Being Black on Earth Day

There is no doubt that green is the new black. Suburbanites compete to have bigger recycling bins than garbage cans, to grocery shop using canvas bags, and to park hybrid cars in their driveways. Being conspicuously green is as much status symbol as it is social movement.

But there is another trend too. Black is the new green. The American environmental elite is an increasingly racially diverse place.

President Barack Obama appointed sister Lisa Jackson to head the EPA. He tapped grassroots, green-jobs brother Van Jones as special adviser to the White House. And his Labor Secretary, Hilda L. Solis, is a Latina with a record of championing green jobs and environmental justice. Black women like Majora Carter and Beverly Wright are at the forefront of regional environmental advocacy. And in his chairmanship of the National Wildlife Federation, Jerome Ringo has integrated even the conservation arm of environmentalism, which is historically devoid of racial minority leadership. Even the First Lady is encouraging kitchen table environmentalism with her advocacy of local, organic food and home-based gardening.

With this growing diversity of green leadership it is harder than ever to claim that America's racial minorities care little about environmental issues. For decades ordinary citizens of color have become environmental activists when they organized to resist the siting of toxic waste dumps in their neighborhoods, to force regulation of polluting industries in fence-line communities, and to bring attention to the negative health impact of particulate emissions near their homes. But these largely decentralized, locally led movements were rarely understood as central to the conservation and climate change environmentalism that dominated federal policy and the national imagination. So despite their efforts, the contributions of black, brown, and poor communities have often been ignored in the story of a greening America.

The diverse, new environmental leadership certainly changes this, but it remains to be seen whether a more racially diverse leadership creates a different kind of American environmentalism.

My friend and colleague, Kimberly Smith wrote a groundbreaking text titled African American Environmental Thought. In it she argues that racial oppression, slavery, sharecropping and segregation altered the meaning of the American landscape for black people. She argues that these injustices alienate black Americans from the land in critical and enduring ways. Therefore, when black Americans reclaim their interest in land, nature, and the environment, they do so in ways that are uniquely concerned with equity and distributive justice. She traces a history of black agrarian and urban environmental thought that supports changing citizens' relationship to the environment through wide ranging social and economic reforms.

For me the real test of the substantive significance of this new cadre of black and brown leaders integrating the environmental movement is whether their leadership is rooted in and aspires to these kinds of wide ranging reforms. Will they provide the energy, innovation, and will to reverse climate change and force a more equitable sharing of environmental burdens? Or will they, like their predecessors, simply tinker at the edges of America's insatiable, inequality-producing appetite for more?

Comments (37)

1. black, purple or blue,

   earth day is a farce.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:37pm

2. "Humbug!"--Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:37pm

   heheh

   Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 5:40pm

3. mask,

   are you satisfied?

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:43pm

4. Do you have to "be" black? How do you do it? Does the phrase "stay black" have a tangible meaning us non-blacks never realized? Does retaining one's blackness require maintenance?

   What about whiteness? Can one fall out of whiteness through a lack of white-itude?

   Posted by gangpapist at 04/22/2009 @ 5:46pm

5. everybody's african, gang.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:46pm

6. MH-L: "There is no doubt that green is the new black.......But there is another trend too. Black is the new green.......Will they...force a more equitable sharing of environmental burdens?....."

   This blog post is Orwellian.......doublespeakish!

   BTW, I'd love to see some "black and brown leaders....force" the Chinese and Indians to "sharing of environmental burdens".

   Posted by Happy at 04/22/2009 @ 5:52pm

7. and china and indian are doing so much polluting in the name of whom?

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:57pm

8. Things I find interesting:

   The population of the earth is estimated to have been 200 million when Christ was born.

   The population of the earth is estimated to have been 310 million when Charlemagne was crowned in the year 1000.

   The population of the earth didnt pass 1 billion until after the year 1800.

   The population of the earth when I was a kid in 1950 was 2.5 billion.

   The population of the earch reached 6.1 billion in 2000.

   The population of the earth reached 6.454 billion in 2005.

   Total population has more than doubled in my lifetime. There are now more than 2 people walking around for every person I saw when I was 10. They all need food, shelter, education, transportation, jobs etc.

