A terrible thing to waste : environmental racism and its assault on the American mind / Harriet A. Washington.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-350) and index.

Introduction: IQ matters -- Part I: Color-coded intelligence? The prism of race : how politics shroud the truth about our nation's IQ -- Part II: The brain thieves. The lead age : heavy metals, low IQs -- Poisoned world : the racial gradient of environmental neurotoxins -- Prenatal policies : protecting the developing brain -- Bugs in the system : how microbes sap U.S. intelligence -- Part III: Mission possible : how to bolster the nation's IQ. Taking the cure : what can you do, now? -- A wonderful thing to save : how communities can unite to preserve brainpower -- Glossary -- List of known chemical brain drainers.

"From injuries caused by lead poisoning to the devastating effects of atmospheric pollution, infectious disease, and industrial waste, Americans of color are harmed by environmental hazards in staggeringly disproportionate numbers. This systemic onslaught of toxic exposure and institutional negligence causes irreparable physical harm to millions of people across the country--cutting lives tragically short and needlessly burdening our health care system. But these deadly environments create another insidious and often overlooked consequence: robbing communities of color, and America as a whole, of intellectual power. The 1994 publication of The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of a renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray, arguing that IQ is a biased and flawed metric, but that it is useful for tracking cognitive damage. She takes apart the spurious notion of intelligence as an inherited trait, using copious data that instead point to a different cause of the reported African American-white IQ gap: environmental racism--a confluence of racism and other institutional factors that relegate marginalized communities to living and working near sites of toxic waste, pollution, and insufficient sanitation services. She investigates heavy metals, neurotoxins, deficient prenatal care, bad nutrition, and even pathogens as chief agents influencing intelligence to explain why communities of color are disproportionately affected--and what can be done to remedy this devastating problem"--Dust jacket.