Accused polluters defend themselves by recasting their land as personal patrimony
Evidence
“Look, Roland, I was born and brought up in this town,” said Riley. “I’ve been chairman of the school committee, on the planning board, on the board of a local bank. That goddamn land is my life, my blood, because that’s where I get my water. If you think I’m dumping toxic chemicals there, you’re crazy. You dump more when you change the oil in your car than I’ve dumped in a whole lifetime. I never dumped anything, and neither did Beatrice Foods. To accuse me and my company of giving people leukemia—I don’t like it one goddamn bit.” — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 440
Categorization
- SEED: Angle on the rhetorical grammar of denial: not ‘I didn’t do it’ but ‘this place is my blood,’ which converts an accusation into an insult and forecloses evidence.
- XREF: connects to: Whiteness severs victims from land claims and legitimates ownership — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 906; Colonial land appropriation was framed as consent with violence as alternative — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 300
Broader Connections
- Whiteness severs victims from land claims and legitimates ownership
#expands(0.75) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 906 - Colonial land appropriation was framed as consent with violence as alternative
#expands(0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 300