   In the last five years we have added more population to the total than the entire population of earth in the year 1,000.

   The idea that we can continue to grow in numbers as we have been and all aspire to an ever higher standard of living is suspect on its face. You don't need to be a scientist or an economist to figure it out.

   The idea that for the last 250 years we have pumped ever increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere through industrialization and the automobile and that we can continue to do so without any consequences is suspect on its face.

   The idea that ever more people on this planet can do so is truly suspect on its face.

   What me worry? I'm old enough that the planet wont get too hot nor will the oil run out for the remainder of my life span. :-)

   Posted by toritto at 04/22/2009 @ 8:03pm

9. Have you aver noticed in in any argument over applying solutions to human want or environmental degradation & say, Scandinavia is brought up as an example of balanced & successful programs to remedy said problems, it's always the right who says, but they are HOMOGENOUS & it can work for them.

   What the hell does race have to do with solution of earthly problems, for god's sake? And repubs wonder why they get 10% of the black vote.

   Posted by Sorelish at 04/22/2009 @ 8:20pm

10. say HOMOGENEOUS

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/22/2009 @ 8:32pm

11. What the hell does race have to do with solution of earthly problems, for god's sake? And repubs wonder why they get 10% of the black vote.

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/22/2009 @ 8:20pm

    Typical white person response. Get a clue.

    Apparently race has a lot to do with it especially when it comes to "environmentalism" or other "environmental issues".

    White people seldom, if at all, communicate to communities of color on issues like that. Take a trip through a poor African-American or Latino neighborhood and you'll see why.

    Posted by ACook at 04/22/2009 @ 8:35pm

12. Posted by ACook at 04/22/2009 @ 8:35pm

    So what do you do? Moonlight selling bootstraps door to door?

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/22/2009 @ 8:42pm

13. The environmental movement has been infected with racism, just like every other movement. Whites have failed to reach out beyond the borders of their suburbs. Blacks have distrusted white environmentalists as much as any other group of predominantly white folk with a plan.

    Unfortunately, I believe the tokenists of the political right have often outstripped, or have seemed to outstrip, genuine practitioners of affirmative action of the political left. White people with reactionary causes are always clever enough to position themselves behind a few black spokespeople. We see this happen in the anti-environmental movement, the anti-immigrant movement, and even the anti-affirmative-action movement.

    But white progressives, confident that they are doing the right thing and that black people will soon join them for this reason, have too often failed to do the necessary outreach toward a truly natural and vital constituency: black progressives. Every progressive movement needs them, and not only as followers, but also as leaders.

    Despite our failures, a few strong bridges have been built, thank God, and Van Jones and Lisa Jackson are the proof of this.

    I have done only a little work in organizations that have tried to bridge the gaps between racial communities - one of these is my church - and I can say that it is difficult work on both sides. It is difficult for me, a white person, and I believe it is at least as difficult for black folk. We all have to work around and get past fear and distrust that we did not create, but that we have all inherited anyway.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 04/22/2009 @ 9:30pm

14. Posted by toritto at 04/22/2009 @ 8:03pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    yeah, and wait til these ices shelves start cracking off big time and melting...

    at least baffin island may start looking better...

    Posted by dexter666 at 04/22/2009 @ 9:41pm

15. Posted by Sorelish at 04/22/2009 @ 8:20pm

    Not speaking for the right here, but the possibility that homogeneity uncomplicates things isn't necessarily a polemic, or racist, just a sad statement on humanity.

    Posted by gangpapist at 04/22/2009 @ 10:33pm

16. Posted by gangpapist at 04/22/2009 @ 10:33pm

    So, gang, are you saying that we're all separate (man's condition), but equal (in god's eyes) & this of course, not in a racial context?

