Week 8 Reading Response Toxicity PDF

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Weekly Reading Mini-Essay Assignment...

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Week 8 Reading Response: Toxicity Mia McConnell BURN PITS Who is the text by and who is it for? (1-2 sentences) Jennifer Percy is a contributing editor to the New York times who investigated burn pits in Afghanistan and Iraq and the many veterans and families back in the United States who suffered the health side-effects of them. At its core, this text is for soldiers and the loved ones of the soldiers who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and experienced the multitude of health consequences as a result but were denied medical attention, financial support, and even their dignity in response from the VA, the military, and the U.S. government. Percy’s exhibition of the burn pits is important for anyone to read to give them to chance to acknowledge the many issues embedded in our military and treatment of veterans that can feed into many disciplines and lives beyond that of the military and of a soldier. What is it (they) about, empirically? What is being studied as the object? (1-2 sentences) Percy specifically investigates the burn pits in Afghanistan and Iraq, the timeline of reports and negligence between the veterans and military institutions, and the lives of individual veterans whose health suffered significantly due to their service by the burn pits but were consistently denied even the acknowledgement of their symptoms, let alone financial assistance or medical diagnosis. Although Percy’s writing focuses purely on the burn pits effect on soldiers and their families, this text is also very revealing of universal issues amongst government inaction, bias embedded in research, and dishonesty in the military and the VA. How was the information in the text generated? The information was predominantly generated by speaking to the individuals, both veterans and their families, who experienced the burn pits on tour and experienced both the health side-effects and lack of aid back in the United States. Additionally, Percy supplements the individual narratives with research of the timeline of the VA and military action, more so inaction, in response to the issue, including exposing the important role of Kellogg Brown & Root operations. What is the main argument(s) and goal(s) of the writing? (3-5 sentences) Percy presents a complex case of health consequences due to toxicity in the unique case of the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq who were exposed to burn pits. Although the text reveals a wide array of issues, at its core Percy’s argument is that A) the burn pits specifically and the military and VA more generally have been manipulated into “lucrative, for-profit enterprise[s]”, to varying degrees, and that B) there is a problematic pattern of “official dishonesty and

deception” in health problems that arise from wars that undermines the dignity of veterans and prevents their access to medical and financial aid. Percey illustrates the negligence and for-profit motivations of the different actors by exposing the many ways in which the VA, Defense Department, Congress, military, and private businesses each played apart in perpetuating the lack of attention, legitimate research, and tangible assistance the veterans suffered from as they desperately seeked help for their symptoms and illnesses. Percy’s argument about the pattern of military inaction surrounding health concerns is encapsulated by the statement, “Again and again, from  Saigon to Kabul, the government has designed inadequate studies, manipulated data, and ignored relevant academic research, all to avoid responsibility for the harm done to our soldiers.” Discuss a passage (citing page number) that inspired, frustrated or provoked you, explaining why it did so (4-6 sentences) I was really disheartened and shocked by the passage about Jessey Baca, who served two tours in Iraq and contracted an untreatable disease from the burn pits that he was only able to diagnose after years and years of symptoms, going to the doctors at the VA, and then finally spending his own money to seek out a Professor at Vanderbilt who had researched the burn pits and his condition. One of the most shocking and frustrating part in this whole passage was when his wife described the treatment Jessey received at the VA. VA doctors told Jessey’s wife that he had PTSD and she of course responded, “PTSD doesn’t cause tumors”. In response to the wife’s claim, after seeing her husband suffer from an array of serious health issues for years, a worker at the VA told the wife, “It’s wives like you that cause soldiers to commit suicide.” Not even considering the fact that Jessey had a serious illness that would soon kill him, this statement left me utterly shocked and upset. It is difficult to walk away from this article with a sense of hope or trust in our government and the aid that the VA is given billions of dollars to deliver. Pose two **open-ended** questions for class discussion based on the text The article discusses the example of a wife who started a facebook page, “Burn Pit Families”, and worked on a bill to create an official registry to make the government committed to study the problem. But, the text states that the U.S. military did not stop using burn pits and the bill required the VA to create a “National Center for Excellence” that has a 1% chance of being enacted. With this realistic look at the bill, how effective do you believe that this course of action was? Do you believe that there was a more effective form of activism that the wife and other burn victims and their families should have taken? How much do you see this complex issue of negligence as founded upon the need for funding and bias research and reporting that is the product of, in simple terms, money? AFTERLIFE & DECOLONIAL CHEMICAL RELATIONS

