This article (and the comments below) reminds me of So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo:
"While just about everything can be about race, almost nothing is completely about race. It is important that we are aware of the different factors in any situation of oppression or conflict [..] A lot of people feel like acknowledging race in a problem will make that problem only about race, and that will leave a lot of people out. But race was designed to be interwoven into our social, political, and economic systems. Instead of trying to isolate or ignore race, we need to look at race as a piece of the machine, just as we'd look at class or geography when considering social issues. Race alone is not all you need to focus on, but without it, any solution you come up with just won't work."
Thanks for sharing this! As a black person that has worked in the environmental space for a while. I have of course noticed the disparities in a lot of the decision making in many sustainability spaces and organizations. I have actually called out places I worked at for not having enough representation even though we were working in black communities. My lens of addressing climate issues does not allow for the larger justice issues to be divorced from that and it takes a lot to continue to work on these issues with people that I can tell do not share that same ethos. It gets tiring having to explain that to people and it should not be my job to do so, yet it seems irresponsible for me not to. Thank you for posting this and being an ally.
Anyone who thinks race is not relevant to the environmental movement doesn't understand how politics works. I keep coming back to Naomi Klein's argument. You make change through coalition building. People fighting for the environment and fighting for racial justice have common cause. They both want to see a just society that isn't based on exploitation and violence. It's all connected.
In the mean time, how can you expect someone to go marching for the climate (or participate in acts of civil disobedience to intentionally get arrested *cough cough* Extinction Rebellion) when they're rightfully afraid of being murdered by the very people sworn to serve and protect them? Not only CAN you fight for the environment and fight for racial justice at the same time, you kind of HAVE to if you want to get anywhere.
I love this. From outside the US it is sometimes difficult to see the same direct connections, although the UK has it's own issues to deal with right now. My experience has been that people do not automatically connect the environmental with the social or the historical injustice elements, because the message for decades has been one of either needing to fix global systems (govts, fossil fuels etc) or because it's about personal responsibility (Stop flying! Be vegan!). The "ordinary person" personified in Climate Chad is someone I've met many times who almost cannot see the link between climate action and justice because then it becomes a bigger problem which puts different obligations on that person. I'll admit to personally finding it hard sometimes too because if you look and see a lot of problems, and then end up trying to fight all the battles then that can be exhausting and impossible. Yes, we need to support others, and see where the fights are linked, but not everyone can fight every battle, although some are more important than others and *should* be joined (this one being a case in point). The point is that I am still learning how this all fits together... I'm still learning how the effects of climate change are going to change how we live and work and I have done a recent 6 month research project on it! Yes, the Al Gores of this of the world should be condemning, but the Climate Chads exist because this is complex and difficult big system stuff that is not easy for anyone to wrap their heads around and not enough are providing the help to make it clear to them.
Thanks for adding to a critical conversation in the climate justice movement. This will help me the next time I find myself taking to “Chad”—and you’re right, he’s everywhere.
Thank you. I was trying to find the words to explain the connections between racism and environmental injustice. Hearing from people that are working this issue is so helpful.
Thanks for this, Emily! I've been thinking a lot lately about how racism, capitalism, and environment are so deeply intertwined with one another. Individualism is a big (the biggest?) driver for how we got here in the first place, and we're not going to solve anything in any lasting way without learning to care for our collective and uplift its most marginalized.
Also, fwoof. I cannot get my head around writing an email like that and being like yep, this is good and productive, send!
A great, young African-American activist from Seattle, Zahara Tekola, says that if climate disruption were impacting the rich white world as much as it is impacting the poor brown and black world, we would have solved the problem by now. (Lives in AZ now, and like my friend Anthony would make a great podcast.) Poor, non-white people live in the most polluted neighborhoods. When it gets hot, they are least likely to have air conditioning. When the storm blows in, whether New Orleans or Bangladesh, they are most likely to not have the resources to evacuate or rebuild. When the seas are rising in Miami, the upscale are gentrifying their formerly less desirable uphill neighborhoods! They are caught in systemic injustice, getting poorer while the rich get pornographically richer. I see tent camps in the freeway meridian in my city with the world’s two richest men, and many other obscenely wealthy people. The cops enforce a terrorist regime to keep the poor and nonwhite in line, just like the lynch mobs did in the south. With a body count at least equal. People who say race is not a climate issue are morally and intellectually blind. And politically inept as well. We won’t win climate except as a victory of a broad, united progressive front, and that involves economic equity, and racial and social justice.
