Divest from fossil fuels.

After fighting for almost a decade, Divest Harvard claimed victory last week when Harvard University announced it would divest completely from fossil fuels. “It took conversations and protests, meetings with administration, faculty/alumni votes, mass sit-ins and arrests, historic legal strategies, and storming football fields,” the group said. “But today, we can see proof that activism works, plain and simple” (Twitter). This announcement means that Harvard will no longer invest any part of its $42 billion endowment in fossil fuel companies (The Guardian). It’s a key victory in the efforts to demand accountability from university endowments which too often profit by funding objectionable industries.

TAKE ACTION

Follow UC Divest and sign their petition to end the University of California’s investment in fossil fuel and weapons companies.
Tell your elected officials to divest public pension funds from fossil fuels.
Consider: Does your money fund oppressive industries? This could be personal investments, college endowments, or pensions. Are there movements to demand divestment from institutions around you?

GET EDUCATED

When universities receive financial gifts, they’re often placed in their endowment, a financial vehicle whose proceeds fund the school’s operating expenses (Investopedia). The endowments of wealthy universities like Harvard are enormous: Yale has $30 billion, Stanford has $27 billion, and Princeton has $25 billion (US News). Princeton’s endowment is five times the national wealth of Haiti and twice that of Liberia (Credit Suisse). Universities naturally want their investments to be as lucrative as possible. This can mean providing capital to industries that are disproportionately harming people of color and the planet, a practice that divestment campaigns seek to end.

Emissions from fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas are the primary driver of global warming (NASA), which disproportionately threatens working-class communities and communities of color (Anti-Racism Daily). These communities also bear the brunt of the industry’s refinery fires (Democracy Now), oil spills (The Conversation), and toxic pollution (Grist).

Before last week’s announcement, Harvard President Bacow publicly opposed “politicizing” the school’s investments despite facing years of protests by students, faculty, and alumni. In 2019, hundreds of Yale and Harvard students stormed a football game to demand both schools end investments in fossil fuels and Puerto Rican debt; dozens were arrested (Harvard Crimson).

Last year, they occupied a university building to demand divestment on the five-year anniversary of another campus occupation calling for the same (Harvard Crimson). The campaign didn’t politicize the university’s investment decisions. By highlighting the social harm abetted by Harvard’s investment decisions, it demonstrated those decisions were always political in the first place.

Though Harvard’s endowment is by far the largest, the struggle to stop institutional investment in particularly noxious industries doesn’t end there. University of California students, among others, are leading a fight to end investment in fossil fuel and weapons companies like BlackRock and Lockheed Martin (UC Divest).

And while Harvard will no longer profit from fossil fuels, it still invests in the private prison industry (The Crimson). It also invests in debt which the Puerto Rican government must pay back in lieu of funding basic services or infrastructure (The Intercept). Puerto Rican debt collection, private detention centers, and fossil fuel companies all profit from the extraction of resources and people from marginalized communities. They all use investments from university endowments, public and private pension funds, and city and state governments, as well (Equal Times). In 2018, the California teachers’ pension fund ended investment in private prisons (CalSTRS), though the same fund recently voted to postpone full divestment from fossil fuels for 30 years (Common Dreams).

Demanding institutional divestment dates back to the 1980s, where activists demanded money be taken out of apartheid South Africa. When our public funds, pensions, or alumni contributions support oppressive practices, we can organize together to demand a change. As the Divest Harvard campaign shows, it’s not always an easy fight, but it’s a fight that we can win. We need to demand divestment from exploitative industries.

Written by Andrew Lee (he/him)

KEY TAKEAWAYS

After a fight lasting almost a decade, Harvard University announced it would divest from fossil fuels.
Universities and other institutions often make investments in companies that profit from oppression and exploitation.
For decades, divestment movements have demanded that these institutions end investments in malignant industries.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

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Nicole Cardoza 9/17/21 Nicole Cardoza 9/17/21

Advocate for a pathway to citizenship for all.

For generations, members of my family crossed the border for work. My grandfather was a “guest worker” under a program that brought workers to build railroads and pick crops during WWII (UCLA). Aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandma left Mexico one by one. Some of my cousins were incarcerated and my aunts deported. My grandma, a domestic worker in Mexico, here picked up cans with my cousins. My parents and my little sister eventually came. And I am here too.

TAKE ACTION

Sign this urgent petition demanding key public servants include a Pathway to Citizenship for All 12 million, the first opportunity of its kind after almost 40 years.
Support Cosecha, a national movement demanding permanent protections for all undocumented people.

GET EDUCATED

The American right demonizes “illegal aliens” from “sh*thole countries” (New Yorker). Some people respond with the false notion that America is a “nation of immigrants” (NCPH) or broadly proclaim that “migration is beautiful,” a phrase adorning t-shirts and wall art (Etsy). People hate us or romanticize us. Both extremes are obstacles to our collective liberation and understanding of who we are.

There are around 12 million undocumented immigrants (Brookings), more people than the population of Greece. As essential workers, we die at higher rates from COVID-19 (The Globe Post). Each year we pay more than $120 billion in taxes. Our work contributes $17 billion for Social Security and $4 billion for Medicare each year, though we are ineligible for both programs (Center for American Progress). We have no access to disability or unemployment payments (NELP), food stamps (USDA), driver licenses (NCSL), or stimulus checks (Huffington Post). See our previous piece on those excluded from stimulus payments.

We face hate crimes and discrimination (Huffington Post), are exploited by employers who abuse us, deny us breaks, pay less than minimum wage, or withhold pay altogether (KQED). Though we face the constant threat of deportation or incarceration (Guardian), 5 to 10 people die every week trying to cross the border (Dallas News). Why is it that migrants keep coming to the U.S. despite these conditions? Though Trump’s remarks were repugnant, we only choose all of this because of conditions in our home countries, conditions often created by American governmental and corporate decisions (NYSYLC).

Central American migrants are “fleeing a hell the US helped create” by supporting right-wing death squads (Guardian), forced to make a dangerous journey where they find extortion, amputation, or death (NowThis). Vietnamese immigration started after American involvement in the Vietnam War (UMW). Mexican immigration increased after the North American Free Trade Agreement allowed American corporations to flood the market with their products, destroying the food system (NYT) and livelihoods of many working-class Mexican people (UMich). Indigenous communities in Mexico are at risk of displacement by “mega-projects” for mass tourism which “are de facto elements of a ‘migrant barrier’ which respond to the geopolitical interests of the United States” (Toward Freedom).

Wealthy countries which draw migrants contain 14% of the world population but 73% of world income. The nations of the “Global South'' from which migrants originate have 86% of the world's population and the majority of the world's resources but just 25% of its income (Walled World). The same policies which made nations like the U.S. “rich” made the countries of the Global South so poor that their citizens left to survive (YouTube). We are not illegal, we were illegalized.

As Angie Rivera, an undocumented immigrant from Colombia, writes, “There is nothing beautiful about the poverty that was created in my country while the U.S. prospers” (NYSYLC). So how can we achieve justice for those forced to leave their homes and families behind?

Discourse around immigration often starts and stops with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. This program has been transformative for the young “Dreamers” who can access it, allowing them to work “legally” and temporarily protecting them from deportation (NBC News). Although DACA narratives “occupy outsize attention in our politics” (NPR), DACA protects just 6% of immigrants, leaving 94% of us criminalized (Cambridge). The framing of some immigrants as “good” and others as “bad” hurts the movement (Washington Post).

Fortunately, there are groups across the country rejecting this false distinction. Cosecha is a national immigrant-led organization fighting for “papers, not crumbs.” They reject politics that divide immigrants into “good” people to be offered limited protections and “bad” ones to be criminalized and deported, instead of organizing to win “permanent protection, dignity, and respect” (Cosecha). Decolonial Action Lab is an undocumented essential worker collective and one of the main founders of “Papeles para Todos,” Papers for All, a group also demanding full citizenship for all undocumented people (DAL). Anything less than a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented people would be a political and historical failure.

By Luis Moreno (he/him)

Luis Moreno has native and Black ancestry, has collaborated in nonprofits and collectives, is an essential worker and a researcher for DAL. He likes to read and write poetry (Border is not just a word), is passionate about social justice, sports and nature, and has interests in forced migration, climate change, housing, unhoused and digital rights, dystopic environments and photography. He is planning how to push billionaires to donate 50% of their money and to write a poetry book.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Immigration to the United States often stems from problems created by the U.S. government or corporations.
Saying only that “migration is beautiful” erases the pain and violence associated with being forced to leave your home and denied civil rights.
Only deciding that certain “good” immigrants deserve civil and political rights is unacceptable.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 9/15/21 Nicole Cardoza 9/15/21

Fight environmental housing injustice.

The remains of Hurricane Ida clobbered New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania early this month, killing 43 people with record-breaking flooding, including over a dozen in New York City. (Time). This inundation was unprecedented — Mayor Bill de Blasio called it a “historic weather event” (Inquirer). Catastrophic acts of nature seem beyond human control, but the tragic deaths in New York also stem from housing inequality and environmental racism in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

TAKE ACTION

Support Make the Road NY and Dorchester Not for Sale.
Support the Right to the City Alliance affiliate closest to you.
Consider: who would be most at risk from natural disasters or housing insecurity in your community? How can you help change that? How can your community build collective resilience?

GET EDUCATED

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, it was likewise an act of nature. But Black residents were more likely to live in low-lying areas close to the water and a majority did not have a car with which to escape (New Orleans Tribune), so low-income Black people were the majority of those trapped in the city (Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality). During the catastrophic winter storm in Texas earlier this year, the power stayed on in Austin’s affluent downtown while poor communities faced rolling blackouts for days (The Guardian).

Almost all of those killed in New York City were living out of basement apartments not up to code. These units also had increased risks of carbon monoxide poisoning and death by fire. But as housing costs balloon, there’s increased pressure on homeowners to rent out basement rooms. Tenants are also pressured to take a relatively affordable room, no matter the risks. Working-class families, often immigrants working in the service industry, live in illegally converted units since “the housing crisis… leads people to live in unsafe conditions in the first place,” according to the Citizen Housing Planning Council’s Jessica Katz (N.Y. Times). Those who perished were largely people of color working in the service industry if not the new “servant economy” of precarious gig work (The Atlantic). Those whom they served — whiter, more affluent New Yorkers — survived.

A housing crisis cuts across all dimensions of urban life. Prohibitive housing costs force people to stay with abusive partners, and domestic violence is a “leading cause of homelessness” for women and children (NNEDV). “The housing crisis puts LGBT+ people in serious danger” as well, “whether that’s forcing us to live in oppressive dysfunctional family homes, or living with strangers who don’t seem to get it” (GCN). Black women are disproportionately affected by evictions (Ms. Magazine), which force evictees to subsequently accept less regulated and more dangerous housing (Huff Post).

And there are a host of environmental problems that plague housing for working-class people of color even before a major storm hits. These include air pollution (Make the Road NY) and proximity to toxic waste sites and landfills. The correlation of communities of color with such hazards is known as environmental racism, the concentration of “disadvantaged populations in substandard housing and compromised communities, where hazardous exposures are much more likely” (NIH). Those with the least social power are more liable to live in sub-standard housing or lose housing altogether. They are the most exposed to toxins, pollutants, housing-related violence, and death (The Conversation).

As sea temperatures rise, hurricanes like Ida will only appear more frequently and intensely (ABC News). The unconscionable expiration of federal unemployment benefits will only increase the number of people living in substandard housing, in their cars, or on the streets (NPR). And the United States is one of a handful of countries that hasn’t acknowledged housing as a human right by ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (United Nations). It will take community power and collective resistance to fight for both housing and environmental justice — and make sure the tragedies of Ida are not repeated.

Groups are taking action for this purpose all across the country. Make the Road New York is organizing tenant power against environmental racism (Make the Road). In Boston, Dorchester Not for Sale (Facebook) is drawing connections between environmental justice and anti-gentrification fights (EHN), as are the 90 member organizations of the Right to the City Alliance (Right to the City). Housing inequality holds members of oppressed and marginalized communities back from the joyful, healthy, and secure lives we should all demand for ourselves and those around us. To survive disasters and crises, we need to build flourishing, equitable communities that can safely shelter us all.

Written by Andrew Lee (he/him)

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Almost all of the fatalities from Hurricane Ida in NYC were in basement apartments.
Poor communities and communities of color are at greater risk from natural disasters in part due to substandard housing.
We can make sure all the members of our communities survive natural disasters by fighting for housing and environmental justice.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/26/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/26/21

Promote agricultural education.

Agriculture is in full focus this year with people gaining awareness about how their foods are cultivated. As people across the country found themselves spending more time at home, home and community-based gardening started to rise (MLive). This trend is not limited to adults. It also includes the education provided for students. Agricultural education is a powerful component of racial equity that should be promoted for students across the country.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back. After months spent at home, many people discovered their green thumb, buying plants and starting gardens to bring the outside in. Today, Tiffany shares more about the importance of agricultural education to deepen our collective connection to the food systems and the earth.

Thank you to everyone that makes this work possible. If you want to support, give $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Donate $10 to Great Kids Farm, which supports agricultural programming for Baltimore City Public School Students.
Look at the Federation of Southern Cooperative’s work for Black farmers, landowners, and cooperatives doing agricultural education.
Watch Stephen Ritz’s TedxTalk about urban school farming, A Teacher Growing Green in South Bronx.
Support Urban Creators (Instagram), the group that runs Life Do Grow Farm in Philadelphia.

GET EDUCATED

By Tiffany Onyejiaka (she/her)

This trend is not limited to adults. It also includes the education provided for students. Agricultural education is a powerful component of racial equity that should be promoted for students across the country.

The Federation of Southern Cooperatives’ Darnella Winston told Anti-Racism Daily that “[many people] don't see the other side [of farming], or the beauty of being able to grow what it is that you want to eat, to be able to sell it at a price that you want, to be able to sell it regardless of market expectations.”

The Baltimore City School System operates Great Kids Farms as part of their school curriculum (Great Kids Farm). Miami-Dade County has a Food Forests for Schools program that helps students plant and maintain edible gardens on school grounds (Education Fund). The Green Bronx Machine is a school-based curriculum to teach students how to grow vegetables in their schools and communities (Green Bronx Machine).

Agriculture education is undertaken outside schools by groups like Urban Creators, a North Philadelphia organization started by youth organizers that operates the Life Do Grow Farm (Urban Creators).

At a basic level, agricultural education involves teaching students the science of growing and cultivating foods. Connecting students of color with this knowledge supports healthy communities today and begins to right historical wrongs.

There were 1 million Black American farmers in 1920 but only 45,000 in 2019 (The Guardian). In 2012, less than 60,000 Indigenous Americans worked as farmers (Census of Agriculture), a steep decrease for communities in part historically focused on sustainable agriculture.

Some of this decline can be attributed to negative modern ideas about agriculture, particularly in communities of color with histories of forced farming. Teaching young children of color farming helps them to connect with history that has been systematically stripped away over many years. Many food trends of today emerged only 50 years ago. It’s important for children to learn that while you can get an apple from a supermarket, you can also grow one like many of their ancestors did.

Agricultural education also helps low-income communities of color access healthy food. In the mid-twentieth century, supermarkets became the predominant way for Americans to buy food (Washington Post). Their rise largely bypassed low-income communities and communities of color (CNN). Even in neighborhoods with similar levels of poverty, communities with more Black and Latinx people have fewer supermarkets and less healthy food offerings (Johns Hopkins). When grocery stores do come to low-income Black and Latinx neighborhoods, the relatively high cost of healthy produce still keeps families buying lower quality options (The Counter).