Who is the text by and who is it for? (1-2 sentences) Michelle Murphy is a Canadian Professor of History and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto who has studied a wide range of disciplines from toxicology to environmental chemistry while also working closely with the environmental justice community. Another interesting layer of Murphy is her personal ethnic identity; Murphy lives in Toronto in Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee territories and is a Métis person of white skin. The Métis are “postcontact Indigenous people” who have a long history with Canada, colonialism and claims to their land, which feeds into Murphy’s outlook on decolonial chemical relations. Although the text focuses on the history of environmental justice in and around Lake Ontario, the text is ultimately created for a wide range of audiences as the concepts of afterlife and decolonial feminist theory are applicable to everyone since chemicals have entered nearly every human body. What is it (they) about, empirically? What is being studied as the object? (1-2 sentences) Murphy specifically studies the “legacy dumping ground of PCBs” in downtown Toronto into Lake Ontario and also the Great Lakes to reveal the region's history of industrialization, environmental racism, and white privilege. Outside of her specific study of the Great Lakes, Murphy explains the decolonial feminist “sense of the enmeshed land and body” and the concept of the afterlife. How was the information in the text generated? A significant amount of Murphy’s writing comes from her study and accumulated expertise on the array of disciplines that play a role in her argument, from the science to the feminist theory, her time living in Toronto and experiencing the chemical relations herself, and also working for decades with the environmental justice community. Murphy also retold detailed examples of environmental injustice that she learned from spending time with different people and organizations involved in the region such as the Native Youth Sexual Health Network in Toronto and the generations of Mohawk Akwesasne First Nation. What is the main argument(s) and goal(s) of the writing? (3-5 sentences) Murphy’s main argument, in simplest of terms, is founded on how industrially produced chemicals, such as PCBS, “have become a part of human-living being”. Examining the storm sewer system that washes chemically concentrated rainwash into Lake Ontario, Murphy reveals two key “habits” that shape the work that materializes chemicals themselves and chemical relations: first, chemicals are framed as “discrete entities” and “imagined”, and second, chemicals are researched by damage-based research that “pathologizes already dispossessed communities.” Murphy projects a pro-active argument as she seeks to answer the question: “how to refuse the chemical as an isolated entity and also not reenact body-centric damage

narratives?”. In response to this question, Murphy explores the concepts of decolonial feminism and afterlife. Decolonial feminist theory articulates “violence on the land is violence on [the] body” and ties colonialism and white supremacy to chemical violence. Additionally, Murphy’s explanation of afterlife is complicated but at its core is defined as a “autobiographical category” that seeks to extend chemical exposures beyond the “individualized body” in order to acknowledge “extensive chemical relations”. Discuss a passage (citing page number) that inspired, frustrated or provoked you, explaining why it did so (4-6 sentences) Murphy writes a provoking and grappling passage in the conclusion of her piece that uses the simple action of breathing as a powerful metaphor to encapsulate her argument. Murphy states, “with each inhalation, the extensive relations of finance capital are pulled into your lungs, passing through membranes, attaching to receptors, rearranging metabolism, altering gene expression”. This line captures all of the relations in which chemicals intersect with and manifest in—intertwined in financial relations all the way to the biological functioning of the body. Additionally, Murphy integrates the influence of race—  “breath  in, feel the fragility of white privileged life for the few around you.” Not only did this passage reiterate Murphy’s argument in a crisp and persuasive way, but also the passage was so powerful to read because it uses breathing, a basic biological processes, at the core of the metaphor. Pose two **open-ended** questions for class discussion based on the text The characteristics of chemical exposure Murphy laid out reminded me of the nature of pharmaceutical drug research and development, specifically the concept of damage-based research. How do you see the How were forms of afterlife “systemically and brutally harmed” in the Flint water crisis and/or the burn pits in Afghanistan and Iran? What were extensive relations that afterlife serves to acknowledge in these two cases of chemical violence?...