Many noise denialists resort to two deflections in an attempt to dismiss concerns about unhealthy sound levels: First, that “cities are noisy” — implying that municipalities cannot be quieter (and residents should not even try to do so) — and second, that seeking to reduce excessive noise is inherently “racist.”
The obvious premise of the latter deflection is that only some racial groups make noise1 — which is itself a racist assertion — and that the person stating it knows which ones they are, and objects to noise reduction on that basis. But such fatuous claims are belied by two incontrovertible facts:
- Excessive and unhealthy noise is prevalent in cities all over the U.S. and around the world — as are regulations against it — irrespective of how diverse or homogeneous their populations are. In which case, race is clearly not inherent to noise-reduction efforts.
- The human physiological response to noise does not differ based on the ethnicity of either the person generating it or being exposed to it: Excessive noise is unhealthy for everyone regardless of race or culture2 — including the noise-makers themselves. Dangers to public health are not racist.
More practically, a Providence resident awakened in the middle of the night by a vehicle with a modified muffler cannot know (and does not care about) the ethnicity of the person driving it, and isn’t any less sleep-deprived by noise from someone whose identity they share or support. The human need for restful sleep is universal, not race-based.
As was true of smoking, the salient issue is the broad public-health effects of noise — and counteracting attempts by noise denialists to contrive a fictitiously malign motive for seeking to reduce it — to deflect people’s attention from those adverse effects and the long-overdue need to address them.
Decades of scientific research have documented that everyone is adversely affected by excessive noise. Much like the tactics of Big Tobacco and its allies to try to obscure the adverse effects of smoking, efforts to dismiss the health effects of excessive noise — including by invoking racism — are a true injustice.
PVD residents don’t care who is generating excessive noise, we just want it to stop.3
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1 The idea of separate “races” is itself a social (not scientific) construct that doesn’t actually exist as a function of human biology — there is no objective physiology basis for determining whether a person is a member of one race or another. What is often asserted as “race” is actually ethnic or national / regional culture, which does not and should not supersede the far broader collective interest in public health.
Moreover, modified mufflers, professional-grade audio speakers, fireworks, etc, are all available across the U.S. and around the world, and their purchase and use are in no way restricted to members of specific racial or ethnic groups — as global sales-data for these products clearly shows. But as with climate change, such “inconvenient truths” rarely impede self-serving narratives.
2 The actual determinants of the health effects of noise are summed up by the axiom, “The dose makes the poison” — i.e., how loud it is (volume), and for how long (duration). Other factors include when the exposure occurs (e.g., at night, disrupting sleep), where (e.g., outside of hospitals, schools, senior facilities, etc), how impulsive or steady it is, and predicability, which can be offset by anticipation.
3 Read what residents across Providence say about their experience of excessive noise.