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Race and Health Disparities: Environmental Causes

 

Photo credit: Grzegorz Skibka | Pixabay. 

Introduction

The following resources explore how people’s health is impacted by social systems like poor public housing, environmental pollution, etc. For more resources not necessarily related to race, see Environment and Health.

Messages and Resources

Mako Nagasawa, John Locke’s Theology of Private Property, edited by Grace Tien and Maria Eugenia Funes, Religion and Racial Capitalism. Palgrave MacMillan, 2025.

American libertarians and private property absolutists appeal to John Locke, remembered as an English political philosopher. Locke originally positioned himself, however, as a biblical scholar and theologian. As such, Locke departed from Christian tradition. I argue the relationship between Locke’s political philosophy and the Bible is that of a parasite and its host. Christian leaders prior to Locke believed that the earth is the Lord’s, the fruit of the earth belongs to all, and the political community could modify property in various ways because it was ethically and chronologically prior to private property. Locke, however, argued that individuals first create private property by enclosing land and laboring on it, then bring their private properties into political society, which was meant by God to defend individual property rights. He thereby defended both the English Revolution of 1688 and also English colonialism in the Americas.

Race and Land: Topics:

Race and Health Disparities: Topics:

 
 

Race: Topics:

 
 

Church and Empire: Topics: