Your environmentalism is a joke
Colonization is rarely cited as the cause for our climate crisis, when in reality, it’s the origin of it. So while white activists are out here promoting environmentalism (and subtly, their own moral excellence), they’re actually just perpetuating the exact thing that got us into this mess — white supremacy.
Indigenous Peoples were committed to sustainability, oneness with nature, and harmony with living creatures since day one. Then colonizers showed up, condemning these values as idolatry, and immediately tried to figure out how they could gain more profit and power through land and every creature that inhabited it.
Fast forward to present day. White people have caught up; they’re loving the planet, solar energy, and their metal straws. But instead of passing the mic and offering stakeholdership to Indigenous communities, y’all have decided to claim the movement as your own.
White environmentalists seem to think it’s cool to care about how these systems have harmed our land, yet completely neglect how they’re killing our people. Countless, and I mean countless, Black people and Indigenous peoples have been killed in the name of power, white supremacy, and capitalism — the founding fathers of our environmental crisis. Destruction of nature is anything but an isolated topic. The destruction of nature did, and still does, go hand in hand with the eradication, exploitation, and oppression of people.
The institutions that are harming our environment were harming our people first. Yet it seems that these very real health and human rights issues had to be rebranded as environmental issues and animal rights issues for white people to care about them.
And if that wasn’t offensive enough, the representation within the environmental sector is a joke. Despite environmental organizations publicly stressing the value of diversity and ‘community partnerships’, these organizations are overwhelmingly white. And the little representation that can be found within these companies swiftly disappears as job titles become more important. The environmental space should not be dominated by white people. Point blank, period.
People are dying. People have always been dying. They are dying because of environmental racism. They are dying because our climate crisis disproportionately affects them. They are dying because the same practices that are harming our environment, the practices that are upheld by white supremacy, are functioning better than ever in our institutions, and killing us.
So excuse me for gagging when I see the environmental narrative plagued with the voices of white women. Excuse me for saying your environmentalism is a joke when first you ignore the root cause of these issues, and then you take up space in a ‘movement’ that isn’t yours. Y’all have to start decolonizing your social justice movements, cause it’s hard to watch.
About Tomi (She/Her)
Hey! My name is Tomi, and I have a Communications degree from Mount Royal University. My goal is to live as honestly as possible, and as a result, put something new and beautiful into the world. I write about activism, intersectional justice, and the Black experience. I know nothing and question everything. Thanks for reading along!