I work on climate solution software models. At this point the damage from climate change so disproportionately impacts the disadvantaged that you really can't solve for climate without solving for inequality, for anti-Blackness, for sexism, for discrimination.
Even if you tried, even if you only chose solutions with minimal benefit to the disadvantaged, you still end up reducing that inequality at least somewhat. Those disproportionately harmed benefit from reduction in the harm.
Yet restricting solutions in this way would also remove some of the most effective climate solutions available:
+ much of the reduction in industrial and energy emissions (where those emissions are frequently located in Black/non-white areas and responsible for poor air quality)
+ land use changes (indigenous land management is statistically more likely to be more sustainable, less extractive, and lower emissions)
It just doesn't make sense. Climate justice == effective climate solutions.
As long As we're trying to build bridges, which is essential, let's include Muslims. The Arabic diaspora extends across a very wide area that could easily become unbearably hot so they have much to gain by minimizing green house emissions.
I find it extremely frustrating how many people have jumped on the "green trend" wagon without ever taking a momnet to critically think about the depth and complexity of our climate crisis. The gross misuse of terminology such as "zero waste", "sustainability", "minimalism" and so forth. Which leads to superficial "green washing" ideologies that completely neglect the complex dynamics and intersction of climate, social inequality and economics. This green washing in amplified by media outlets like twitter or instagran in a manner that often glosses over the need for environmental justice. I am tired of liberal progressives awkwardness and avoidance of racism in the environmental movement. We cannot solve one without addressing the other. As hard as current events have been I am glade that people are finally taking a look in the mirror and reevaluating their part in racial discrimination and climate change
Took me four days to read this, but I have some thoughts...
I took a law class as an undergrad, taught by pioneers of critical race theory, focused on how lawyers can achieve social change. The primary project was to map out a plan for our lives. I had a much harder time than my law student classmates did. Essentially, here was my plan: Finish up my undergrad degree, join a teacher residency in Memphis, TN, teach for four years, go to law school, then work on environmental law ("work on" is extremely vague, I know).
That plan was met with a lot of skepticism by the professors, most of my classmates, and even myself. But I just had an instinct to stick with it. This post has finally made the light bulb switch on as to why I had that instinct.
The fight for environmental justice intersects with educational justice and racial justice very strongly. Environmental justice was just my way in the door, my gateway cause, to stepping into this intersection. Of course, there are many other intersections, but that's the key to trying to understand what I'm trying to do with my life.
At the time, I, my professors, and my classmates reinforced the idea that you need to pick an issue and pursue that one issue. Either education OR ej OR racial justice. But there need to be people working at the intersection of those issues as well, or at least very familiar with the intersection. After all, if the environmental justice movement ignores racial justice or education or womxn's rights or the LGBTQ community or fair housing or fair labor, it risks harming those other movements, which are all part of our true goal: a just society for all.
Yes, the environmental movement is extremely important, but it's just a means to an end. We want a healthy environment and clean air and such, but not necessarily for the sake of those things. If we could have polluted air and healthy lives, or warming and steady shorelines, or whatever contradiction, maybe there wouldn't be a need for the environmental movement. But since our goal is really a just society for all, and since harms to the environment stand in the way of that goal, we have to engage in EJ. In the same way, we can't ignore--in face, we must support--other complementary movements.
Thank you for your ferocious anti-racism, Emily. Solidarity with the rebels across the country, who may have opened the gateway to the world that we need.
Hi, I wanted to mention that the Sierra Club has actually done something more than a statement; they transitioned their World Running Day 5K (virtual this year due to COVID-19) to honor Ahmaud Arbery, and pushed fundraising to racial equity orgs in Georgia (they did this in mid-May). I don't know if it's bad manners to link?