“It's not so much that we want to [just] teach about agriculture, but we want everybody to see and understand and feel the ways that food and agriculture and land are tied into every part of who we are and what we do and how we learn,” Laura Menyuk, Farm to School education specialist at Baltimore City Public Schools, told Anti-Racism Daily.

“And no matter their culture and heritage and family background, if [kids] live in the United States, they are part of a society that has forced a disconnection with land and food in large part upon us by how our food system operates.”

Less healthy food translates to worse health. Black, Indigenous, and Latinx youth have a significantly higher prevalence of chronic conditions due in part to food inequality (NIH). Food injustice denies children of color the right to develop physically and mentally in the healthiest way they can. It’s a particularly insidious form of systemic oppression.

This is why teaching students about agriculture and how to grow healthy foods such an important aspect of undoing deep-seated racial discrimination. Teaching children of color about growing foods teaches children that they can be part of solutions to food injustice.

Key Takeaways

Unequal access to healthy foods impedes the health of children of color.
Agricultural education teaches children how to grow healthy foods that many cannot afford to access in supermarkets.
Schools and community organizations are creating programs to help students reconnect with farming and food production.

RELATED ISSUES

12/23/2020 | Combat food deserts.

11/23/2020 | Fight food insecurity.

3/2/2021 | Advocate for clean water.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 4/27/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/27/21

Quannah ChasingHorse on Generational Change

Welcome to Day Six of our Earth Week series!

I'm incredibly inspired by how Quannah leads. For today's conversation, we interviewed this 18-year-old land protector on how the climate crisis is impacting Alaska, particularly Indigenous communities protecting their lands.

This is a free, educational newsletter powered by our community. Support our work: share the series this with a friend or donate $8 to keep our work sustainable.

Nicole and Sydney

Take Action

Donate to the Indigenous Environmental Network, an alliance of grassroots Indigenous Peoples whose mission is to protect the sacredness of Mother Earth.

In Conversation

What’s your earliest memory of getting involved in climate justice?

Well, I grew up out on the land: hunting, fishing, dog mushing, living my way of life. And I noticed little changes in the weather and environment. My mom would explain to me what was happening. I grew up in the movement; my mom and my aunties are all engaged in local organizations and steering committees.

Every time they would come over. I would always sit at the table and listen to them talk about whatever's going on, learning as I grew. They showed me their power through their advocacy work. Seeing that allowed me to become that as well.

The first action I took was when I was in seventh grade. In our school district here in Fairbanks, Alaska, they were having a public meeting to decide whether to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. I was the only person that showed up and advocated for it. An elder listening to it on the radio heard and came in halfway to back me up.

I was grateful for that. Being a little seventh grader sitting in front of all of these – to me at the time – big, important people were very intimidating. All of them were non-native, and I didn't think they would understand. I remember just walking in there and speaking from my heart. They ended up changing it. I was really proud because if I didn't show up that day, it would have never happened.

That's powerful. One of the things I wanted to ask you is specifically about your work in Alaska. What is the urgency of protecting your lands in Alaska?

Yeah. So I did a lot of work over the last two years with Trump in office, trying to drill in our sacred lands in the Arctic Refuge. I was rallying against that, and emphasizing how it significantly contributes to climate change here in Alaska.

The climate crisis is affecting Alaska at twice the rate of anywhere else. It's kind of crazy that not a lot of people know about that. It feels the focus is on other threats in the mainland U.S. But it’s the same, except worse, here in Alaska. We get fires every summer that burn down villages. Our fish tank almost got burned down this year.

Also, the ground is mostly permafrost, especially on the coast. Because of climate change, many of the villages and communities along the coast are collapsing into the ocean, and the water is rising, which is making these people who lived there for generations leave their ancestral homes. It’s dangerous.

Back when I was ten years old, we would get about 60 fish a day in our net or fish wheel. Now we only get, like, eight, and half of them aren't good to eat because of how toxic the waters have become due to the oil and gas development up North, and the mining. Both are centered in areas where our fish lay eggs. So a lot is happening here. And it's really frustrating because we get it just as bad if not worse, but nobody talks about it.

So that’s why I push for advocacy. I think sometimes I’m a rude awakening because not many people accept the fact that the climate crisis affects our way of life and our future generations. I’m afraid that our future generations won’t get the opportunity to learn hands-on, just from books and pictures. That’s what I fear.

Can you expand on that a little bit?

Yeah. My grandma tried her best to raise my mom and my uncle out on the land. My mom grew up on the trapline – dog mushing and hunting, fishing, living in relationship with the land. And my mom wanted that for us. She wanted us to learn and be exposed to that. So that’s all we know. When we came to the city, we hardly even knew what chips were. We felt so thankful for stuff. And it puts it in perspective for me because I think about what my ancestors went through – even two or three generations ago – and how much they endured. I’m so lucky to be here today.

In the future, I fear that we will still be here, but we won’t get to practice our ways of life if we keep continuing on this path, and the government doesn’t allow Indigenous people to protect our land as we have for millennia. 80% of the world's biodiversity is protected by Indigenous people from all over the world. We need society to recognize that and let Indigenous people be a part of these conversations and sit at the table that makes those decisions. That’s why everyone was so excited about Deb Haaland being appointed as secretary. I remember waking up and hearing that news and feeling so relieved and hopeful. It felt like I could relax a little bit more. We have someone on our side now.

When we talk about future generations, I always say that I want my kids and my grandchildren to be able to hunt and go out on the land and feel as connected and as delighted as I do when I go out on the land. It's a way of coping and healing for me. When you're out there, I realize and recognize that this is where my people are from. This is where we have been for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. And we’re still here.

You mentioned the intersection of environmental racism or environmental justice and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic. Can you tell me more about that, and how it influences your work?

Yeah, environmental racism is definitely a big thing. Not a lot of people believe or understand it. But it really bugs me. My aunt was a victim of MMIW. She was killed out on the street. I can't imagine that being my daughter. It was already such a loss to me. That was my auntie, someone that I grew up with, someone that taught me how to bead. It’s sad that she became a victim of that.

But a lot of these camps that were built for building pipelines, or for the oil and gas industry, are located on our sacred lands. This is happening everywhere; the Dakotas, the Amazon, and here in Alaska. They always choose these areas because they don't want the people who profit from the extraction to suffer from its adverse effects. Indigenous people are the least to contribute to these things but feel the impact of it twice more than anyone else. We are the ones that are the frontline. These are our communities that they are in. This is the land that they're stealing. This is who they're stealing from.

This colonization allows for the mistreatment of the people here, too. And it breaks my heart because I'm afraid for my friends and their families. I feel like even in the cities, you can't go outside. I never go anywhere alone, ever.

Yeah. There's so much already being taken from the land, and then that added level of robbing people the right of feeling safe even to be outside. It’s awful. What have you learned most on your journey? Do you use the word activist for yourself?

I don’t *laughs*. Anyone can be an activist for anything, and I love it! Because if you're passionate about something, be an advocate for it, go for it. But for me, it's a little bit deeper. It's literally about my way of life, about my people,and about my future generations. This is who I am, in my identity as an Indigenous person, and how much we've already lost. That's why I say climate warrior, land protector, and storyteller.

I've learned a lot. Growing up, my mom always reminded me to “never forget who you are and where you come from,” and I stand by that. As I become part of this movement more and more, I realize how easy it is to get lost in it. It can be traumatizing because I’m constantly discussing how hurt people are because of this system. And people are often so unaware about the pain we’re experiencing, sometimes the pain they’re causing.

I grew up wanting to be a model, but I never saw an Indigenous model in a magazine or hardly in movies unless they were in a Western movie way back when. It felt bizarre because I saw everyone else except myself. That's when you start forgetting who you are. Society is changing to be more inclusive and diverse. We're starting to see more and more Indigenous people being uplifted. But it’s going to take time.

And through it, you have to be okay with yourself. I’ve learned that you can’t ignore how you’re feeling. I’m starting to open up more about my experience with mental health. I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depressive disorder last year, but I've been struggling with it since elementary school and just never talked about it. I never felt like my feelings were valid. And so that's why I always constantly remind myself, “never forget who you are and where you come from,” because it reminds me how lucky I am even to be here.

Yeah, absolutely. What is bringing you joy right now?

I love hot Cheetos and pickles. I don't know. It's kind of a res girl thing.

Together, at the same time? I’ve never tried this!

Separate or together, either way. It's so good. I eat it all the time. It's probably not very healthy *laughs*. I’ve also been resting a lot more than usual, and I think it's because I was burning myself out for a little bit. I'm trying to get into a healthier schedule, so I don't overwork myself. I've been snowboarding, so that’s what’s been making me happy lately.

About Quannah

Quannah ChasingHorse, age 18, is from the Han Gwich’in and Oglala Lakota tribes and lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. She is an Indigenous land protector for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, protecting those sacred lands from oil development and fighting for climate justice. Quannah’s deep connection to the lands and her people’s way of life guides and informs everything she does and stands for. Quannah sits on the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) Climate Justice Task Force, which was created as a result of a climate emergency resolution she and her friends wrote and passed at the AFN Annual Conference in 2019. She is passionate about Indigenous rights, MMIWG, and representation. She is an avid snowboarder, guitar player, and is apprenticing as a traditional Indigenous tattoo artist. Quannah was honored to make the 2020 list of Teen Vogue’s “Top 21 under 21.” She is an IMG Fashion Model and Actress.

Reflection Questions

What do you hope your future generations can experience during their time on the planet?
What do you know about your ancestors, and their relationship to the land? How may their experiences differ from your relationship to the land today?

View all Interviews

4/26/2021 | Anya Dillard on Effective Organizing

4/25/2021 | Jana Jandal Alrifai on Intersectional Change

4/24/2021 | Alexis Saenz and Community Care

4/23/2021 | Daphne Frias and Disability Justice

4/22/2021 | Mohammad Ahmadi on Environmental Activism

Nicole Cardoza 4/26/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/26/21

Anya Dillard on Effective Organizing

Welcome to Day Five of our Earth Week series!

Today we're featuring Sydney's interview with Anya Dillard, a 17-year-old activist, philanthropist, content creator, and the founder of The Next Gen Come Up. I loved reading the energy and passion in their conversation.

This is a free, educational newsletter powered by our community. Support our work: share the series this with a friend or donate $8 to keep our work sustainable.

Nicole

Take Action

Support Outdoor Afro, an organization that celebrates and inspires black connections and leadership in nature. Just last year, Outdoor Afro organized its first-ever Black expedition team and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Donate to WeGotNext, which amplifies individual stories of adventure and activism from communities that have been underrepresented in outdoor and environmental spaces.

In Conversation

What do you define as environmental justice and how did you get involved in the movement?

Before I became an activist, I was really into STEM and I was an animal nerd, so I grew up believing that I wanted to become a scientist, environmentalist, zoologist, or something of that nature. When I discovered that racism was such a huge issue in our country, I pivoted into humanities and journalism. The first protest I ever organized was the climate strike at my high school; I organized the walkout and it served as an easy bridge to environmental justice because I understood the whole mission behind the climate change awareness movement. At this same time, I was also dedicated to initializing my Black Lives Matter advocacy and still trying to get an understanding of who I was as a Black Lives Matter and women’s empowerment activist. That event had a lot to do with me just trying to find a middle ground. It was so early in my academic journey that I figured I can just jump in and offer my knowledge. With that being said, my STEM focus growing up helped me to understand the importance of climate change advocacy and that there are many racial and social factors that determine how people are affected by climate change.

You mentioned the climate strike that you organized through your school. Would you say that your education played a role in your environmental advocacy? I know that it isn’t very common for schools to talk about topics like environmental racism and environmental justice.

I didn't start learning about environmental sciences in the sense of race until this year. Before, we would just learn about pollution and whatever, but we never got into that social dynamic. That I saw through reading the newspaper every other day or watching television and being self-educated. When I organized the climate strike, it was very spur of the moment. It was the day of the national climate strike where a bunch of people at schools and universities were walking out of their classes, so I was like “oh, my town is really diverse and my high school doesn’t play about social stuff, so they must be doing something". I get to lunch and I’m like…what’s going on? Everyone was like “we’re not doing anything. There’s no walkout”, so I just walked out with a megaphone running around saying “we’re walking out for the climate strike”. I managed to get a couple hundred people to come out, but still… it boggles my mind that a school as politically and socially aware as mine wasn’t prioritizing climate change awareness. It was also crazy because I was the only main organizer that was a Black girl and I was also the only person who got detention for that protest. But, I just showed up and was like, I’ll take the detention and take one for the team.

When I was out there on the field giving a speech to the kids that were coming out, I said “two years ago, my freshman year, we had a massive March for Our Lives protest after the Parkland shooting and every single one of us came and sat on this field in the cold winter for it because we knew that it could directly affect us at any point in time.” With climate change, people have this idea where it’s like, “Oh, well we’re not seeing the immediate impact… We’re living in the suburbs, so it’s not like we have to deal with anything that’s directly a cause of climate change or pollution.” So they’re like, “Oh yeah it’s a problem, but … we’re good so we’re not going to immediately act on it”. This is the same thing with police brutality; a lot of the Black community can become victims of police brutality at any given time on any given day, but climate change does not pose an imminent threat to us in our mind because it’s like… “Ok, well evolution took a long time, erosion takes a long time, pollution and water contamination take a long time, so regardless of whether one of our family members just spontaneously ends up with cancer or we start wheezing one day and our doctor says “Oh yeah you have asthma”, we don’t even directly correlate that with the fact that we could be living in a polluted community. I definitely think that my education did not necessarily gear me toward environmental awareness, but it gave me a better idea of why there needs to be more attention drawn towards it.

So where do you think that education can start? In the classroom, do you believe that there should be courses on environmental issues, or do you think it’s just a matter of dedicating a month around Earth Day to special education about climate change? In other words, what do you see environmentalist education looking like?

There are so many things that I didn't learn in my freshman through junior year of high school that I learned in my senior year and I’m like, why aren’t these classes mandatory? Environmental science is something that I’m taking now. We just finished talking about urbanization and how certain communities of color are commonly built around contaminated waste sites. We also studied how some communities don’t trust the census. Because of that, the government doesn’t allocate enough resources to these communities I feel that education starts with mandating those kinds of discussion courses that rely on sharing information about how certain industries profit off of spilling waste into impoverished communities.

I definitely think there should be more classes that everyone is forced to take. They don’t have to be rigorous classes; they could just be discussion classes where you cover one topic a day but still make sure that young people are aware that these problems aren’t going away. If anything, these problems are worsening.

I like your emphasis on how important it is for the youth to get involved in environmental justice. What do you think would have been beneficial for older generations to do in terms of environmental justice? Do you think that we can make up for some of the mistakes they made, or do you think that some of the damage is irreversible?

I think that a huge part of making up for the mistakes that past generations made is understanding that there is a knowledge gap. That gap in knowledge is something that adults like to fight Gen-Zers on because they’re like “well, y’all are young and you don’t know anything about life, so how can you teach us anything?” That’s a dangerous, ignorant perspective to have, because if you can't learn something from another age group— especially when it comes to maintaining the health of our planet— then you’re not realizing that there are things that we noticed you didn't do that you didn't even notice you weren't doing to make change. There are things that go back ages… even the fact that race trumps class in the whole environmental scenario. You could be a middle-class Black person living in a good neighborhood making a substantial salary and you’re stillmore likely to be affected by a pollutant waste site than a white person who makes significantly less money than you. For us to be able to pick apart these problems and reconstruct solutions, we have to admit “Ok, we didn't do this, but how can we help y’all get it done or fix whatever happened because of the fact that we didn't get whatever done”.

