Evan Hepler-Smith: Toxic People

What does it mean to characterize people or behavior as "toxic"?This image makes me curious about the capacity and limits of toxicity as an analytical category applied to people. Characterize sunshine-based California boosterism as a "toxic" effort to claim exclusive land rights makes me think of Lisa Park and David Pellow's critique of "nativist environmentalism" in Aspen (The Slums of Aspen, 2011). There, they show how the characterization of Hispanic immigrants as "toxic" by some white Aspen residents and government officials has functioned as a means of perpetuating privilege and exclusion.Park and Pellow's argument gives me pause when it comes to arguments that lean on the characterization of people as toxic. Characterizing sunshine-boosters as toxic people inverts the rhetoric that Park and Pellow critique in a manner that is arguably consistent with their critical project. On the other hand, of the various angles one might take in critical analysis of the people and behaviors depicted in this image, what does one gain and lose by adopting the language of toxicity?