This article (and the comments below) reminds me of So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo:
"While just about everything can be about race, almost nothing is completely about race. It is important that we are aware of the different factors in any situation of oppression or conflict [..] A lot of people feel like acknowledging race in a problem will make that problem only about race, and that will leave a lot of people out. But race was designed to be interwoven into our social, political, and economic systems. Instead of trying to isolate or ignore race, we need to look at race as a piece of the machine, just as we'd look at class or geography when considering social issues. Race alone is not all you need to focus on, but without it, any solution you come up with just won't work."
Thanks for sharing this! As a black person that has worked in the environmental space for a while. I have of course noticed the disparities in a lot of the decision making in many sustainability spaces and organizations. I have actually called out places I worked at for not having enough representation even though we were working in black communities. My lens of addressing climate issues does not allow for the larger justice issues to be divorced from that and it takes a lot to continue to work on these issues with people that I can tell do not share that same ethos. It gets tiring having to explain that to people and it should not be my job to do so, yet it seems irresponsible for me not to. Thank you for posting this and being an ally.
Anyone who thinks race is not relevant to the environmental movement doesn't understand how politics works. I keep coming back to Naomi Klein's argument. You make change through coalition building. People fighting for the environment and fighting for racial justice have common cause. They both want to see a just society that isn't based on exploitation and violence. It's all connected.
In the mean time, how can you expect someone to go marching for the climate (or participate in acts of civil disobedience to intentionally get arrested *cough cough* Extinction Rebellion) when they're rightfully afraid of being murdered by the very people sworn to serve and protect them? Not only CAN you fight for the environment and fight for racial justice at the same time, you kind of HAVE to if you want to get anywhere.
I love this. From outside the US it is sometimes difficult to see the same direct connections, although the UK has it's own issues to deal with right now. My experience has been that people do not automatically connect the environmental with the social or the historical injustice elements, because the message for decades has been one of either needing to fix global systems (govts, fossil fuels etc) or because it's about personal responsibility (Stop flying! Be vegan!). The "ordinary person" personified in Climate Chad is someone I've met many times who almost cannot see the link between climate action and justice because then it becomes a bigger problem which puts different obligations on that person. I'll admit to personally finding it hard sometimes too because if you look and see a lot of problems, and then end up trying to fight all the battles then that can be exhausting and impossible. Yes, we need to support others, and see where the fights are linked, but not everyone can fight every battle, although some are more important than others and *should* be joined (this one being a case in point). The point is that I am still learning how this all fits together... I'm still learning how the effects of climate change are going to change how we live and work and I have done a recent 6 month research project on it! Yes, the Al Gores of this of the world should be condemning, but the Climate Chads exist because this is complex and difficult big system stuff that is not easy for anyone to wrap their heads around and not enough are providing the help to make it clear to them.
Great post. All of these struggles are really one single, unified struggle
Thanks for adding to a critical conversation in the climate justice movement. This will help me the next time I find myself taking to “Chad”—and you’re right, he’s everywhere.
Thank you. I was trying to find the words to explain the connections between racism and environmental injustice. Hearing from people that are working this issue is so helpful.
Thanks for this, Emily! I've been thinking a lot lately about how racism, capitalism, and environment are so deeply intertwined with one another. Individualism is a big (the biggest?) driver for how we got here in the first place, and we're not going to solve anything in any lasting way without learning to care for our collective and uplift its most marginalized.
Also, fwoof. I cannot get my head around writing an email like that and being like yep, this is good and productive, send!
A great, young African-American activist from Seattle, Zahara Tekola, says that if climate disruption were impacting the rich white world as much as it is impacting the poor brown and black world, we would have solved the problem by now. (Lives in AZ now, and like my friend Anthony would make a great podcast.) Poor, non-white people live in the most polluted neighborhoods. When it gets hot, they are least likely to have air conditioning. When the storm blows in, whether New Orleans or Bangladesh, they are most likely to not have the resources to evacuate or rebuild. When the seas are rising in Miami, the upscale are gentrifying their formerly less desirable uphill neighborhoods! They are caught in systemic injustice, getting poorer while the rich get pornographically richer. I see tent camps in the freeway meridian in my city with the world’s two richest men, and many other obscenely wealthy people. The cops enforce a terrorist regime to keep the poor and nonwhite in line, just like the lynch mobs did in the south. With a body count at least equal. People who say race is not a climate issue are morally and intellectually blind. And politically inept as well. We won’t win climate except as a victory of a broad, united progressive front, and that involves economic equity, and racial and social justice.