So what do you think are some of the steps youth can take to get involved in environmental justice? What do you advise them to do in terms of education themselves and taking action?

There are so many great climate activists out there who are dedicated to going green or encouraging people to support causes like clean water and other great initiatives. There’s Little Miss Flint (Amariyanna Copeny), Ron Finley, and Leah Thomas; I personally follow them for knowledge and inspiration. I definitely think that young people should stay educated by following people like that, reading the news, and by googling “what’s happening to the environment? What can I do to donate? What causes are there? What initiatives can I start?” Even just making it a family tradition of planting a tree somewhere every year or encouraging your school to have a beautification day where you go out and raise a bunch of money to buy more flora for your campus are simple activities that can motivate you to be more aware of the environment and encourage other people to look at environmental justice and environmental racism as issues that need to be talked about today.

What was your earliest memory of environmental justice? It can either be something you did or something that someone else did that stood out to you.

My oldest memory is one time I went to New York with my dad when I was really little. He used to drive me up to see my grandma every weekend in Manhattan. We were driving and I remember seeing this factory with smoke coming out of big pillars. I said to him, “that looks nasty. It looks like really dirty air.” And he was like “yeah, dirt and soot get in the air after they manufacture certain things and a lot of that gets put back into the sky”. And I said to him, “well, we're going towards it… people live there and there are apartments there.” When I heard dirty air, I was thinking “then why is anyone surrounding this; that isn’t healthy”. He explained that a lot of the time— because of low-income housing costs and how the government chooses to allocate resources— a lot of low-income housing is built around these places that the government doesn’t want to get rid of. Because of that, a lot of people do get sick. I remember him explaining that to me, and I knew it didn't sound right. Obviously, as a child, you don’t understand the concept of racism and that some people just genuinely don't care about other groups of people’s wellbeing. In this day and age, we see that with not just air, but water pollution as well.

Flint, Michigan is a textbook example of environmental injustice and environmental racism. There were hundreds of thousands of people that were drinking lead-poisoned water just because the government wanted to save some money. That’s insane to me. Just like how riverside towns in Louisiana and Detroit are constantly being compromised by big oil companies dumping all this waste in rivers and stuff like that. We see it every day, yet people choose to ignore them because they predominantly affect communities of color. Because people of color don’t have as much political influence, it’s easy for regulators, politicians, and administrators in these towns to ignore how these issues are affecting us— especially when it’s saving money for whoever the beneficiaries are.

How has your idea of advocacy changed over time?

Before I knew what activism was, I thought that advocates were politicians, but I learned that those are two extremely different things. True advocates are people that don't care about semantics. They don't really care about perception or optics. All they care about is bringing people to the table to address whatever the issue at hand is. There's an art to being a politician. To be a politician in spirit is to be a campaign. You campaign and you say what you want people to receive in a positive light. Advocates who become politicians are the best politicians because being both of those things is what separates good leaders from power hungry people in the government. Learning that was one of the cornerstones of me understanding the differences between politics and advocacy and how they can both support one another.

What’s something you’ve learned on your environmental justice journey that you want readers to take away from this conversation?

I would say that racism and climate change have a lot in common. People love to debate both of their existences, people love to say how either does or doesn’t affect one group, when in reality it affects everyone in the long term. It’s interesting to think about it this way because when we think about racism, we think we’ll be good after we fix our law enforcement system and initiate a reparation system. But in reality, there are a lot of trickle-down effects of racism, and at least one of those falls under the umbrella of environmental change.

I encourage young people to always find these intersections between social issues. Because regardless of what social issue you're passionate about, there are about 10 other causes that are affected by it. Understanding what's really wrong in society has a lot to do with acknowledging that no issue or group of people is individual. We have to be diligent about how things that we disregard everyday are affecting people across the aisle, even when those people may not share our same experience.

What does the future of your environmental justice look like? What are your next steps of advocacy?

I really want to pursue the creative side of my talents and become an advocate to raise awareness for humanistic causes. The creative leg of my brain was founded on things like writing and film— especially when it comes to documentation. In the future, I want to produce documentaries that raise awareness about how anti-environmentalist industries affect indigenous communities and how certain things trickle down to Black communities. I especially want to explore how certain southern communities heavily saturated with Black and latino people have a lack of holistic health resources and how it heightens the level of health issues within our communities.

My mom has always said that I don’t have to completely abandon environmental science just because I want to be creative; there are a lot of things I can do to utilize my creativity to raise awareness about the issues I’m passionate about. I want to continue fundraising, having conversations like this with different media forms, and helping to spread knowledge surrounding environmental racism.

About Anya

Anya Dillard is a 17-year-old activist, philanthropist, content creator, and the founder of The Next Gen Come Up − an organization that encourages youth to pursue activism, explore community service, and raise awareness through creativity. Anya is best known for helping to organize the largest Black Lives Matter protest and the first-ever public Juneteenth celebration in her town's history, becoming the head of her schools first-ever all-female (all POC) student council cabinet, and for her features in The Washington Post, Elle, Seventeen, and Glamour for her extensive activism and philanthropist work. Anya has been a keynote speaker on forums hosted by Howard University, The Clinton Foundation, and the Conversationalist to name a few, and she has also served as a youth mentor for middle school and high school students in classrooms across the nation and in London.

Reflection Questions

What does the word "community" mean to you?
How has the fear of "doing the wrong thing" influenced how you support the social justice movements you care about? What may be a more helpful emotion to lead from?

View all Interviews

4/25/2021 | Jana Jandal Alrifai on Intersectional Change

4/24/2021 | Alexis Saenz and Community Care

4/23/2021 | Daphne Frias and Disability Justice

4/22/2021 | Mohammad Ahmadi on Environmental Activism

Nicole Cardoza 4/25/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/25/21

Jana Jandal Alrifai on Intersectional Change

Welcome to Day Four of our Earth Week series!

For today's analysis of environmental justice, I interviewed Jana Jandal Alrifai, an 18-year-old Arab-Canadian youth organizer with Climate Strike Canada and a co-founder of Fridays For Future Windsor-Essex. Her work inspired me for its clarity – that the only way we get through this is together.

This is a free, educational newsletter powered by our community. Support our work: share the series this with a friend or donate $8 to keep our work sustainable.

Nicole and Sydney

Take Action

Sign the petition advocating for No More Empty Summits, urging the Biden administration to take more action to address climate change. Learn more about the campaign here.

In Conversation

What’s the earliest memory that you have of getting into this work?

I started doing this work around March of last year. It would go to calls and whatnot before then, but I feel like I haven't accomplished anything until September this past year, which is when we hosted a teach-in about just recovery with Climate Strike Canada.

Tell me a little bit about putting that together. What was the process, and what were some of the biggest challenges that you experienced?

Oh, so many challenges. A big one is that we are all such busy people with such limited capacity. You have to make sure that you're taking care of yourself, but you also have other people taking care of themselves. Then, try to match the output that you said that you would give. When I started our local group, I had to be sure that it sustained itself, which meant I had to leave some responsibilities to other people. That’s kind of what makes a community a community, because you all learn to juggle the same things together. So capacity is a challenge, and making sure that we all have capacity, which doesn't often happen.

It doesn't often happen. I love that you say that because I think people tend to sacrifice their well-being for this work.

Yeah. Giving all of yourself actually isn't productive or impactful. In fact, they want you to not do good and not be caring of yourself. It’s an act of resistance to do so.

Absolutely. When I was preparing for this conversation, I came across an article where you talked about the relationship between sustainability and faith. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about that.

To me, the idea of sustainability comes from taking care of something that will take care of you. I'm a Muslim, and I'm also Arab. We have this general understanding that things are finite. Life is finite. So you have to make sure that you use it well. Not just in terms of, like, “I'm going to use this one chair until I really can't.” It’s also “I'm going to take care of myself, and I'm going to use my finite time wisely”. That is both self-care and doing something worthwhile with your life. And that could look like anything: not just action, but anything that is worthwhile to you.

How has your idea of advocacy changed over time? How has your idea about showing up as a leader in the space evolved since you started last year?

For a very long time, I believed in being nice, diplomacy, and talking to people. But sometimes, talking just isn't going to cut it because it can go in one ear and right out the other. The belief that there’s a “middle ground” is not accurate and doesn’t accomplish anything. So I’ve moved away from that idea into more tangible actions with concrete demands that go with it.

Love it. What are your plans for Earth Day this year?

Well, my local group is planning a little action for our municipality. Generally, a lot of people associate Earth Day with just individual action like, “I am going to take a walk instead of getting in the car,” which shouldn’t be what we focus on. We should recognize that the Earth is beautiful and that we should keep it that way, but we also need to protect it.

Individual action over time will not solve the crisis in any way, shape, or form. So I want to push the idea that this Earth day, what you will be doing is demanding action from your representatives and lawmakers. Because at the end of the day, we shouldn't just celebrate. We should also fight.

Absolutely. What do you wish more people knew about the scope of the climate crisis?

Recovery and climate justice can’t just be practiced from a sustainability point of view, but by rebuilding the systems that have caused climate change to happen. We don't just need to reverse climate change and the climate crisis. We need to make sure that it doesn't happen again. We have to tackle environmental racism, that everyone is not equally impacted by climate change, and that BIPOC communities often have factories and machinery located in their neighborhoods, affecting their health. Their neighborhoods are more likely to flood. Economically, when things get more expensive, which they will because we are running out of the finite sources we’ve placed our economy upon, they will be the people most affected.

So climate justice is the most essential thing that we can do to help the climate and the climate crisis. This is not just an Earth issue. This is a systemic issue. This is an everything issue. In the global North, where I am located, we use a lot of carbon for our GDP, and we're not people who are affected by it. That’s the Global South. Here, we are pushing for a just transition and a just recovery, which is an idea that originally came from labor unions but has been adapted into a framework that we could use to fix the climate crisis.

And in a similar vein, what do you hope Earth Day looks like for the next generation, you know, for the next group of people that are – you're 18, right?

I am, yeah. *Laughs*.

So 18 years from now.

Well, let's see if that happens. Let's see if there are other 18-year-olds because by the rate things are going right now, I doubt that they will have an Earth – at least a beautiful one like we see today and that people before us have seen. I hope that whatever that day looks like, they’re talking about climate action but also realizing “look what we have saved.” I hope they have the chance to be more appreciative rather than feeling forced to go on the defense.

What advice do you have for people interested in getting involved in climate justice work?

I think there are two things that you need to think about. First: what you can do, what your talent is, what you have the ability to do. Are you an artist? Use your art! Are you a writer? Use your words. Are you a good speaker? Use that. Also, what organizations do you want to be involved in, and at what capacity? Because there are, you know, climate organizations that I wouldn't be a part of because our values don't match up. Not because their values are bad or my values are bad. They're just not the same. So think about how your values fit in with organizations you want to get involved in.

It's totally okay to show up to a strike instead of organizing the strike. It is okay to be a supporter rather than an organizer. But if you really want to get started, just do it. You can search for “climate justice” or “environmental justice” organizations in your city, like “climate justice Toronto”.

If there isn’t one nearby, message one group that you think is great and state that you want to help them. They’re all nice people and they’re willing to help you. I think it just takes the leap of faith. Trust that you have the ability to do what you want to do, and trust that there will be people that will help you.

I think a lot of people are afraid of doing the wrong thing, so they do nothing.

Yeah. To be fair, the world isn't black and white, it's, like, grey *laughs*. There are a lot of different spectrums, and you will never be a hundred percent, right. You will never do something a hundred percent wrong, either. There's always that spot in between. Just keep that constant desire to change and be better. None of us started with infinite knowledge, and none of us will ever die with infinite knowledge. We just have to continue pursuing it. You did something wrong. Great. Go make it better.

Hmm. I love that. Thank you. What have you learned most on this journey?

I really like this idea of community and what it means. For a very long time, I associated the word community with things I'm born into, like my Muslim community, my Arab community, and the people I live around, but community is much more than that. When you say community building and Grassroots community organizers, it means that we will all help each other out because we all have something to gain out of this.

I’ve learned tactical things, too, like how to talk to the media, how to make an image ID, schedule meetings, make agendas, things like that. But it’s brought me more affinity and passion with the human experience and fighting for it to continue to survive. That’s the community. We’re in this together in different ways, but, at the end of the day, we find a way to work together with each other as organizers and as people, you know?

What is bringing you joy right now?

The community and mobilization that I have seen in many areas that are demanding justice, especially climate justice, has been giving me a lot of joy and hope. Looking at how much we have been able to accomplish and the community and friendships we have built while doing so have given me a lot of joy. Resistance is joy and joy is resistance.

About Jana

Jana Jandal Alrifai is an 18-year-old Arab-Canadian youth organizer with Climate Strike Canada and a co-founder of Fridays For Future Windsor-Essex.

Reflection Questions

What does the word "community" mean to you?
How has the fear of "doing the wrong thing" influenced how you support the social justice movements you care about? What may be a more helpful emotion to lead from?

Nicole Cardoza 4/24/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/24/21

Alexis Saenz and Community Care

Welcome to Day Three of our Earth Week series!

It was such a gift to spend time with Alexis and learn more about her work. She reminded me how important it is to live this work – not just see it as a list of action items to check off of a list. She is intentional with how she nurtures the work of youth in her community, and how she centers her elders in everything she does.

This is a free, educational newsletter powered by our community. Support our work: share the series this with a friend or donate $8 to keep our work sustainable.

Nicole and Sydney

Take Action

Donate to Protect Puvungna, a sacred site of the Acjachemen and Tongva people where dirt and debris from a construction site was dumped carelessly.
Learn more about the International Indigenous Youth Council and research to see if there's a chapter near you.

In Conversation

My name is Alexis Saenz. I go by Lex, she/they pronouns. I'm originally from the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute territory of Denver, Colorado, and now reside in Tongva territory of Los Angeles. I am a community organizer, activist, professional dancer, actress, artist, filmmaker. I'm also a dance teacher and a Pilates instructor. I'm 29 years old.

I’m really inspired by the work of IIYC in Los Angeles. Can you tell me a bit more about how it started and what you’re working on now?

I started organizing the International Indigenous Youth Council Los Angeles chapter back in 2017. IIYC began during the Standing Rock movement to protect the Cannonball and Missouri rivers in North Dakota. My sibling was one of the founding members and lived there for a few months. The first action for IIYC LA was a Round Dance, a traditional Native American dance for unity. We did that to raise awareness of DAPL. In 2019, for Native American Heritage Month, I did an event, and we ended up getting a lot of youth interested in being a part of the council, which was amazing.

Our mission is to protect land and water, and to help Indigenous youth become leaders of their communities. We are the International Indigenous Youth Council, which means we include Indigenous people from everywhere, from Mexico, from Panama, from Guatemala, all over. And the goal is to eventually have IIYC chapters across Unči Maka, Mother Earth. Initially, we were focused on frontline non-violent direct action. That's how we started at Standing Rock. Civic engagement is definitely a part of our roots.

In 2019, we got a lot of opportunities to speak and talk at marches and all this stuff, but it felt very tokenizing. We wanted to do something ourselves and demonstrate how important it is to include the first stewards of the land.

We started 2020 with a Four Directions Climate Strike with our Tongva relatives because this is their territory, and we are guests on their land. We also wanted to introduce ourselves to the four directions and let Unči Maka, Mother Earth know what we're doing here and how we want to help. We referenced which climate crisis is happening in each direction because it's different, depending on which area you’re in. If you're in West Los Angeles, you're close to the ocean. That’s very different from East Los Angeles, and South Central, and North Hollywood. We did a month of action and strikes every Friday. We presented demands that were specific to each direction. We also invited other BIPOC organizations to join us and speak from those areas.

