“The Neglect Is Intentional”: Inside a Black Enclave in TX Devastated by Big Oil
When Tara Bettis is at her home in Beaumont, Texas, the 57-year-old doesn’t need a clock to know what time it is. Her body instinctively knows based on the pitches of whistles and bells ringing from her neighbor’s property: a massive, land-gobbling oil refinery and chemical plant owned by ExxonMobil. “Everybody knows the whistles — the ones in the morning, the one that lets you know it’s 12 o’...