When we spoke about Central Park in class today, a thought kept nagging at me pertaining to an article I stumbled upon months ago. According to this article, and to articles I located today on the same issue, a portion of Central Park exists on the land formerly known as Seneca Village. Seneca Village was a largely forgotten community comprised of 2/3 African American and 1/3 Irish inhabitants. It was one of the first communities in the United States that housed a majority of African American homeowners. When the park was built, these people were forced from their homes, and by all accounts never re-established the style of lives they had in the Village once they were displaced.

I think it was critical for Central Park to exist, and I think it is integral in the well-being of New York City residents, but when the documentary today began to explore the trends of elitism that pervaded its early populations, I was again left questioning the racial implications of the project and how grand the impact of its construction may have been in the perpetuation of institutional racism and deprivation of resources to African American families.

This article is quick but it kind of lays out some of the frame for why this matters. I think Environmental Justice is really interesting and I think it is something we could explore more in class because so far I would say the majority of our literature has focused on a very white, often male, perspective of the adaptations of land and culture that surround our thoughts on nature and I would be curious to see if we could integrate some other-cultural perspectives in our dealings with what best upholds the marriage between man and land.

http://cute-n-tiny.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/3364851456_4a149b2952-400×265.jpg