218: You claim that your results show Blacks in DC have a relationship with nature dating back 400 years. This may be true, but your analysis of survey data doesn't and couldn't possibly support this claim.
2. Lines 248-254: You claim that the Kerner Commission Report concluded that 150 riots between 1965 and 1968 were caused by environmental injustices (e.g., deliberate targeting of Black communities for toxic waste facilities). This is not true and not what the Kerner report claims. Yes, racism was identified as the root cause of the riots, but environmental racism in particular was not identified as the main cause for all riots studied by the Commisison.
3. Lines 254-260: You make a tortured analogy between the findings of the Kerner report and your statistical findings, that honestly I find kind of bewildering. How exactly is their conclusion that the US is a fundamentally racially divided nation similar to yours that Black DC residents' views on the environment vary by their sociodemographic characteristics?
4. Lines 261-262: You claim your results highlight that race is a limiting factor in how Blacks are seen in society (comparing your study's conclusions again to the Kerner report), but again your study does not and cannot support this claim. You studied DC Blacks's environmental views, not how others viewed Blacks in society... Also, why is it relevant that the Kerner report was a bestseller?
5. Minor point-- Line 228 "effects" should be "affects"
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
- Lines 216-218: You claim that your results show Blacks in DC have a relationship with nature dating back 400 years. This may be true, but your analysis of survey data doesn't and couldn't possibly support this claim.
Response to Point 1
We appreciate the reviewer feedback; however, the inclusion of this fact was an acknowledgement of a historical fact to illustrate our point of black’s relationship with nature and not one that our data would support. We believe we have articulated this area of concern better to make clear the purpose of this inclusion on lines 216-223.
- Lines 248-254: You claim that the Kerner Commission Report concluded that 150 riots between 1965 and 1968 were caused by environmental injustices (e.g., deliberate targeting of Black communities for toxic waste facilities). This is not true and not what the Kerner report claims. Yes, racism was identified as the root cause of the riots, but environmental racism in particular was not identified as the main cause for all riots studied by the Commisison.
Response to Point 2
We appreciate the reviewer’s acknowledgment of the Kerner’s report but respectfully disagree and believe strongly that environmental injustices or structural racism was at the root cause of the unrest in these communities. While the Kerner’s report was a veil attempt on the part of President Johnson to cast blame on outside agitation as the cause of the violence cited in the report, it turns out that the Kerner’s report found just the opposite. Research past and present supports that many blacks live in neighbourhood that are the site for toxic waste, have poor air quality, and poor water quality. This has been demonstrated in many communities and we know this to be the start of the environmental justice movement. These environmental injustices continue to play out in neighbourhoods that are mostly minorities or low-income residents.
It was these pent-up frustrations of African Americans daily living experiences of poor living conditions, unemployment, poor housing, bad policing practices, unfriendly justice system that was skewed toward black incarceration that really cause the violence that was demonstrated in the streets of Detroit, MI and Newark, NJ. What the commission pointed out was the lack of investments in these communities will only see more and more of these civil unrests. We believe there is a lack of acknowledgement that perhaps these are the real causes, and it would be easy to find other more tolerable causes so that we do not have to admit there is a structural racism problem. If we think of our current situation in the United States, the Kerner report is revisited. These same issues that were not addressed in the 60’s is still not addressed in 2020, resulting in the current civil unrest related to poor living conditions, unemployment, poor educational system, poor housing, bad policing practices and yes a still unfriendly justice system that is skewed toward black incarceration. We believe the Kerner reports makes our case regarding silencing the voices of a group of people that have a long history of being marginalize in just about every area of life.
- Lines 254-260: You make a tortured analogy between the findings of the Kerner report and your statistical findings, that honestly I find kind of bewildering. How exactly is their conclusion that the US is a fundamentally racially divided nation similar to yours that Black DC residents' views on the environment vary by their sociodemographic characteristics?
Response to Point 3
The authors assure reviewer it was not intentional to make it difficult to understand the connection between our findings and the Kerner report; however, we believe we have articulated the findings much clearer. Our findings draw reference to the life experiences of many poor blacks that shaped worldviews and how these worldviews are played out even among blacks themselves.
However, our main point of including the Kerner’s report, is discussed in response point #2 above.
These issues shape not only the worldview of blacks themselves, but in less obvious ways, it shapes the views of others about blacks. These authors point out that African Americans did not come to this country seeking prosperity, they were brought here as property, were not educated; only trained for specific trades that benefited their owners. These nuances of a people are replicated through the generations and thus a fundamental difference in how blacks are treated compared to others. For example, the research has many validated studies on police arrest patterns that show blacks are stopped and/or arrested far more than whites. We believe that our findings speak to some of the differences seen in blacks along the age variance that is similar to the findings in the Kerner’s report.
- Lines 261-262: You claim your results highlight that race is a limiting factor in how Blacks are seen in society (comparing your study's conclusions again to the Kerner report), but again your study does not and cannot support this claim. You studied DC Blacks's environmental views, not how others viewed Blacks in society... Also, why is it relevant that the Kerner report was a bestseller?
Response to Point 4
The authors appreciate this feedback and agree that our study is about black’s perception of the environment and not what others views are of blacks. This point was removed as to remain on track.
- Minor point-- Line 228 "effects" should be "affects"
Response to Point 5
Thank you, Line 228 has been fixed
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Many of my suggestions have been incorporated into the text.
Author Response
Good morning,
Attached are our responses to the academic editors comments.
Best regards,
Elgloria