For the 50th anniversary of Earth Week last year, we collaborated with a bunch of different organizations across Los Angeles to do an entire Earth Week led by Indigenous folks. Each day had some sort of ceremony tied to it. The entire event had to be moved online because of the pandemic. And then the racial reckoning started. We really wanted to be there for our community and our Black relatives, so we teamed up with Black Lives Matter Youth Vanguard Los Angeles and Students Deserve, who have been doing amazing work around policies with schools and the police. We also did an artivism event, blending art and activism, creating a community gathering for people to create art and connect with each other. A few months later, we did it again with Black Unity, a 24-hour action camp in front of city hall that got raided. We raised funds for the encampment and the folks that got raided. We also did a few smaller actions, like standing in solidarity with Wetʼsuwetʼen, a tribe up in Canada, by hosting an action at the Canadian consulate here in Los Angeles.

This year we’re focused on our foundation and our programming. We want to do more things for the community because what we've realized from last year, and even what's still happening today, is that we need more spaces to come together as a community and heal. We've been doing traditional talking circles, which in Indigenous beliefs is a way to foster healthy ways of communication and healing together. We do those once a month for different groups. We do a femme circle, a masculine circle, and a two-spirit, non-binary circle. We’re hoping to do more in the future – maybe a mixed-race circle, because lots of us are mixed, including me.

We're supporting the LA community fridge group by doing drop-offs and deliveries to different community fridges for our houseless relatives. We also launched our California Native Plant Program with our Chumash relative Nicholas Hummingbird to help people reconnect to the earth. One of my favorite Indigenous wellness advocates, Thosh Collins, always says that “the health of the people reflects the health of the earth and vice versa.” So if we're not healthy ourselves, the earth isn't healthy. We have to cultivate that reciprocal relationship.

I feel like the youngest generations are carrying a lot of the stress and anxiety of today. How else do you see healing become a part of how you organize?

We really want youth to understand that rest is resistance and that taking care of ourselves is taking care of each other. Because we are all related, everything is a relationship. Our relationship with ourselves is reflected in everything else. We want to remind youth that it starts with ourselves, and hopefully, they can work on their individual healing, which in turn heals the planet.

You can't be a leader if you're not leading by example. That's what we really try to practice. We’re practicing transparency and honesty, and conflict resolution in our spaces so everyone feels safe and included. All that work starts with us, and we want to make sure our youth have that understanding. Some of them do because they grew up in this way, but some are now reconnecting to their roots. We also invite our Black relatives, other POC relatives, and our white allies, even if it's not their cultural way or practice, to join in, too.

How has your idea of advocacy or activism changed over time?

I don't look at myself as a leader, even though people look at me that way. I've been taught that you don't decide that you’re a leader. Your community decides you’re a leader. What I've come to realize is that there's always work to be done, and we’re going to mess up at some point on this journey. I used to be so hard on myself, like, “Oh my God, I can't believe I said this.” But the biggest thing that I've learned that I hope folks take away is to hold ourselves accountable and give ourselves grace. That way, we can move forward.

I have so many more things that I need to work on and things that I need to continue to unlearn and relearn. Even when I think I've unlearned it, there's something that comes up that I need to unlearn again. And that's okay. Having that mindset of knowing that there's always space and room to grow is key because everything is constantly evolving and changing. We have to have the flexibility to move and change with it.

The biggest thing that I've learned is intention versus impact. I remember a few years ago, I was like, “it's all about intention.” As things have evolved for me, I'm like, “Oh, no, it is all about impact – and how you hold yourself accountable and move forward.”

What do you hope to leave behind for future generations?

I hope to leave an Earth that is healthy and can help future generations in whatever they want to do. We need to go back to that healing, reciprocal relationship with ourselves, the Earth, and the people around us. Everything we need is provided by Mother Earth. We don’t need to create new things and look outside of her for resources.

What do you recommend to other people interested in approaching climate justice in their community?

Look into making connections with Indigenous folks in your territories. Those are the first caretakers of this land. They should be at the forefront of the climate justice movement. Permission should be asked for, and there are certain protocols for different tribes. Do your research and understand whose land you’re on, and build a relationship with those people. Show up for them, because a lot of times they are forgotten about.

There are so many horrible things happening throughout California and throughout the entire Turtle Island, the so-called United States. People don't even know that lands are being taken from Indigenous folks to this day, sacred sites being dug up, all kinds of things. Help protect and save these sacred sites because it's all that some of our Indigenous relatives have left. It’s really hard for those tribes to continue without these sacred places that they grew up in.

I think that an insidious form of white supremacy is disconnecting ourselves from our elders.

Yeah. That's been lost for sure. People will ask us to speak at actions, and I always ask whether they’ve even talked to an Indigenous elder to see if they could hold that action on their territory. A lot of people do these grand initiatives without even consulting them. We make sure to center elders and youth. It doesn’t mean anyone in between doesn’t have the right to speak their minds. But we believe in the seven generations behind us and the seven generations in front of us, and we move in that way. We were once youth, and one day we’ll be elders.

There are four phases of life: infant, youth, young adult, and then an elder. Respecting those phases and where you are within them is really important. Elders and youth are more connected to the Creator. The elders have lived a long life, and they're growing closer to the Creator. And the youth, they just came from the Creator. Somewhere along the way, we get a little bit lost. Looking at those two phases of our life is going to help us remember. Before we are born, we know who our Creator is, where we come from, who we are, and what our medicine is. Once we're born into this life, we forget all of that. Our entire process of life is remembering what we’ve forgotten. That’s why it’s so critical to work with youth and the elders to guide us as we’re remembering.

That's powerful. Last question for you, what is bringing you joy right now?

What's bringing me joy right now is taking pauses and seeking silence, giving space for myself. I think that when we're a part of these movements, we forget just to pause. I have to remind myself to do that. And when I finally sit and pause, I'm just so grateful. It helps me center myself to figure out where do I move from here? Where do I go from here? What do I want to do? I don't get those moments a lot, but when I do get a moment, that's what brings me joy.

About Alexis

Alexis Saenz is a mixed raced womxn originally from the Cheyenne, Ute, Arapaho and Sioux Territories, known as Denver, Colorado and resides in Tongva, Chumash and Tataviam Territories, known as so called Los Angeles, CA. Saenz is Latinx, Indigenous and European, although she is not sure of her direct tribal nations, her great grandpa was from Juarez, Mexico and Grandma from New Mexico. Lex has been adopted into the Indigenous communities in the Diné and Oglala Lakota Sioux nations. She also organizes with the International Indigenous Youth Council LA Chapter as the chapter representative and volunteers for the EmBrase Foundation. Saenz, graduated from California Institute of the Arts with her Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Dance and Choreography. Alexis is Project Manager for March On Foundation. When she's not fighting for the Environmental, Racial and Social Justice movements, you can catch her teaching dance and pilates and pursuing a career in the entertainment industry as a dancer, filmmaker and actress. Alexis is very passionate about helping her community and people around the globe and hopes to continue this work to make the world a better place for us all. @lexxsaenz on Instagram.

Reflection Questions

What are your self-care practices? How do they help you be a better activist?
Who are the elders in your community that are advocating for environmental justice? How can you help amplify their voices?
Why is it so important to learn from our elders, and the youth? How may their perspectives differ from yours?

Nicole Cardoza 4/23/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/23/21

Daphne Frias and Disability Justice

Welcome to Day Two of our Earth Week series!

I absolutely loved chatting with Daphne, and was so inspired by her leadership. In today's discussion, you'll learn more about how necessary it is to center disabled voices in the climate justice movement, the harm of ableist environmental justice initiatives, and the power in trusting your voice.

This is a free, educational newsletter powered by our community. Support our work: share the series this with a friend or donate $8 to keep our work sustainable.

Nicole and Sydney

Take Action

Donate to Open Doors NYC, a network of artists, activists and advocates motivated by community building, gun violence prevention and disability rights.
Read more about the intersection of disability and environmental justice.

In Conversation

What was like the earliest time in your life that you remember getting involved in this work, your first memory, your first step in?

My first memory is from when I was in high school. I was becoming increasingly more ill and my disability was progressing. Each winter I would get pneumonia and eventually I was diagnosed with reactive airway disease. So, the pollution and the air quality around me impacted my health. During that time, I was part of a pre-professional program for young people interested in working in the healthcare field. That was the first time that I learned about public health. That program was centered in Washington Heights, New York City, which is a predominantly Hispanic, Black, and Brown community that has one of the highest levels of asthma amongst young people per capita. I actually did a research project about why this community has some of the highest rates of childhood asthma. And that's when I realized, wait, this is a climate crisis.

How did you gain the confidence of stepping into this and becoming a speaker and an organizer? What was that process like for you?

The beginning years of my work definitely stemmed from a lot of anger where I was like, “why doesn’t anyone care about the issues that are impacting us?” So I sent that anger into action. I was like, “I'm not going to wait anymore for someone to listen. I'm not going to beg our elected officials to listen. I'm going to make them listen to us”. So I started organizing within my community. It was hard, because many people in my community have that immigrant mentality, which is like, “you don't want to get noticed, you should just be grateful for what you have. Even though there are things that are impacting you, you don't really do anything about it.” So I had to convince my community that their voices matter and that it's okay to speak up and be heard.

And I knew that I had the ability to change that dynamic. During elementary and middle school, I went to school with my peers. But for high school, I went to a predominantly white institution with a lot of access to resources. And I noticed that for the students there, speaking up was a very natural thing. They didn't even think twice about it. When something was wrong, they went to the principal and administration and did something about it. I realized, “if they’re doing that, I can do that too. And I can do that in my community. “

So in the summer of 2019, I ran to be part of the county committee of Assembly District 70, Election District 80 in West Harlem. We're the community advocates that bridge the gap between citizens and representatives. I won my election. I won my election through the power of community. I was the first disabled Latina person to ever hold this position. It showed me that community is unstoppable.

That’s incredible. Congratulations! Tell me more about the intersection of disability and environmental justice. How did we get to a place where environmental justice is so rooted in ableism?

In essence, I think it’s because society tries to teach us that the voices of disabled people don’t matter. I also think that ignoring the voices of disabled people makes it easy to create solutions for the climate crisis that society can say benefits everyone and makes people feel like heroes. But in reality, they ignore a large part of the population.

We face a two-fold challenge in creating equitable voices of disabled people in the climate movement. First, we have to let people know that we exist. Once we get past that hurdle, then we can express that we’re also facing some of the biggest impacts of the climate crisis. This complexity makes it incredibly difficult for our voices to be heard. There’s so much that gets missed: like how natural disasters disproportionately affect us, and how we’re forgotten about in evacuation planning.

The climate crisis also exacerbates disability. We have communities that face issues like heat intolerance and communities that face weakened respiratory systems like myself. The changes in the seasons and air quality can aggravate disabilities and even cause more, growing the disability community.

Also, there's a habit of villainizing disability within the climate movement when we look at things like the movement to ban plastic straws.

*Groan*

First of all, if you think that the fate of our earth rests on using straws or not, you're missing the whole thing. You're missing everything. Secondly, to villainize people with disabilities is to completely erase the accommodations and the needs that we require to survive. The things that we're asking for aren’t luxuries. They’re essential for our survival.

Also, when we talk about villainizing people with disabilities for how much plastic we use. Well, we didn't create the healthcare system. When people require feeding tubes and ports, we need those things to be sterile. And unfortunately, that means that those things are going to be single-use items. We don't control that. We’re literally just trying to survive. So villainizing those things is incredibly ableist and it misses the entire point of environmental justice.

Exactly: if we’re trying to save the planet and its people but villainize part of the population in the process, we’re doing the opposite of environmental justice work.

Yeah. It fosters otherness. But by othering people, we create a polarization because, at the end of the day, we are all one human race, living on one planet. We all have to work together to make sure that this one home we have survives.

The systems that be, and the systems of oppression that have led us to experience ableism are the same systems of oppression that created the climate crisis. So if you're trying to look at those issues in silos, you're doing something wrong because those issues are correlated. Disability justice is all justice, and all justice is disability justice.

I imagine this work can be draining. How do you resource yourself as you hold this space?

It's definitely hard because some of the conversations require me to bear the truth of my experience in order to get people to listen to me. That can be very emotionally tolling and exhausting. But I think it's incredibly important for expanding equity and justice within the disabled community. Also, the way I hold space is simply by demanding that space. I will be at these tables where these pivotal, global conversations are happening. I'm constantly seeing campaigns and things that don't include disabled voices. And I'm not afraid to call those people out. I think that we live in this weird society where we see things that are wrong, but we don't say anything because that's the status quo, and we're afraid of the backlash. But look, what does any of that backlash matter when, like, you don't have a planet? It literally makes no sense.

Thank you for that. What do you hope Earth Day looks like in 20 years?

I hope that in 20 years, Earth Day is a sort of birthday celebration for how clean and prosperous our Earth is, instead of how the Earth is dying. In 20 years if we don't do something, there will probably only be one-half of the Earth left, so I hope it’s a celebration of life. I hope that everyone has learned how to create a more symbiotic relationship with the earth instead of only taking from it.

Can you tell me a bit more about the organization you want us to support and why you chose it?

Yes! The organization is called Open Doors NYC. It’s an amazing nursing home nonprofit based on Roosevelt Island. Many of its inhabitants are people with disabilities, but specifically survivors of gun violence. They use spoken word to talk about their experience and to dismantle the notion that just because you're disabled doesn't mean that your voice isn’t powerful. They're working on a film right now to talk about their experience of what it was like to be in a nursing home during the pandemic.

One of their members created the online hashtag #nursinghomelivesmater, which became a huge movement. And I think it encompasses so much of what I said, subverting the norms of systems of oppression and saying, “nope, we're here, we're loud, we're proud, and our stories matter.” They need as much support and help as possible.

Many people are going to be looking at this world and looking for ways to change it. What would be your advice?

First, you're never too young to get started. The status quo tells us many things about young people – that you have to wait to be a certain age to do X, Y, Z. That's completely irrelevant and completely false. You're ready when your spirit and your soul say that you're ready.

The best way to get started is by asking a question: what makes you tick? What makes you upset about the systems that be? What makes you upset about your community? Are there things you see in your community and your ecosystem that you can say to yourself “this could be better” or “it doesn't have to be this way”.

I promise that even if other people aren't speaking about it, they're feeling the same things that you're feeling. They're just waiting on one person to ask them how they feel – and that one person can be you. You can start a revolution. Words are the building blocks for revolutions. Words can make anything happen. I believe in the power of conversation and community to empower you to do that. And I believe in you. I don't have to know you to know that you have power. So I believe in you. I believe in your cause. And I believe in the power of your voice to get things done and make the change.

Please let me know when you decide to write a book! Last question: what is bringing you joy right now?

This weekend is my first weekend off in eight weeks! I'm carving out a self-care weekend, and I'm super excited about it. I’m going to brunch with my family! I'm also really excited because I've been working on my branding, and it looks so pretty. I'm so excited to share with the world. The people on the team I have been working with are some of the most amazing people, and that brings me immense joy.

About Daphne

Daphne Frias is a 23-year-old youth activist. She is unapologetically Latina. Having Cerebral Palsy, and using a wheelchair she is fiercely proud to be a loud champion for the disabled community. She got her start shortly after the Parkland shooting by busing 100+ students from her college campus to the nearest March For Our Lives (MFOL) event. In August of 2019, she was appointed as the NY State Director for March For Our Lives. Learn more on her website and follow her on Instagram @frias_daphne.

