June 4, 2020

5 Black & POC Environmentalist to Follow

Environmental activism can be a cause for the privileged. Only when you have your basic needs met, do you have the freedom to worry about the long-term threats of the environment or how much trash you’re throwing away. If you look at the biggest influencers in the zero waste space, it’s three white women: Bea Johnson, Lauren Singer, and Kathryn Kellogg.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Bea, Lauren, and Kathryn, but the more time I spend working on environmental issues, the more I find that the environment is also a social justice issue. It’s often minorities that live in the places where pollution is rampant from oil refineries and gas plants. I mean, can you imagine a refinery in Hollywood or Calabasas where the Kardashians live? It would never happen.

Just like everything else, having a diversity of voices and experiences creates better solutions and a richer experience. So, here’s a few black or POC environmentalist to follow:

@ayanaeliza

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson spoke at a conference I attended and she is an amazing human being! She’s a marine biologist who writes about how we need to consider our oceans when addressing climate change. She even helped Elizabeth Warren develop her ocean and climate policy!

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I met @elizabethwarren!!! 💙 I had precisely zero chill. Me [Nervous, clutching my heart]: I’m Ayana! I helped with your Blue New Deal plan! EW [Throws both arms in the air]: Ah! The Blue New Deal is just too fabulous! Agreed. It is fabulous. Becuase it’s just so important to include the ocean as we think about climate risk and solutions. I’ve never gotten very involved in politics before, certainly not in the primaries. But I just so deeply believe Warren is the president we need, that there I was in a high school gym in Iowa. Happy Presidents’ Day @senwarren! #Warren2020 Shoutout to Iowa State Sentator @zachwahls, to whom I owe this moment 📸. And to @meggoxc with the A+ millennial skills who figured out how to make live photos into a video. And to @kategage who said “Sure! I’ll go to Iowa with you.” And to @chloeangyal for the comfy air mattress and 🍸. And as always to Maggie Thomas (@agirlnamedfrances), Warren’s dope climate policy advisor. #WinWithWarren 🗽 #TeamWarren 🌊 #BlueNewDeal 🗳 #PresidentsDay ✨ #PresidentWarren

A post shared by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (@ayanaeliza) on Feb 17, 2020 at 5:37am PST

@greengirlleah

Leah Thomas wrote an insightful post about what she calls Intersectional Environmentalism. “This is an inclusive version of environmentalism that advocates for both the protection of people and the planet.” Seems like a no-brainer when we say it out loud but a lot of times the “people part” gets left behind.

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Social justice cannot wait. It is not an optional “add-on” to environmentalism. It is unfair to opt in and out of caring about racial injustices when many of us cannot. These injustices are happening to our parents, our children, our family and our friends. I’m calling on the environmentalist community to stand in solidarity with the black lives matter movement and with Black, Indigenous + POC communities impacted daily by both social and environmental injustice. Please swipe to learn more about intersectional environmentalism and take the pledge. Here is a list of some of my favorite accounts I follow that raise awareness for intersectional environmentalism, please tag more in the comments!: @mikaelaloach @toritsui_ @jamie_s_margolin @queerbrownvegan @diandramarizet @wildginaa @aditimayer @naturechola @nativein_la @amaze_me_grace @she_colorsnature @switchbackshawty @bleavitt8 @badgal_brooky @teresabaker11 @ImKevinJPatel @Xiyebeara @lainetew @sophiakianni @xiuhtezcatl

A post shared by Leah Thomas (@greengirlleah) on May 28, 2020 at 11:03am PDT

@mikaelaloach

I love that Mikaela Loach is straight-forward and honest.

