| From: LeilaOfTheWoods (Original Message) | Sent: 3/16/2005 6:56 PM |
Better do it Eco-Activism!
Overall, too many young people see the struggles of humans as separate
from the struggles for a healthy environment. It isn't because we have
bad intentions -- it's because a generation that does not care about the
impact of its lifestyle on the environment can be easily manipulated for
corporate greed. We are getting played out. And unfortunately, the
environmental movement has actually helped enforce that disconnect by
seeming to draw divisions between the natural world and its human
inhabitants -- and by seeming to worry more about the former than the
latter.
That is the context for the next stage of environmentalism. You have an
oppressed, depressed, furious mass waiting to be mobilized. And sure,
some of us eat at McDonald's and wear leather shoes -- but we feel it is
possible to demand better from our government and from ourselves for our
environment. We feel it is imperative to connect the different survival
struggles we are engaged in if we truly hope to sustain a viable
movement for change. You will not die if you try to link hands with us
in this struggle, if you try to meet us halfway.
We are in a unique organizing space right now, fresh off the election,
understanding that it is imperative to combine electoral organizing with
community organizing with issue organizing, in new and unique ways.
Environmentalists have done groundbreaking work in this arena, getting
citizens informed and involved around policies and petitions. But the
movement has failed to reach the urban masses, and it has fallen prey to
the marketing of the right, which casts caring about the planet as goofy
liberalism instead of instinctual self-preservation.
So I offer three transition steps for the leadership of the
environmental movement:
1. Change your framework. You have to frame environmental issues in a
way that makes sense for us and relates to the issues we care about. But
you will have to get closer to us and to the work we're doing in order
to make that happen. We're talking about racism -- meet us there. I know
the research shows one thing, the statistics make your case; but they
also make a case that the most pressing issues in my life should be
stopping the prison industrial complex, stopping the HIV that's ravaging
my community, stopping the president from cutting Upward Bound funding.
There's a place for you in each of those battles, just as there's a
place for those activists in the battle for the environment. It is not
either/or. The loss of your borders won't mean a dilution of your
vision, it will simply mean a larger, greater, more inclusive vision.
2. Be easy and appealing. You need to turn up the heat and the appeal
for environmentally friendly products and practices, while putting time
and energy into bringing down the price. It's not written anywhere that
everything recycled has to look used and cost twice as much. Lose that
sage color scheme and price your wares to Target. If you aren't willing
to be a little savvy for the survival of the world, then how committed
are you? Take five minutes and catch up to what appeals to the greatest
number. The environmental movement needs to make its home in this real
world of ours.
3. Stop the environmental evangelism. I say this as a loving
criticism of the people who are at the forefront of this work: you often
get so caught up in the sky-is-falling mentality of environmental work
that you can only see the urgency of your own issue. That's not how to
approach folks. Fiscally conservative people of color vote in their
economic interest, not because someone approaches them on the street
apoplectic about mercury in the water. Mercury in the water is a
completely relevant topic for black folks, but not if we can't see our
faces on and in that movement, and see our interests as clearly part of
the platform. You've got to talk to folks about the things that will
move them -- which means you've got to identify how your work relates to
the issues that matter to other people.
As a young woman of color who doesn't do environmental work for a
living, I believe environmentalism needs to become something that the
masses can integrate into how we live our lives. It's nothing personal.
Every issue-based movement needs to think in terms of solidarity and
collaboration right now.
How this discussion can move forward into worthwhile proposals and
actions -- that is the question. Stepping back and thinking about a
vision for a movement is absolutely necessary. Dramatizing its slow and
agonizing death borders on indulgent. Too often, people rush to say
something is dying when it's merely in a period of transition. Be less
presumptuous. Shedding an old skin is not death but renewal, and those
who follow the life of the planet should grasp that better than anyone
else.
http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/03/15/brown/?source=daily
- - - - - - - - - -
Adrienne Maree Brown is a writer and singer living in Brooklyn, N.Y. She
is coeditor of the League of Pissed Off Voters' How to Get Stupid White
Men Out of Office: The Anti-Politics, Un-Boring Guide to Power and
program director for the League of Young Voters | |
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