Reflection Questions

What current environmental justice initiatives are happening in your community right now? How many of them are ableist?
How can you ensure your work is inclusive to people with and without disabilities?

Nicole Cardoza 4/22/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/22/21

Mohammad Ahmadi on Environmental Activism

Welcome to Day One of our Earth Week series!

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mohammad Ahmadi, a 17-year-old climate justice activist based in Chicago, IL. He is the co-founder and Communications Coordinator of Earth Uprising International, and co-founder and team member of Hinsdale for Black Lives Matter.

This is a free, educational newsletter powered by our community. Support our work: share the series this with a friend or donate $8 to keep our work sustainable.

Nicole and Sydney

Take Action

Donate to Earth Uprising, a nonprofit organization providing resources and opportunities to support the youth climate movement.
Join Earth Uprising as an organizer by filling out this form.
Identify three youth-organized environmental justices initiative in your city.

In Conversation

What is your earliest memory of getting involved in environmental justice?

I've been passionate about the environment, specifically since I was a kid. But my primary motivation was from when I visited Iran in 2014 and 2015. I saw lots of pollution, and I saw dust storms, droughts, desertification, and deforestation. I started to realize how the climate crisis will impact Iran and many other countries.

After that, I saw an opportunity on Instagram to become an ambassador for Illinois Youth Climate Strike. After that, I realized that the climate crisis isn't just an environmental issue but intersects with all other issues: migration, human rights, agriculture, and everything. Climate justice and racial justice are interlinked. Before that, I just thought that the crisis was about saving the polar bears and recycling, which is important, but there’s a much larger problem.

That's powerful. I think a lot of us when we were younger – maybe not your generation, but mine certainly – got that one-sided view of environmental justice. Every Earth Week, we would hear stuff about cutting the plastic around the six-packs of soda to save the sea turtles and, like, raking leaves.

Right. This is a human issue; we’re fighting for human life. Hundreds of millions of people are going to become climate refugees. And the most affected areas – the islands, developing countries, low-income communities – are going to be impacted the hardest. This is a fight for them.

How does this influence your activism now?

With Earth Uprising, I first got involved locally in the summer of 2019. Now, after being a part of the Illinois Youth Climate Strike, I started Earth Uprising Chicago. The first thing we did was organize strikes in front of the Chicago City Hall. We had different themes targeting different groups (the media, fossil fuel, etc). Our focus was to try to get Chicago to declare a climate emergency. We dropped off letters, hosted digital campaigns, partnered with other groups. And we were successful; in February 2020, the Chicago city council declared a climate emergency.

We thought that was important because, although the declaration is symbolic, it shows that you recognize that this is an emergency and that action is needed. Then, we met with politicians, and we talked about the national climate emergency declaration. That's a lot of my local work with Earth Uprising. Internationally, I'm on the Earth Uprising team as Communications Coordinator, where our main job is to support our local organizers.

We have chapters all around the world - I think in about 20 countries. All of our chapters are focused on promoting climate education, bringing climate education into schools, and getting youth involved. We believe that when you're educated about the climate crisis and its intersections with all these different issues, it will motivate you to take action. That’s how it happened for me. I was passionate about the environment first, but once I learned about the humanity at stake, I was motivated to get even more involved.

For the first presidential debates, we wanted to see a climate question, so we partnered with Move On and many other environmental groups to petition for it. Our petition got over 130,000 signatures – 200,000 total across all groups, and there was a climate question at the first presidential debate. So that was a success in our eyes.

Right now, we’re doing a partnership with Ecosia, the search engine, and we're giving micro-grants to youth organizers who are starting climate projects in the U.S.

Very cool. You mentioned your work with Hinsdale for Black Lives Matter. Where do you see racial justice and environmental justice intersecting?

My work with Hinsdale for Black Lives Matter started last June after the death of George Floyd. I had gone to a protest in Chicago and, when I returned, felt the need to create something in my town. My town is 90% white and conservative, and I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. We started to plan our first local protest and got a ton of pushback from people worried that we’d spark looting and violence. Over 500 people showed up, and it sparked a conversation about racism in our community.

We partnered with local Black Lives Matter groups and organized a strike against environmental racism on September 25th, the global day of climate action. We had several demands, including comprehensive and intersectional climate education for our school districts and climate emergency declarations by our town, Hinsdale, and other local townships. State-wide, we demanded the Illinois Clean Energy Jobs Act be passed, and nationally we demanded the passing of the Green New Deal and the Climate Equity Act.

What does Earth Day look like for your work this year?

This year we’re hosting our summit called Youth Speaks 2021. We're partnering with Earth Day Network and two other groups: Education International and Hip Hop caucus. We're doing three days of climate action on April 20th, 21st, and 22nd, which is Earth Day. The first day is the summit: we have eight sessions on freedom of protest migration, environmental justice, and education, etc. We were going to have youth from all around the world discussing those issues. We are also going to release a set of demands for the Biden administration to address.

So what have you learned most on this journey? Like what did you know stepping into this, as it seems like a very public role? There’s a lot of leadership involved. Maybe even a lot of management is involved. What have you learned that you didn't know before through this work?

It takes a lot of effort to educate people and get them involved. In my area, it's been extremely, extremely difficult to get more people involved. It takes a lot of effort and strategic collaboration to make it possible. You need to work together. You can’t just be one organization trying to do everything on your own. We’re constantly collaborating with other activists and organizations. We try to use each other’s strengths to amplify our messages and educate people together.

Yeah. What world are you hoping to leave behind for the generations that follow?

Well, I'm hoping to leave behind a world that is not ravaged by the climate crisis. So we avoid 1.5 degrees Celsius or two degrees of warming each year. I’m just trying to leave behind a more educated population. The youth is the next generation, so if we can educate them, they will demand change from the government faster when they’re older – whether it’s climate justice, racial justice, or anything else.

What is bringing you joy right now?

I think seeing all these activists using their skills and passions to make a change. And when you see that, it motivates me even more, to continue taking action. It also brings me joy when I see success, whether it's a small achievement or a big achievement. That’s inspiring.

Yes! I know this work can be really draining on individuals. So how do you practice self-care?

It is, especially for youth activists. We’re also balancing school and other activities. So it's very difficult. Both the mental stress and strain and just doing the work takes a lot of time. I try to balance things pretty well. There’s always so much more work to do, though. I wish I had more time to spend on local activism, especially with Hinsdale for Black Lives Matter.

One way of self-care is to cut back on something so you have time to focus on specific things. If I have ten different commitments, I can't spend time on each of them. If I spend time on one thing, that's probably more beneficial.

Taking breaks is important, too. We have to have good mental health; it’s necessary to keep our movements going. If we’re all burn out, then who’s going to do the work?

Reflection Questions

What does activism look like for you? How can you take a stand in your community?
Who are some of the inspiring leaders in your community? How can you help their work sustain?
How has your relationship to the Earth inspired your environmental justice work?

Nicole Cardoza 4/19/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/19/21

Reimagine Earth Week.

This Thursday, April 22, is the 51st anniversary of Earth Day, one of the most significant secular movements observed worldwide. Modeled after the anti-war and civil rights movements that preceded it, the first Earth Day, held on April 19, 1970, was a massive demonstration where millions of people took to the streets to rally for environmental justice. The event supported the advancement of a series of legislation in the years to come: an amended Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Endangered Species Act; the Marine Mammal Protection Act; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (Time).

Hi folks! Real talk – I wrote this because I honestly couldn’t wait to share my excitement about our upcoming Earth Week series. Over the past few weeks, I’ve enjoyed working alongside Sydney, the series’ managing editor, to learn about youth leaders tackling the impact of climate change in their communities. Unlike me in my younger days, each of them is informed and intent on making a difference. I’m honored we’ll be able to celebrate and amplify their work.

In the meantime, today’s email highlights the results of our Earth Week survey (many thanks to the grownups who shared this with youth in their lives). This information helped shape the series. Like our 28 Days of Black History series, this week-long initiative will run alongside the Anti-Racism Daily, and you’ll have to sign up separately to receive it. The series starts Thursday, April 22. You can sign up here: thisisourho.me.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

If you’re an educator, take the pledge to #TeachClimateJustice at your school (via Zinn Education Project).
Explore environmental justice books for kids and grownups on our Bookshop page.
Follow these steps to address the misinformation you find online.
Join a local chapter of a youth-driven organization addressing climate change, including Sunrise Movement, Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Fifty-one years later, the environmental threats we face are no less severe, and Earth Day has lost its teeth (Teen Vogue). But a new generation is leading the charge in addressing them through advocacy and activism. We surveyed over 1,000 of our readers under 18 about Earth Day, this climate crisis, and where we go from here.

"
I wish I knew how wide[spread] it was. You always learn about turtles and the beaches with plastic but never the island forming in the Pacific or the rivers full of it bc of the factories on their edges.”

Anonymous response to “What do you wish you knew about climate change when you were younger?” from our Earth Week Survey.

A clear and consistent point of feedback was the lack of education on environmental justice provided in school. Part of this was intentional: corporations seeded misinformation about climate change to schools. A prominent example of this happened in 2017, when the Heartland Institute, a conservative advocacy organization, mailed climate science curriculum with false information to thousands of teachers across the country (Inside Climate News). The content argued that most scientists disagree that humans contributed to global warming or that climate change is such a big deal (which is false). It encourages teachers to educate their students on this “vibrant debate” and tell “all sides” of the story. Read perspectives from science teachers.

But influencing school curriculum is just part of how corporations intentionally skewed the dialogue around climate change to protect their bottom line. The fossil fuel industry would create fake grassroots organizations that would “stand in solidarity” with their organizations. They created misinformation campaigns to vilify other organizations to protect their own. And, they wielded public, philanthropic campaigns to double down on the benefits of their work (Grist). The NAACP notes how these campaigns would specifically aim to discredit the concerns of poor communities and communities of color, chastising them for not taking more personal responsibility or dismissing their demands as impossible (NAACP). An investigation revealed that ExxonMobil gave nearly $31 million between 1998 and 2014 to 69 groups that spread climate misinformation. Similarly, the Koch brothers have given over $100 million to 84 groups since 1997 (Inside Climate News).

Other corporations weren’t as deliberate but also contributed to misconstruing environmental activism. Recognizing that consumers were increasingly eco-conscious but wary of the costs to meet those demands, corporations invested in greenwashing, campaigns that hinted at eco-friendly initiatives that are often anything but. In this way, corporations signaled that consumers could make earth-friendly choices by shopping with them, using phrases like “upcycled,” “sustainable,” “natural,” and “ethical.” This Innisfree “Hello, I’m Paper Bottle” controversy is a blatant example. As of November 2020, roughly 63% percent of U.S. adults said they believed “purchasing sustainable brands or products makes a difference for our environment” (Ipsos).

Social media has made it easier for misinformation to take root, which only complicates the issue. Earlier this year, Facebook committed to addressing inaccurate information on climate change, including and information labels to posts about climate change that direct people to a climate change information hub and updating that hub with facts from trusted institutions (Market Watch). Last week, the organization announced that it now uses 100% renewable energy and reached net-zero emissions. Skeptics quickly noted that this announcement sounds hollow if they don’t live up to their word (Market Watch).

Screen Shot 2021-04-18 at 8.26.46 PM.png

40% of our survey respondents learned about the urgency of climate change on social media, more than any other source (and compared to 24% in school). Ensuring that information is accurate and trusted is critical for empowering the next generation with the right tools to take action.

All of this contributes to why many of us may believe that personal responsibility was a critical component of environmental justice. This isn’t inherently dangerous; it’s essential to raise awareness and make kids feel empowered to change the world early. But it’s a half-truth, one that shields corporations and government from accountability. More damaging, it draws an unhealthy correlation that individual actions improve the conditions for individual people. It also ignores the intersection of environmental justice and systemic oppression,

“
I wish I knew that the climate crisis is not just about the environment but is connected to all our systems of oppression.

In response to “What do you wish you knew about climate change when you were younger?” from our Earth Week Survey.

Saving the Earth isn’t a single-focus issue. Progress lies at the intersection of nearly every human rights issue. Incarceration, immigration, disability justice, global security, landback initiatives – we can’t address any of these until we are willing to analyze how climate change encourages and exacerbates each. In addition, we must understand that the brunt of the adverse impact of climate change will be felt by those most marginalized – not necessarily those that forget to recycle – creating a never-ending cycle of cause and effect. The voices most impacted are often left out of the conversation, developing policies and practices that don’t center those most harmed.

Screen Shot 2021-04-18 at 8.26.57 PM.png

92% of youth under the age of 18 are not learning about environmental racism in school.

But today, some of the most inspiring environmental justice initiatives of the past few years have been led by youth, most notably, the climate strikes of 2019 (Verge). You’ll hear more about these initiatives later this week. Despite this, an overwhelming 56.8% of our youth respondents feel hopeless or very hopeless about the future of this planet. This Earth Week, consider: how can you raise your voice to support more accurate and inclusive environmental justice initiatives? Where can you move in to lead or move back to follow? And most importantly, how do you plan on joining the fight?

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 3/9/21 Nicole Cardoza 3/9/21

Respect the Chicago hunger strike.

Though Chicago is home to some of the most vibrant urban forests, prairies, and wetlands, in 2020 it set the record for having the worst, unhealthy air quality streak in ten years, ranking even higher than busy cities like Los Angeles. Coupled with COVID-19, experts and advocates predicted the damage would hit Black and Brown communities the hardest (abc 7 chicago). In addition to the many contributing factors that make this city environmentally unsafe such as daily emissions stemming from rail, road, and air traffic, Little Village—a Black and predominantly Latinx neighborhood—soon will have to endure the harsh effects of a metal-shredding operation on top of the pandemic and daily exhaustion.

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. The hunger strike for environmental justice led by organizers in Chicago over the past month has inspired the heck out of me. Sometimes the injustices the world faces may feel insurmountable, and that we alone can't make an impact. But that should never stop us from trying. Three people started a hunger strike – and with that, a youth-driven movement that is likely to transform their community. Learn more in today's newsletter.

This newsletter is a free resource made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website, PayPal, or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that have contributed!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Follow the efforts of the strike on Twitter at @CHIhungerstrike.
Research environmental organizations like weact.org to learn about the many ways to support environmental justice.
Consider: how does environmental conditions differ in your own city, town or neighborhood? Who are the leader(s) advocating for change?

GET EDUCATED

By Kashea McCowan (she/her)

Without the metal-shredder, Black and brown citizens residing on the southeast side of Chicago already are having to overcome a “moderate” air quality index (AQI) of 52. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines “moderate” as air potentially unhealthy to sensitive groups including children, the elderly, and people with pre-existing cardiovascular or respiratory health conditions (IQAir). In order to protect themselves from air pollution, these groups have no access to fresh air as it is recommended for them to keep their windows closed to avoid dirty outdoor air and reduce outdoor exercise. According to the EPA, the neighborhood surrounding the new scrap yard site is in the 95th percentile for diesel emissions, 90th for hazardous waste, and 80th for air pollution (grist).

“Many of our residents already have problems with respiratory issues because of the ongoing industry that is operating in our neighborhood. We’re just adding a lot more stress to our public health,” says Edith Tovar in July 2020, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization community organizer. (abc 7 Chicago).

With awareness of these health constraints, Mayor Lori Lightfoot gave Stephen Joseph, chief executive of Reserve Management Group, the go ahead in late 2020 to acquire General Iron, a metal-shredding company rebranded as Southside Recycling. Expressed in a detailed two-page agreement is a timeline of when Joseph could expect to undergo the move of the decades-old business from the north side, a predominantly white neighborhood, to the south side where people of color mostly reside beginning in early 2021. The car and metal-shredding operation was often cited for violations of air pollution in the white part of town. This prompted its relocation, instead, to the Black and Brown part of the city. Despite protests from residents about the environmentally racist move, Lightfoot signed the agreement and all but sealed the deal with Joseph and General Iron (Chicago Sun Times).