I work on climate solution software models. At this point the damage from climate change so disproportionately impacts the disadvantaged that you really can't solve for climate without solving for inequality, for anti-Blackness, for sexism, for discrimination.
Even if you tried, even if you only chose solutions with minimal benefit to the disadvantaged, you still end up reducing that inequality at least somewhat. Those disproportionately harmed benefit from reduction in the harm.
Yet restricting solutions in this way would also remove some of the most effective climate solutions available:
+ much of the reduction in industrial and energy emissions (where those emissions are frequently located in Black/non-white areas and responsible for poor air quality)
+ land use changes (indigenous land management is statistically more likely to be more sustainable, less extractive, and lower emissions)
It just doesn't make sense. Climate justice == effective climate solutions.
As long As we're trying to build bridges, which is essential, let's include Muslims. The Arabic diaspora extends across a very wide area that could easily become unbearably hot so they have much to gain by minimizing green house emissions.
Christina Van Oosten13 min
I find it extremely frustrating how many people have jumped on the "green trend" wagon without ever taking a momnet to critically think about the depth and complexity of our climate crisis. The gross misuse of terminology such as "zero waste", "sustainability", "minimalism" and so forth. Which leads to superficial "green washing" ideologies that completely neglect the complex dynamics and intersction of climate, social inequality and economics. This green washing in amplified by media outlets like twitter or instagran in a manner that often glosses over the need for environmental justice. I am tired of liberal progressives awkwardness and avoidance of racism in the environmental movement. We cannot solve one without addressing the other. As hard as current events have been I am glade that people are finally taking a look in the mirror and reevaluating their part in racial discrimination and climate change
Took me four days to read this, but I have some thoughts...
I took a law class as an undergrad, taught by pioneers of critical race theory, focused on how lawyers can achieve social change. The primary project was to map out a plan for our lives. I had a much harder time than my law student classmates did. Essentially, here was my plan: Finish up my undergrad degree, join a teacher residency in Memphis, TN, teach for four years, go to law school, then work on environmental law ("work on" is extremely vague, I know).
That plan was met with a lot of skepticism by the professors, most of my classmates, and even myself. But I just had an instinct to stick with it. This post has finally made the light bulb switch on as to why I had that instinct.
The fight for environmental justice intersects with educational justice and racial justice very strongly. Environmental justice was just my way in the door, my gateway cause, to stepping into this intersection. Of course, there are many other intersections, but that's the key to trying to understand what I'm trying to do with my life.
At the time, I, my professors, and my classmates reinforced the idea that you need to pick an issue and pursue that one issue. Either education OR ej OR racial justice. But there need to be people working at the intersection of those issues as well, or at least very familiar with the intersection. After all, if the environmental justice movement ignores racial justice or education or womxn's rights or the LGBTQ community or fair housing or fair labor, it risks harming those other movements, which are all part of our true goal: a just society for all.
Yes, the environmental movement is extremely important, but it's just a means to an end. We want a healthy environment and clean air and such, but not necessarily for the sake of those things. If we could have polluted air and healthy lives, or warming and steady shorelines, or whatever contradiction, maybe there wouldn't be a need for the environmental movement. But since our goal is really a just society for all, and since harms to the environment stand in the way of that goal, we have to engage in EJ. In the same way, we can't ignore--in face, we must support--other complementary movements.
Thank you for your ferocious anti-racism, Emily. Solidarity with the rebels across the country, who may have opened the gateway to the world that we need.
Hi, I wanted to mention that the Sierra Club has actually done something more than a statement; they transitioned their World Running Day 5K (virtual this year due to COVID-19) to honor Ahmaud Arbery, and pushed fundraising to racial equity orgs in Georgia (they did this in mid-May). I don't know if it's bad manners to link?