Final answer:
Performing hazardous duties has been historically used as a form of environmental racism, with African Americans disproportionately affected both in civil areas, like living near hazardous waste facilities, and in the military, where they were assigned dangerous tasks without proper safety protocols.
Step-by-step explanation:
Historically, the attribution of hazardous duties based on race has been a form of environmental racism, which has been prevalent in both civil society and the military. For instance, African American soldiers during World War II were often assigned dangerous tasks, like ammunition loading, without proper safety measures, leading to tragic incidents such as the explosion in San Francisco in 1944, which killed 300 black seamen.
Similarly, sociological research by Robert Bullard has highlighted that race is a more crucial factor than socioeconomic status in predicting the location of hazardous waste facilities, with Black children being five times more likely to have lead poisoning than their White peers. Moreover, military strategies, such as those seen during the Vietnam War, involved racist motivations that escalated to war crimes, such as the My Lai Massacre where U.S. soldiers affected by racial animus towards the Vietnamese, acted with extreme violence.
Finally, post-war discrimination against African American veterans, who were lynched or otherwise mistreated upon returning home, and prejudiced views about their capabilities reflected and perpetuated the racism within the society and military they served. The practice of assigning hazardous duties to minority groups and justifying their maltreatment on racist grounds is a dark chapter in history that showcases the interplay between racism and occupational hazards.