Beginning on February 4, 2021, the relocation of the metal-shredder did not sit well with the Latinx community who it would affect the most and thus, began a month-long hunger strike. Among those leading the strike was Oscar Sanchez, Breanna Bertacchi, and Chuck Stark with Sanchez and many other protestors willing to go without food for however long it takes.

“It is immoral, it is discriminatory, and we cannot allow [this plant to operate] in a pandemic when we can prevent it,” says Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a 25th ward alderman who joined the hunger strike (EcoWatch).

The EPA suspended its environmental justice investigation into whether Illinois discriminated against the predominantly Black and Latinx southeast side community after the initiation of discussions about an informal resolution agreement. According to the Chicago Tribune, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is looking for Biden and his administration to make the call of whether or not the scrap yard can be moved to the southeast side (EcoWatch).

Lightfoot finally reached out in response to the strikers via a letter on February 23 acknowledging the hunger strike and the environmental racism the neighborhood faces, but has yet to deny General Iron’s permit and has failed to commit to the hunger strikers demands. Last Thursday, more than two hundred protesters gathered on the streets of Chicago with signs that read “Stop General Iron” and face masks with the words “We deserve clean air!” and “Ecological devastation is immoral”. The scrap yard violated EPA’s standards in 2018, 2012, and 2006 and was regarded by white neighbors as a nuisance. Many of the speakers at the rally including students who attend George Washington high school stated that they should not have to starve themselves just to get their Mayor’s attention (The Guardian).

According to Dr. Susan Buchanan, public health professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago noted that the particular matter that often escapes these types of businesses can lead to severe heart and lung conditions. Joseph says that the pollution controls at the new site will be enough to keep residents safe as he feels like he and his company are not the enemy (The Guardian).

Kudos to those neighbors like Oscar Sanchez who are willing to sacrifice their physical and mental health for what they believe in. Sanchez lost about twenty pounds from participating in the hunger strike for thirty days, and though the hunger strike ended yesterday, he says that the fight is far from over.

“Think about somebody pulling into your home and wanting to kill or hurt those around you. You’re gonna put yourself in line, right? We’re risking our lives just by living here, of course we’re going to fight,” says Sanchez. “This fight for the southeast side is a fight for Chicago and a fight for Chicago is a fight for Illinois and the nation because no one else should suffer at the hands of pollution.” (Grist)

KEY TAKEAWAYS

In 2020, Chicago set the record for having the worst, unhealthy air quality streak in ten years, ranking even higher than busy cities like Los Angeles.
Little Village, a Black and predominantly Latinx neighborhood, soon will have to endure the harsh effects of a metal-shredding operation on top of the pandemic and daily exhaustion.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot gave Stephen Joseph the go ahead to acquire General Iron and move decades-old business from the north side, a predominantly white neighborhood, to the south side where people of color mostly reside.
Though the hunger strike ended yesterday, the fight for environmental justice is far from over.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 3/2/21 Nicole Cardoza 3/2/21

Advocate for clean water.

Water is a necessary natural resource needed to live a sustainable life. Humans are made up of about sixty percent of water and, in addition to it being essential for the body, it is the most important substance for cleaning, bathing, washing, and many other things. When it comes to cities that are mostly comprised of Black and Brown citizens, proper maintenance and availability to the basic necessities—such as water, in this case—are sometimes overlooked or deemed as unimportant or not as urgent as those living in predominantly white neighborhoods. Blatant disregard for these Black and Brown populations shows up more often than not but mostly during some sort of environmental crisis or natural disaster.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! Today we're focusing our attention on the water crisis in Jackson, MS, which hasn't received adequate coverage for the scope of the issue. But water crises throughout the U.S. are certainly not new. But the lack of infrastructure to support clean water is often concentrated in Black and brown communities, and, when combined with a global pandemic, only exacerbates the health and safety issues it causes. Kashea breaks down what's happening in Jackson and offers action items we can replicate in any community in crisis.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website, PayPal, or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Donate to organizations supporting those without water, including Shower Power and the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity MS (Venmo @IAJEofMS). ,
Stay up-to-date with current news and live city council meetings concerning the water outages on the City of Jackson, Mississippi Facebook page.
Help local Jackson residents push for long-term local and federal support by reporting the damages they have undergone. A cumulative threshold of $4.5 million in reported damages must be reached for the city to declare a federal emergency (Mississippi Today).
Consider: are their neighborhoods in your town with critical infrastructure needs? How can you advocate for them in your local government, and in support of organizers advocating for change?

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

In 2014, Flint, Michigan was hit with a water crisis that left more than a hundred thousand people with unclean, lead-infused water. The problem wasn’t fixed until five years later in 2019. And today, people of color who reside in the South are being affected by a water crisis that has left tens of thousands of Black and Brown people without clean water for weeks due to the winter storm that swept across nearly every state in mid-February. Among those hit the hardest were Texas and Jackson, Mississippi. Residents from both states still are feeling the effects while Jackson residents are left to fend for themselves as most of them still are left without water. What these disasters have in common is that government officials do not act with a sense of urgency when it comes to these groups of people.

It’s been nearly three weeks since the residents of Jackson, Mississippi have had access to clean, running water. The city of Jackson issued a boil water notice on February 18 in response to the water main breaks on the City of Jackson’s Well Water System which caused an inability to maintain system pressure resulting in some areas experiencing low to no water pressure (The City of Jackson, Mississippi). Residents still are having to scrounge for this essential natural resource. In addition to having to boil it, they are now being asked to limit their use of it. According to one of the city’s representatives, it is unclear how many people are without water as the system which services approximately forty-three thousand people is old (CBS News).

“The challenges of aging infrastructure are not new to Jackson, but this is different. This was an act of God that sent old systems into havoc resulting in severe water outages and trauma for our residents,” says Mayor Chokwe Lumumba. “Our systems were never meant to endure days of ice storms and sub-zero temperatures coupled by road conditions that prevented the delivery of critical supplies” (The Daily Beast).

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves agrees and says that fifty years of deferred maintenance is not something that can be fixed within hours. Mayor Lumumba is asking for people to have patience as it is clear that there is no definitive timeline as to when the water will be restored in the tanks (The Daily Beast). There are several sites in place for distribution of non-potable or flushing water, and Reeves activated the National Guard to help with water distribution efforts in the area. But many locals, including professional chef Enrika Williams and her family, are having to spend excessive amounts of money on bottled water to cook and clean with. Jackson’s total population is approximately 160,000 people with a 26.9 percent poverty rate. That means that most of the people don’t have the resources to go out and buy additional water for their homes.

“Part of the problem is that it’s everywhere. Usually when we have an outage it’s in one neighborhood . . . ,” says Laurie Bertram Roberts, manager of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund. “But when it’s the whole damn city, where are the Black people supposed to go? It’s not like this is everywhere; it’s where the mostly Black population in Jackson lives. (The Daily Beast).

Not only has routine maintenance for these tanks and water lines been neglected, but it seems that communication between Governor Reeves and Mayor Lumumba about the issue also has fallen by the wayside as Lumumba is being accused of reaching out to Reeves too slowly, and Reeves’ camp retorting saying that he had no missed calls from the Mayor.

As of Monday, Jackson Public Works Director Charles Williams says that the city’s water system is still in the process of stabilizing itself. It is unclear how many people are still without water but Williams stresses that crews are working as hard as they can to get water flowing to those areas as there still is no definitive timeline on when services will be fully restored (Clarion Ledger).

For fifty years, maintenance for Jackson’s water system has been put off. Even after the city approved a one percent tax increase six years ago, the goal of updating all of its aging infrastructures has yet to be retained. Lumumba says that the annual fifteen million dollars the city generates are only a fraction of the two billion dollars the city will need to fix the problem. This is an issue that city officials have neglected to put at the top of their to-do lists and as a result, people are suffering—specifically, the Black population. More than a few residents have noted that the crisis has hit South and West Jackson while Northeast Jackson, the one predominantly white corner of this eighty percent Black capital city, is left relatively unscathed (The Daily Beast).

KEY TAKEAWAYS

When it comes to cities that are mostly comprised of Black and Brown citizens, proper maintenance and availability to the basic necessities are sometimes overlooked or deemed as unimportant compared to those living in predominantly white neighborhoods.
It’s been nearly three weeks since the residents of Jackson, Mississippi has had access to clean, running water.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says that fifty years of deferred maintenance is not something that can be fixed within hours.
There still is no definitive timeline on when services will be fully restored.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 2/17/21 Nicole Cardoza 2/17/21

Support those most vulnerable in the winter storms.

Millions of people across the country are without power after a series of intense winter storms. From Nashville to Chicago, North Carolina to Oregon, states are grappling with power outages, car crashes, and destruction from wind, snow, tornadoes, or hail.

The situation is especially dire in Texas, where over 2 million people are without power throughout the state. Heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures have overwhelmed the state’s power grid, causing widespread outages that have left many communities without power for days on end.

Happy Wednesday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. This is a rougher email than usual. I’m writing at 3am after driving to a friend’s home. My neighborhood hasn’t had power for the past two days with no end in sight, a situation many in Texas are experiencing right now. The call to action below is specific to Texas, but as this storm spreads across the U.S., I encourage you to pursue more local action wherever possible.

Thank you all for your contributions! This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Donate or volunteer with mutual aid funds supporting vulnerable communities.
- Feed The People Dallas | Website or Venmo @feedthepeopledallas
- Mutual Aid Houston | Website or Venmo @mutualaidhou
- Austin Mutual Aid | GoFundMe or Venmo @austinmutualaidhotels
- Para Mi Gente Mutual Aid (San Antonio) | Venmo @pmgmutualaid, IG @para.mi_gente
Donate to commissary funds for those incarcerated in Texas jails receiving inadequate care (via Texas Jail Project).
Local news is critical for many people to stay informed in turbulent times, and can use your support now more than ever. Make a monthly or annual subscription to your local news site if you can. If you can't, be sure to like, follow and share their articles!

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Texas once prided itself on its energy independence. Unlike the rest of the country, the state has its own power grid, managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which acts independently from neighboring states. This means that the state needs to produce enough energy to support its residents. But the grid entered this upcoming storm with a lower reserve than usual, and the weather halted or reduced power generation effort by freezing refineries and wind turbines. It’s not impossible to generate power in cold weather; cold states do it all the time. But Texas chose not to winterize their equipment (Washington Post). This, paired with the increased demand from residents, put the grid at a deficit. And the shortfall can’t be fixed overnight. It will take improved weather conditions and increased production to generate enough power to reach more residents. And in the meantime, there is no timeline for power to be restored.

Power scarcity isn’t a unique issue to Texas; Oklahoma and Louisiana have similar problems (WDSU). On a much smaller scale, California experienced a similar situation during the heatwave last summer (Bloomberg). But the scale and severity of the power outage in Texas is a grave reminder to the rest of the country of what happens when we don’t plan for unprecedented weather amid global warming.

As we often see when analyzing the impact of climate change, black and brown communities are disproportionately impacted by the latest winter storm. Across Texas, there are clear racial disparities in power outages. In Austin, for example, the communities experiencing ongoing outages are predominantly Black and brown, while downtown Austin and other pricier, mostly white neighborhoods have yet to lose power (Statesman).

The storm is also gravely impacting houseless communities across the U.S., who are already vulnerable to the pandemic. With freezing temperatures expected to continue through the weekend, shelters quickly became overwhelmed. Cities are opening more warming centers to provide temporary relief. Mutual aid networks were booking hotels for those unhoused to get a night of reprieve. In Tulsa, a record $1.5M was raised to support those unhoused (Tulsa World). However, as many of the housed community experience ongoing power outages at their own homes, they’re quickly filling up hotels, decreasing available supply.

Those incarcerated in Texas are also struggling during this time. The Texas Jail Project noted that, since losing power, those incarcerated in Harris County Jail hadn’t received hot meals or extra blankets. At another Texas jail, heaters aren’t working, and correction officers have resorted to using table salt on the walkways to mitigate ice (Keri Blakinger on Twitter). The cold and lack of power exacerbate existing inequitable conditions that already threaten their livelihood (Twitter).

The storm also conflicts with the Biden administration’s efforts to increase the vaccine distribution to communities of color – both in Texas and throughout the U.S. Appointments were postponed or canceled altogether because of the severe weather, and additional shipments are delayed. In California, though, two new FEMA sites in Los Angeles and Oakland began mass vaccinations (AP).

Haphazard weather is unavoidable. But it’s our local and federal government’s response to it that influences its severity. With so many marginalized communities in need, it’s important to remember that some of our greatest threats are man-made.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 2/9/21 Nicole Cardoza 2/9/21

Decolonize sustainable + ethical fashion.

Sustainability is fashion’s latest trend. All over, marketing buzzwords like “ethical” and “eco-conscious” float around the likes of ads, press releases, and influencer Instagram pages. Although bringing awareness to the harmful impact of fashion’s waste is a positive note in the right direction, many seem to exclude a significant part of the discussion: the manufacturer workers, often women of color, earning significantly less than a liveable wage.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! As fashion week approaches, Isiah reminds us of the true cost of "sustainable" fashion. Take today as an opportunity to review where you shop for clothes and consider making more ethical decisions.

Thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider subscribing for $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

Ps – be sure to sign up for 28 Days of Black History.

TAKE ACTION

Shop at brands that are transparent about their labor practices. Check their websites for more information and consult lists found all over the internet.
Take your money to fashion brands that are owned by people of color. BIPOC women are exploited the most in the industry, and it’s important to support brands that understand and combat this issue.
Support and donate to organizations that combat the use of sweatshops like Fair Labor Association, United Students Against Sweatshops, and National Labor Committee.

GET EDUCATED

By Isiah Magsino (he/him)

When people think of ethical and sustainable fashion, images of white people posed in a forest or on a beach immediately come to mind. Similarly, Zara’s “Life” campaign features a white model posing with plants in various ways. When ads and campaigns center on white consumers in natural settings, this “do good” mentality is often reserved for an upper-class white audience making the scope of conscious consumerism reserved to that demographic (Restitchstance).

However, there’s a trickle-down effect of a racist system that is often overlooked. When companies exclude people of color in their advertisements, they are ultimately ignoring the fact that people of color are disproportionately affected by fashion waste and unethical practices (Restitchstance). Though many large fashion brands are pivoting to a marketing tactic that parades sustainability, they are still sourcing external textile workers from the Global South (PebbleMag). These garment workers work for 60-100 hours for as little 5,300 takas (equivalent to $63 USD) a month in hostile conditions (Fashion Revolution). The majority of these garment workers are women of color. In China, more than 70% of garment workers are women, 85% in Bangladesh, and a skyrocketing 90% in Cambodia (Fashion Revolution). In Ethiopia, H&M manufacturer workers made as little as $26 USD a month (Telegraph UK).

But, the issue is not only overseas. The exploitation of women and children of color happens in the United States, too, primarily in New York and California (Green America). Those that work in domestic sweatshops are usually immigrants from Asia and Latin American (Green America). The major retailer, Fashion Nova, was accused of paying sewers in California less than $2.77 USD in 2019 (Quartz). Collectively, they owed workers $3.8 million in back wages (Quartz).