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Also, we don’t need to celebrate the bare minimum. I’m really tired of being asked to accept and even celebrate less than the bare minimum when it comes to white folk & orgs finally talking about anti-racism. We deserve more than one token post when it’s trendy. We deserve more than performative allying. We deserve more than having to endure microaggressions (refer to last post). We deserve amplification of OUR voices. Real allying is white folk at the riots forming a literal human barrier between black folk and the police (swipe). Antiracism is giving up some of your power to redistribute it. It’s putting the lives of black folk as a higher priority than your power.⁣ ⁣ It’s so frustrating to see big white influencers only now post about #BlackLivesMatter, centering themselves, not amplifying black voices and then the comments are flooded with “thank yous!!” and celebrations. Meanwhile those of us who have been doing this for years have lost jobs (@munroebergdorf w L’Oreal) or had to cope with SO much backlash. Check yourself if you only listen to or celebrate white voices talking about antiracism. We talked about this a lot on the most recent ep of @theyikespodcast out today. ⁣ ⁣ Take note of who has stayed silent until now. Who is still silent. Know that any influencers who have said nothing are doing so because brand deals mean more to them than black lives. Staying silent because you don’t want to lose power is literally you upholding oppression. It is violence. Take note of brands who preface their “solidarity” statements with the fact that they “aren’t political”. Everything is political! It is only privilege that blinds people to that fact. ⁣ ⁣ Saying something is definitely better than nothing but don’t expect applause for it. Recognise you’ve got a lot of work to do and this is the start. ⁣ ⁣ Anti-racism is not a trend. It should be weaved into all of our actions. We need you to show up all the time. If you don't have the words, amplify someone else's. We will all get a lot of things wrong. Heck, I get things wrong all the time. But I am happy to be called out on where I have been wrong and we all need to get more comfortable with that.

A post shared by mikaela loach (she/her) (@mikaelaloach) on Jun 1, 2020 at 4:36am PDT

@xiyebeara

Xiye Bastida is considered to be America’s Greta Thunberg. She’s a Mexican-Chilean climate activist and member of the indigenous Mexican Otomi–Toltec nation. At only 18 years old, she makes me feel like a serious slacker!

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“The youth of the world have united for this purpose— you need to treat us as stakeholders, not tokens” . Turns out COP25 was not what we were waiting for. Turns out it wasn’t a place to enact positive change. But that’s okay because it gave me a space to meet people who are fighting just as hard as I am— if not more. . I had never participated in so many protests in such a small time frame, which is truly amazing. It is only a reflection of society. It shows that we are not willing to step aside while fundamental rights are being violated— not only the rights of people, but also nature. . The most important thing that I learned is that change doesn’t happen inside the walls of the same conference that has been going on for 25 years. Change happens in our hearts and in the streets. . COP25 failed, but we haven’t ❤️

A post shared by Xiye Bastida (@xiyebeara) on Dec 19, 2019 at 3:22pm PST

@queerbrownvegan

I love that Isaias talks about a wide variety of concepts outside of the usual how-to’s and tips to live more eco-friendly.

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It's #PrideMonth2020, but lets never forget Black / Brown Trans Womxn who fought for our rights we have today still face the highest risk of being harmed. Today is the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, where there were several clashes between the police and the Queer community in a New York City bar. We must recognize that in the past 50 years, many Black / Latinx trans womxn leaders like "Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, and Sylvia Rivera, whose contributions have often been rewritten or erased" (ACLU). As a Queer cis-male, I recognize the privilege and power I have in society and am constantly looking for ways to center, support, and fund the voices of Black / Brown Trans Womxn of color. – – While there are a variety of concise definitions of queer ecologies and queer nature, I wanted to take the time to present my holistic view of how I view Queer environmentalism. For me, queer environmentalism seeks to recognize how Black / Brown Trans Womxn have been advocating to protect communities and establish safe environments for the Queer community. It seeks to dismantle heteronormative views of the environment and promote freedom of expression and fluidity. Lastly, it incorporates many traditional practices that have protected their communities while bringing Queer voices to the discussions of the climate crisis. – – For those who have decided to speak up on the recent injustices of police brutality, did you know that Queer Black folks are apart of that community? As mentioned in my previous posts that "Police brutality is an environmental issue," we cannot solely stay silent that Queer communities still lack the resources and safety in their environments—some organizations to donate to or even check in with your local Queer Black friends right now. [TGIJP (@tgijustice) Black Trans Led Org] 1.) National Center for Transgender Equality 2.) Transgender Legan Defense and Education 3.) Trans LifeLine 4.) Transgender Law Center 5.) The Trevor Project 6.) Trans Student Educational Resources – – #lgbtcommunity #pridemonth #queerenvironmentalist #queerbrownvegan #blackenvironmentalism #blackenvironmentalist #blackenvironmentalistsmatter

A post shared by Isaias Hernandez (@queerbrownvegan) on Jun 1, 2020 at 12:31pm PDT