The history of sweatshops is directly linked to global expansion. The practice began in Europe and Britain during the 1800s following the industrial revolution as manufacturers needed quick and cheap labor (glass clothing). As worker’s rights improved, companies would eventually move to Asia after World War II. European companies sought an opportunity to expand and become a global business power (glass clothing). Additionally, New York became a hotspot for sweatshops during the 2oth century. Immigrants (mostly from Eastern Europe) needed money, thus agreeing to low-wage work in sweatshops (Matterprints). Sweatshops began employing immigrants from China, Korea, throughout Southeast Asia, Mexico, Dominican Republican, and Central and South America as the original Eastern European immigrants advanced to white color jobs (Matterprints).

Nowadays, these workers cannot fight for proper worker’s rights due to their oftentimes undocumented immigrants status. As Western labor costs rise, companies are still reliant on third-world countries that do not have strict labor laws allowing large corporations to get away with sweatshop use (Matterprints). This is why the conversation about sustainability and decolonization are intertwined: the fashion industry simply cannot exist without the exploitation of people of color, mostly women and children, who are working in inhumane conditions. The conversation of sustainability must recenter itself, including the voices of people of color. Sustainability is not only a concern of material waste – but of workers’ rights. Next time a major fashion retailer prides itself in being eco-friendly, dig deeper and ask: at the detriment of whom?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Understand that, in this day and age, words like “sustainability” and “eco-friendly” are just marketing buzzwords that often leave worker’s rights (mostly equal pay) out of the equation. Fast fashion brands like Zara and H&M are guilty of this (Green America)
Women and Children of color make up most sweatshop employees and can earn as little as $26 USD a month. (Telegraph UK)
Sweatshops have historically exploited women and children of color, which is still happening in the present day. (Matterprints)

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 11/12/20 Nicole Cardoza 11/12/20

Fight against pesticides in communities of color.

Environmental justice activists continue to fight to keep poisonous and fatal pesticides like Roundup out of their communities, though the federal government approves them. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to permit 85 pesticides that have been banned or are in transition in China, Europe, and Brazil; the other three nations use the highest amounts of pesticides (Environmental Health). There have also been recent lawsuits against companies that manufacture these pesticides, including Bayer, which have settled claims of $10 billion (Succesful Farming).

It's Thursday! Weeks go by much faster when we're not awaiting election results, am I right? Today we're diving back into our ongoing series on environmental justice. Renée joins us to unpack how pesticides are common in communities of color, and what we can do to take action. With yet another lawsuit against chlorpyrifos and the ongoing EPA rollbacks, I felt this is particularly relevant right now.

This is the Anti-Racism Daily, a daily newsletter with tangible ways to dismantle racism and white supremacy. You can support our work by making a one-time contribution on our website or PayPal, or giving monthly on Patreon. You can also Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). To subscribe, go to antiracismdaily.com.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Urge your local representatives to support a ban on chlorpyrifos (U.S. residents only).
Have you considered pesticide usage in your community? Do you feel safe taking your child(ren) to playgrounds, public spaces, and zoos? Consider how privilege may influence whether or not you think about the air you breathe daily.
After reading this piece, consider: how can you take action in protecting farmworkers who are responsible for ensuring you have food daily?
Listen to and advocate for communities of color in your area that voice their concerns about contaminated water and air.

GET EDUCATED

By Renée Cherez (she/her)

Pesticides have a long history in communities of color in America, and like most issues that affect these communities, it is rooted in institutional racism.

A pesticide is any substance used to kill, repel, or control certain forms of plant or animal life that are considered pests (NIH). When we think of pesticides, our minds may wander off to rural farmlands; however, toxic pesticides and herbicides are being used in major cities today, directly harming low-income Black and Brown communities. This past January, a disturbing report by The Black Institute discovered that of the 50 Manhattan parks treated with Roundup in 2018, 42 were in Harlem (The Black Institute). The same study also revealed that Brooklyn, with an 89% native Black population, is the most heavily sprayed borough in the entire state (The Black Institute).

Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is the most widely used herbicide to kill weeds and is classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization (Planet Watch). More infuriating, in 2017, Roy Wilkins Recreation Center in Queens, NY, located in a majority Black neighborhood, was treated with 100% glyphosate concentration (The Black Institute).

Not only are these toxins affecting the lives of Black and Brown families in these communities, but they also affect the employees responsible for applying them daily. Of the 203 NYC Parks Department staff members, 112 are Black or Latino (The Black Institute). This furthers the point that environmental racism is happening in real-time. Black and Brown communities bear the brunt of the exploitation of air and water by corporations and the federal government.

The spraying of these toxins on public grounds should be considered an act of terror similar to the spraying of Agent Orange in the American-Vietnam war. Most vulnerable to the life-altering health effects of pesticides are children and pregnant women, which can cause learning disabilities, congenital disabilities, asthma, increased rates of childhood leukemia, and autism (Philadelphia Inquirer). Editor’s note: This study has been questioned for its accuracy.

As the largest agricultural state, with over 700,000 farmworkers, California is unique in its fight for environmental justice against pesticides (Planet Watch). A key finding in a 2015 report found that more than half of the glyphosate used in California (54%) was applied in 8 of its most impoverished counties in the Southern Valley, including Tulare, Fresno, Merced, Del Norte, Madera, Lake, Imperial, and Kern (Center for Biological Diversity). The racial breakdown: 53% of residents in the eight counties identified as Latino or Hispanic, compared to 38% in the entire state (Center for Biological Diversity). Also worth noting, Hispanic children are 46% more likely to attend school nears pesticide dumping grounds than white children (The Black Institute).

Chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxin that kills insects by attacking their nervous systems, has widely affected the health of farm and migrant workers in California (Grist). After a two-day meeting with the EPA about banning the insecticide, groups representing farmworkers were censored, further proving environmental racism against the people responsible for getting food to the tables of Americans every day (ThinkProgress).

Because of the federal government’s lack of action, cities like Philadelphia are taking matters into their own hands by introducing bills that ban the use of toxic herbicides on all city or used public grounds (Philadelphia Inquirer). Earlier this year, California officially prohibited the selling and usage of Chlorpyrifos, which not only attacks the nervous system of those exposed but is also linked to brain damage in children (NPR).

How do communities of color withstand COVID-19, a respiratory virus, and bear the brunt of poisoned air? What consequence will pregnant Latina women farmworkers pay after daily pesticide exposure? What will it take for mainstream, white environmental organizations to make their work intersectional, including the needs of communities of color who carry the heaviest burden?

Effective environmental justice must safeguard communities as places where all people can live, work, and play without fear of exposure to toxic materials and conditions (The Black Institute). Clean air and water are not for the privileged but are a fundamental human right. The burden lies on white residents of communities to advocate for communities of color who continue to be silenced about the real harm they are experiencing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is the most widely used herbicide and is classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization.
Hispanic children are 46% more likely to attend school nears pesticide dumping grounds than white children.
Exposure to the most common pesticides can cause adverse health effects.

10/11/2020 | Support climate justice.

9/29/2020 | Learn about climate migration.

7/25/2020 | Study Hall! How to be a better ally, petitions, and plastics.

7/24/2020 | Reduce your plastic consumption.

7/12/2020 | Learn how air pollution exacerbates COVID-19.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 10/23/20 Nicole Cardoza 10/23/20

Fight for environmental protections.

Understandably, the general American public is confused, disinterested, and polarized on the climate crisis. Climate change, said to be the biggest crisis of our lifetime by scientists, is rarely presented as fact, but rather an issue for debate. It is also seldom presented as a social and racial justice issue. However, communities of color bear the weight of the crisis with significant health issues, limited food supply, and contaminated water (Green America).

It's Friday! And we're rounding out this week's content with a call for environmental protections, written by Renée. This was a hot topic in the third U.S. Presidential debate last night, the first time the topic of environmental justice was discussed directly. And each candidate had different views on the subject.

Tomorrow is Study Hall, our weekly Q+A. I've had a ton of questions this week but send in yours anyway; we've got quite a growing list in the works and I hope to whittle them all down soon.

Thank you for supporting this newsletter. If you'd like, you can give one time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). Or, subscribe monthly or annually on Patreon. I really appreciate it.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Follow and learn from Black environmental journalists like Talia Buford, Justin Worland, and Brenton Mock.
Look around your community/neighborhood. Where do you see an influx of coal plants, factories, or refineries? Before reading, did you ever question why low-income areas or Black communities had more pollutant producers? If not, why not?
How do you (or will you) advocate for environmental protections for communities of color?
Review how the Presidential candidates stand on the environment and global warming.

GET EDUCATED

By Renée Cherez (she/her)

If the first presidential debate was any indication of how the current administration is tackling climate change --then we’d better get ready for what’s to come. With only eleven minutes spent on the global issue, it was the first time a moderator presented the climate crisis on a presidential debate stage in twenty years (The Guardian).

The American south is not new to fighting for environmental justice. As a reaction to discriminatory environmental practices, including toxic dumping that negatively affects communities of color, the environmental justice movement was born (AVoice). Coined by Dr. Benjamin Chavis in 1982, “environmental racism” was born after an electrical transformers manufacturer emptied tons of cancer-causing PCB waste along 240-miles of North Carolina highways (The Guardian).

When the time came for cleaning the waste, the North Carolina government chose the predominantly Black town of Warren, North Carolina, to become home to a toxic waste facility (The Guardian). Decades later, Black and Brown communities are still home to deadly pollutants. Polluters actively seek low-income areas to dump their waste and often decide based on race rather than class (Green America). Multi-millionaires at the fossil fuel industry’s helm and politicians who hold their interests earn millions of dollars while marginalized communities are poisoned with pollutants.

Fenceline communities-- communities located closest to oil and natural gas refineries are disproportionately African-American (ColorLines). A joint report by the NAACP, Clean Air Task Force (CATF), and the National Medical Association (NMA) found that nearly 7 million African Americans live near oil refineries and pollution operations, causing 9 million tons of pollutants emitted annually. These emissions are responsible for 138,000 asthma attacks a year for school-aged children (CATF).

These communities are composed of predominantly low-income people of color. Consequently, African-Americans are 75% more likely to live in fence-line communities and are exposed to 38% more polluted air than white Americans (CATF). Also increasing: the number of African-Americans who live within a half-mile of an existing natural gas facility. With over one million residents and counting, we can expect exposure to toxic air emissions will likely turn to cancer risks for many African-Americans in these communities (CATF).

"Racism is “inexorably” linked to climate change...because it dictates who benefits from activities that produce planet-warming gases and who suffers most from the consequences.”
Penn State meteorologist Gregory Jenkins, via Washington Post.

African Americans make up 14 percent of the U.S. population, yet 68% live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant compared to 56% of white people (Green America). Latinos make up 17% of the U.S. population, but 39% live within a 30-mile radius from a coal plant. Native lands have been stolen and are home to coal reserves resulting in tribes across North America experiencing the toxic effects from plants and coal mines (Green America).

Over the last four years, we’ve seen significant environmental protections put in place to protect our right to clean air and water stripped by the current administration. Since his 2017 inauguration, Trump has rolled back 100 of the most major climate and environmental protections (NYT). Perhaps the most significant to African American communities is his deregulation of methane emissions (CATF). Methane, the leading cause of climate change, is a greenhouse gas that traps 86 times more heat than carbon dioxide, which accelerates global warming (ACS). The Trump administration has canceled an Obama-era policy that required oil and gas companies to report their emissions, making it easier to pollute Black and Brown communities (EPA).

When we think about places like Flint, Michigan, Newark, New Jersey, and Standing Rock, they are perfect examples of BIPOC reaping the dire benefits of environmental racism, even in a pandemic (Vox).

An Obama-era clean water regulation that curbed the amount of pollution and chemicals in the country’s rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands was also repealed by the Trump administration (CNBC). The goal: to protect 60% of the country’s water from contamination, but with it repealed, polluters can discharge toxic substances into waterways without a permit, which harms sources of safe drinking water and habitats for wildlife (CNBC).

Last month, federal judges pushed back against Trump’s fossil fuel agenda, citing they downplayed potential environmental damage in lawsuits over oil and gas leases, coal mining, and pipelines to transport fuels across the country (AP News).

As one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, America's choice to use fossil fuels over cleaner and healthier energy disproportionately affect communities of color. As these communities continue to fight for environmental protections, white people and those with privilege must challenge their local and state officials about new pipelines, plants, and refineries in communities of color. These communities have been fighting for the most basic needs – clean air and water –for decades, and it’s time for the privileged to join their fight.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Fenceline communities – communities located closest to oil and natural gas refineries – are disproportionately African-American.
The Trump administration has rolled back 100 of the most major climate and environmental protections.
68% of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant.

RELATED ISSUES

10/11/2020 | Support climate justice.

9/29/2020 | Learn about climate migration.

7/25/2020 | Study Hall! How to be a better ally, petitions, and plastics.

7/24/2020 | Reduce your plastic consumption.

7/12/2020 | Learn how air pollution exacerbates COVID-19.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 10/11/20 Nicole Cardoza 10/11/20

Support climate justice.

Happy Sunday! The environment has been a popular topic in this newsletter, and as we unpack the racial disparities of global warming and environmental disasters, it's important that we have shared language on making an impact equitably. Today, Jami outlines what climate justice means beyond the hashtag, and encourages each of us to take our eco-friendly initiatives a step further.

Thank you for your contributions! Your support helps us grow. To support you can give on our website, PayPal, Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), or subscribe monthly on Patreon.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Join or support climate justice organizations, such as PODER (@poder.sf), the Environmental Transformation Movement of Flint, or the Center for Earth Energy and Democracy.
Read about Just Transition, the transformative framework for change promoted by many climate justice organizations.
Hold your local environmental organizations accountable. Who is on the board? What communities do they center? Who do they exclude?

GET EDUCATED

By Jami Nakamura Lin (she/her)

In our recent newsletter on climate migration, we briefly mentioned the climate justice movement. Though climate change comes up frequently in the news, in election campaigns, and political debates, we hear about climate justice much more rarely. As a reminder: it is a movement that centers marginalized communities and those affected by racial and socioeconomic inequities, while also pushing for larger-scale change than most policies currently address (NAACP). (The terms climate justice and environmental justice are sometimes used interchangeably, while other times climate justice is used to refer to the effects of climate change specifically.)

“I represent the third-poorest congressional district in the country, and folks in my district can tell you that we have been in a crisis mode far before Covid-19 showed up. Folks in my district can also tell you that the climate crisis we are experiencing is one that they have been fighting to address for decades.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, US House District 13 (Facebook via Central Florida Climate Action).

Climate justice developed partially in opposition to mainstream environmental activism (like the conservation and preservation movements) that did not look at intersections of race and class at all. Instead, those groups were (and usually still are) white-led and white-run, and viewed the environment through a narrow lens (Environment and Society). Such environmentalism is directly descended from the colonialism and white supremacist ideals of Teddy Roosevelt-era conservationists. As environmental law scholar Jedidiah Purdy writes in a history of conservation’s racism, “For these conservationists, who prized the expert governance of resources, it was an unsettlingly short step from managing forests to managing the human gene pool” (New Yorker).

Even in 2014, a study of 293 leading environmental organizations, foundations, and government agencies found that ethnic/racial minorities occupied less than 12% of leadership positions, and very rarely in the highest positions (Diversity in Environmental Organizations). It also found that “few of the organizations studied collaborate with ethnic minority or low-income institutions or groups.” As an example: usually, the people included in disaster relief planning (on the local to global level) are not from the communities who will actually receive the disaster relief; affected people in disadvantaged communities often do not have a voice at the table (Minority Rights Group International).

The study’s author, Dorceta Taylor, also conducted research on white and BIPOC students studying environmental courses, and discovered that the two groups had virtually identical GPAs and course loads, even though the people getting hired by environmental groups are predominantly white males (Yale Environmental 360). Again--we cannot blame the pipeline, as we covered in a recent newsletter. [link when it’s up on the archive]

Recently— and largely as a response to Black Lives Matter— green groups have begun to examine their complicity in racism (National Geographic). They have made public commitments to diversify; they have renounced some of their founders, like John Muir. Yet it’s too soon to know how much of this is performative and how much will result in lasting change. When the rot goes so deep, can one or two token minorities on a board truly make a difference?

Climate justice, on the other hand, is rooted in anti-racism, in centering the communities ignored by mainstream environmentalism. “Advocacy and scholarship about protecting communities of color are rarely called environmentalism because those communities are still largely not considered places worthy of protection by environmentalists,” explains Danielle Purifoy, one of the only Black Ph.D. students in her environmental studies program (Inside Higher Ed).

Importantly, climate justice is a grassroots movement. Climate Justice Alliance, for example, comprises frontline organizations. Engagement centered in the communities— not top-down policies created by disengaged congressmen—is necessary. But for BIPOC activists, it can also be dangerous. Jayce Chiblow, a leader at the Canadian organization Indigenous Climate Actions, noted that while ‘Youth are leading us and taking on frontline activity,” many of them experienced violence and were arrested and removed as a result of their activism (Resilience.org). Read some profiles of Indigenous activists here.

What was most eye-opening for me was realizing how entangled all economic and environmental and social and racial issues are. Climate justice encompasses many other justice issues that we often think of as separate from environmental concerns, like workers’ rights and Indigenous sovereignty. Right now, our government tries to attack each problem piecemeal, ignoring the holistic view. On the other hand, the Just Transition plan from the Climate Justice Alliance implements a different framework for change than Biden’s deal or even the Green New Deal:

“We must build [a] visionary economy that is very different... This requires stopping the bad while at the same time as building the new. We must change the rules to redistribute resources and power to local communities... Shifting from dirty energy to energy democracy… from gentrification to community land rights… and from rampant destructive development to ecosystem restoration. Core to a just transition is deep democracy in which workers and communities have control over the decisions that affect their daily lives.”
Just Transition framework from Climate Justice Alliance

Climate justice—and this framework in particular—presents a different, more expansive vision, one that is so holistic and far-reaching that at first glance, it can seem impossible. Implement a regenerative economy here? How? But I suggest reading through the plan slowly, a little bit each day. It is a framework that can, like “Abolish the police,” guide our goals and shape what we should ultimately be working towards: transformative, structural change.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A 2014 study found that 88% of leadership positions in environmental groups were held by white people (Dorceta Taylor/Diversity in Environmental Organizations)
The mainstream conservation and environmental movements descend from colonialism and white supremacy (New Yorker)
Climate justice is a grassroots movement that centers BIPOC and those most affected by climate change, communities historically ignored by environmentalism.
Climate justice promotes transformative, far-reaching change— a shift from our current extractive economy to a regenerative economy (Climate Justice Alliance)

7/24/2020 | Reduce your plastic consumption.

7/12/2020 | Learn how air pollution exacerbates COVID-19.

7/5/2020 | Support the Navajo Nation through COVID-19.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 9/29/20 Nicole Cardoza 9/29/20

Learn about climate migration.

It's Tuesday and the world is still on fire. For many of us, global warming has never felt so urgent as it does now. And as we think about how to save the future, we can't forget that millions already impacted by environmental disasters are still in need. Today, Jami introduces the concept of climate migration to the newsletter. She explains how the vulnerable communities on the frontlines of environmental crisis need to be at the center of our path forward.

Some of you received incorrect key takeaways in yesterday's article on tax inequity. My mistake.You can find them updated on our archives.

Thank you for all your support! If you enjoy this newsletter, consider giving one-time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), or subscribe for $5/mo on our Patreon.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Support people and organizations fighting for climate justice, not just against climate change. Check out Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy (@gcclp) and your local members of the Climate Justice Alliance (@cjaourpower).
Hold corporations--and the governmental bodies that enable them-- accountable for their actions. Companies benefit when we only focus on our individual actions (recycling, shopping, etc.) instead of corporate culpability.
Investigate the politicians on your ballot. What are their positions on the Green New Deal? On immigration? On social justice? These issues all affect climate migration.
Read more about international climate migration and American climate migration in ProPublica.

GET EDUCATED

By Jami Nakamura Lin (she/her)

The wildfires blazing across the West Coast have brought climate migration back to the forefront of many American’s minds. This year, almost 8000 fires have burned over 3.6 million acres of land in California alone (Cal Fire), and many residents are wondering whether they can stay (CNN). Whether they should stay. Or whether they should pick up and move away from their families and communities, joining the ever-growing climate migration across the globe.

Climate migration refers to the movement of people due to climate change-induced environmental stressors, including heat, drought, and natural disasters. This is already happening globally; in 2018 alone, 17.2 million people were recorded as internally displaced (within their own countries) by environmental disasters (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre). But according to researchers, almost 162 million Americans will experience a “decline in their environment, namely, more heat and less water” within their lifetimes (NY Times). Another study predicts that 1 in 12 Americans in the South will have to move within 45 years due to environmental factors (Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists). While such migration will eventually affect everyone on earth, it matters to anti-racism work because of what communities are most affected. Climate change disproportionately affects communities of color, developing countries, and low-income and underserved populations (NAACP).

“It is important to acknowledge that those impacted the most by the climate crisis are victims to decades and centuries of norms, values, regulations, behaviors, and policies that have made it this way today,” wrote Chanté Harris in a previous newsletter on climate change. Hurricane Katrina is an excellent and terrible example. In the New Orleans area alone, 272,000 Black people were displaced, comprising 73% of the parish’s total displaced population (Congressional Research Service). Across the Gulf South, a lack of affordable housing has made it impossible for many former residents to return to the area.

In 2015, a decade after the disaster, there was only one-third as many public housing apartments in New Orleans as before the disaster, while housing costs in general New Orleans rose 40% (AmnestyUSA). The same year, a survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation/NPR showed that white residents and Black residents had had very different experiences after the crisis. 70% of white residents were able to return to their homes within a year, while less than half of Black residents were able to. Additionally, around half of both the Black and low-income populations did not believe recovery efforts had helped them. In contrast, about two-thirds of both the white and high-income populations thought that recovery efforts had helped them. (Kaiser Family Foundation). Read more about how climate migration will reshape America in New York Times Magazine.

After such disasters, people— especially people of color and those below the poverty line—have to pick between two terrible choices: to remain in their homes and communities (places that will likely be struck by disaster again, with governments that choose not to prioritize their recovery), or to leave. Internationally the situation is even more dire. In India, 600 million people are already facing a water crisis, whether because of drought or degradation of water quality (National Geographic). Each year, runoff declines and water becomes scarcer (Climate Institute). Such events are leading to mass climate migration across the globe at the same time as nationalistic immigration policies rise in the West (ProPublica). Here, yet again, the climate crisis goes head-to-head with America’s racist, xenophobic laws. Read ProPublica’s report and model of climate migration across international borders.

"
Our cities and our communities are not prepared. In fact, our economic system and our social systems are only prepared to make profit off of people who migrate. This will cause rounds of climate gentrification, and it will also penalize the movement of people, usually through exploited labor and usually through criminalization.

Colette Pichon Battle, founder of the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, an organization that “advances structural shifts toward ecological equity and climate justice in Gulf South communities of color.” Watch the rest of her TED Talk here.

Climate migration shows the necessity of climate justice, a movement that focuses specifically on addressing racial and socioeconomic inequities and transitioning away from our current toxic, exploitative economy. (Later, we’ll do a deeper dive into climate justice, but for now, check out the Just Transition Framework for Change from the Climate Justice Alliance.)

Issues like climate change can feel insurmountable for us individuals to deal with. We don’t always know what to do in response. And indeed, many well-meaning initiatives (like banning plastic straws) can shift the focus onto individual culpability instead of corporate accountability, while having their own unintended side effects (NPR). But what I do know is: there is power in community action. We cannot rely on our government or on a top-down plan of action. Look at the member list at Climate Justice Alliance for organizations in your area. Support them—by volunteering your time, money, or social media feed. And when you think or talk about climate change or climate migration, make sure you remember the ways that racism impacts the climate crisis.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Because of climate change, many areas are becoming uninhabitable for humans. The shifting environment is leading to climate migration across the globe.
In 2018 alone, at least 17.2 million people were displaced by environmental disasters (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre).
Climate change disproportionately affects communities of color, developing countries, and low-income and underserved populations (NAACP).

7/24/2020 | Reduce your plastic consumption.

7/12/2020 | Learn how air pollution exacerbates COVID-19.

7/5/2020 | Support the Navajo Nation through COVID-19.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 7/25/20 Nicole Cardoza 7/25/20

Study Hall! How to be a better ally, petitions, and plastics.

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Thank you, thank you for your thoughtful questions this week. We get some nasty mail (who knew Trader Joe's was so controversial) so I truly appreciate every kind inquiry mixed in. Today we're diving deeper into all the key themes we outlined this week.

For the new readers, we know there's a lot of content to catch up. We're working on organizing the first 50 days of content into a book or course for easy review. Interested in helping us out? Send a message!

We're posting daily recaps on Instagram @antiracismdaily and will be holding more Study Hall sessions on our Patreon starting next week! Excited to keep learning with you.

This email is free but you're welcome to make a one-time contribution on our website or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). Or, pledge $5/month on Patreon.

Nicole

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TAKE ACTION

1. Reflect on the questions prompted by our community.

2. Ask yourself two questions about one of the topics we discussed this week. Discuss these questions with a friend or colleague.

GET EDUCATED

You referenced the criticism that a white / white-passing person advocating for TJs to change their packaging. How should white allies support movements, then?
From Don't Americanize other cultures on July 22

It's important to center the voices of marginalized people in any movement. Sometimes, intentionally or otherwise, allies will co-opt movements already started by people of color. Often white allies, benefiting from their power and privilege, will gain more attention and progress with this movement, and consequently, the voices of BIPOC people get lost in the mix.

I was surprised that Bedell's petition didn't mention Viviane Eng's article – or the fact that Trader Joe's had already responded to Eng and said that actions to change the names were in progress. I also was surprised to see that there weren't any quotes from people of color on their perspective, or any co-creators of the petition that identified as people of color. As a result, it is Bedell that is centered in the press and interviews.

This example is relatively harmless, but often, it can lead to more dire consequences – like workplaces creating new programs and initiatives without the input of the people impacted, or political movements that don't reflect the needs of the communities experiencing harm. When doing the work, ask who else needs to be in the room. Consider who may already be doing the work, and how you could amplify them instead of creating your own campaign.

The petition for the bridge name isn't what all the local leaders in Alabama want, but you encouraged us to sign it anyway. Why?
From Honor the legacy of Rep. John Lewis on July 21

Petitions are powerful for a few reasons, even if they're not successful. First, they help raise awareness of issues, especially as they grow in popularity. They're also good for swaying public opinion. In this case, more encouragement towards Governor Kay Ivey to change the name isn't a bad thing! Also, signing a petition keeps us all informed of how the issue progresses after it passes from the headlines, and I think this is an important conversation to stay subscribed to. You can learn more about the power of petitions in the NYTimes. One of you lovely readers sent me a WHOLE email about the power of petitions weeks ago, but it's now lost in my inbox. If you're reading this and remember sending, kindly forward to me again!

Also, remember that signing a petition doesn't magically make things change. Alabama local leaders are the ultimate decision-makers in changing the name of the bridge, so have full capacity to make the decision. I am hoping that the creator of this petition is planning on working with the community, and not create a massive battle to have it done his way. I noticed after I wrote this email that there's now a nonprofit organization attached to the cause. It doesn't have any team listed on the website, so I'm not sure about any local representation behind it.

If I had seen a petition that was designed for the local community, I would have added that in its place. Either way, I feel that our efforts overall are more useful in advocating for the Voting Rights Advancement Act, but I know some of you already did that from our voter suppression newsletter! I try to give multiple ways for us to take action so we can get in the practice of doing so.

My family and I decided that moving to X community is best for our budget and lifestyle, but it's a gentrifying neighborhood and we would be part of gentrification. What should we do?
From Protect your community from the harm of gentrification on July 20

It's great that you're recognizing that you're part of the problem. Whether or not we like to admit it, we are all working in a systemic that's inherently inequitable and often complicit. That's why this work is so critical.

I shared this resource at the end of the newsletter, and it's worth revisiting in full:
https://newrepublic.com/article/144260/stop-gentrification

And also recommend this article about gentrification in SF:
https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/gentrification-sf-oakland-san-francisco-vallejo-13293754.php

Put short, be prepared to take on the responsibility of protecting this new community from harm. Get involved in local politics and support community organizers advocating for housing justice. If that sounds like too much work or too much of a burden, consider whether you deserve to join that community at all.

There's no 'get out of jail free' card. You can't do all the right things and absolve yourself so that you're no longer a gentrifier, just like you can't no longer be white. But you can check your biases, acknowledge your privilege, and fight the systems that create gentrification.

Megan Orpwood-Russell, an organizer for housing advocacy group YAH! (Yes to Affordable Housing!) in SFGate

Trump is a racist president! And Biden is racist, too! What president HASN'T done something racist?!
From Know our racist presidential history on July 23

Trump had a whole newsletter dedicated to him back in June, and Biden isn't a president, but yes, as many of the resources we linked to state, is not perfect. (Biden will get much more coverage here as the election nears). And if the exercise made you realize that perhaps all of our presidents have become complicit in practices and policies that uphold systemic racism, including Barack Obama, then the exercise worked. And although some presidents have clearly been much more egregious in the harm they've created, we have to understand how we got here, how we're still here, and how necessary it is to choose differently this time 'round.

Also it's important to note that presidents alone are not responsible for systemic racism. In fact, take this same level of criticism to your local representatives and policy makers, many of whom are perpetuating the same systemic oppression in your local community.

Why should we still recycle if it's not working? Especially if environmental racism is bigger than ourselves?
From Reduce your plastic consumption on July 24

Individual actions are critical to the work we do, even if we're collectively not making progress. The articles mentioned that decreasing our consumption can fundamentally transform the future, so it would be a miss not to hold ourselves accountable.

Changing environmental racism systemically calls for much broader initiatives that, in this case, weren't directly rooted in plastics. But don't you worry – we'll be doing much more to address environmental racism in our work moving forward.

If you're ever reading this and think "goodness, we should also be doing this and this and this" as part of our daily action, that's amazing. Do it! Especially if you see ways to address these issues in your own community. We're working to add more localized actions to our newsletters, but right now we've got readers signed up from all over the globe and very limited targeting options. However, you can sign up for ARD Actions based on your community by texting "ARD LOCAL" to (718) 715-4359.

Also, kudos to Leigh and Cody for noting that our first action could have been worded better – because not consuming plastics altogether is more important than finding eco-friendly alternatives. Don't throw out something old to replace it with something eco-friendly! Cody recommended the following change:

Choose one product that you own that's made of (or packaged in) plastic. Use it until it is broken or exhausted, and then once it breaks either don't buy a new one or replace it with an eco-friendly alternative. Here's a list of Black-owned eco-friendly products.

CLARIFICATIONS

From Know our racist presidential history on July 23
The internment of Japanese-Americans in California indeed happened in World War II, not World War I as our article states, which will be fixed in our archives. Thank you to the reader that pointed out that internment also happened throughout the Southwest, not just in California (Archives).

Miscellaneous
A reader noted that our emails have readability issues in dark mode. I'll update our template to fix that for the week ahead.

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