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/22/2009 @ 10:53pm

17. hey, look. protestants and muslims are equally crazy:

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5ieXw28ZUpg/

    Se91-SkTgeI/AAAAAAAABFE/3IQzW3bipj8/s1600-h/warmcath.PNG

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 01:40am

18. and china and indian are doing so much polluting in the name of whom?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:57pm

    They pollute because (substitute (XXXXXX) in for your skin pigmentation....In it she argues that racial oppression, slavery, sharecropping and segregation altered the meaning of the American landscape for (xxxxxxx) people. She argues that these injustices alienate (XXXXXXX)Americans from the land in critical and enduring ways. Therefore, when (XXXXXX) Americans reclaim their interest in land, nature, and the environment, they do so in ways that are uniquely concerned with equity and distributive justice.

    I think she ought to pay a visit to India or China and see how those folks live and the problems they deal with in their day to day lives.

    While people should be proud of their heritage, they should not forget that they are also individuals.

    Lumping all black people into this group or that group is just another form of racism. Many groups of people have been screwed over, over the centuries and singling one group out to say they are more special or good or bad than another groups is racist.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 04/23/2009 @ 07:11am

19. I think the environmental cause is truly an issue for this president to capitalize on. excellent article. Here is something that caught my attention some years ago. I have a geology buddy who corrected me when I said that president Reagan seemed more of an actor than an intelligent expert on anything environmental. Reagan had said that, and I paraphrase, "If we simply planted things we could go a long way at solving the pollution problem". My geology prof. said he was actually correct. I was in Los Angeles in 1972 taking flying lessons and we had to go IFR by nine o:clock in the morning. Driving around the L.A. basin I watched them plow under the last of the orange groves to make room for shopping malls. Disney Land is a really nice park, but it is pure plastic. My geology prof. said that we couldn't continue to defoliate the world and expect to survive as a species. I'm not a tree hugger, but I have thirty acres of 20 year growth of trees.

    Posted by julien38 at 04/23/2009 @ 08:17am

20. Snow, I agree with what you've posted. Environmental corrections can have a very negative impact on working class people & thusly, a high percentage of minorities.

    I certainly don't expect millions to live as I do (rather minimally from a material consumption standpoint), but I think we can GRADUALLY make some progress toward a consensus of sustainability. Just don't think that status should be paramount in our value system.

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/23/2009 @ 09:14am

21. "Suburbanites compete to have bigger recycling bins than garbage cans, to grocery shop using canvas bags, and to park hybrid cars in their driveways. Being conspicuously green is as much status symbol as it is social movement."

    LMAO - you people are a parody..it is all about making yourselves feel important. When in truth, you are making NO difference whatsoever. Your futile efforts will not change the planets temp at all. But you look good to your friends doing it and that is what really matters.

    Posted by vrwc at 04/23/2009 @ 09:46am

22. Typical white person response. Get a clue.

    Apparently race has a lot to do with it especially when it comes to "environmentalism" or other "environmental issues".

    White people seldom, if at all, communicate to communities of color on issues like that. Take a trip through a poor African-American or Latino neighborhood and you'll see why.

    Posted by ACook at 04/22/2009 @ 8:35pm

    I agree with you on most things, but unless I'm not seeing your intent, I have to disagree on this one.

    Ms Harris-Lacewell's article is farcical in my view. To suggest that people of color have been kept outside on building a good environment is simply wrong.

    But then I find her article to be wrong in many ways just as this whole Earth Day thing is a joke.

    Posted by antisocialist at 04/23/2009 @ 10:31am

23. "To suggest that people of color have been kept outside on building a good environment is simply wrong.

    to utterly refute your point in less than 1 paragraph:

    in san francisco, the vast majority of blacks (who are also the city's poorest residents) live in and around an area where the US Navy dumped 60 million pounds of toxic waste. the entire area is deeply polluted. rates of cancer, birth defects, etc, are astonishing.

    "kept outside of a building a good environment"

    Posted by darladoon at 04/23/2009 @ 10:57am

24. hey wolfie!

    not to put too fine point on it, but I think Ms H-L is talking about cultural blackness, not skin pigmentation. you can be a white person and appreciate what people other than your family and immediate kinship learned during slavery, just as you can be a gen x-er and appreciate your grandparent's tales of what they learned during the great depression.

    I think the argument stands if you interpret it that way, although you are correct in doubting that melanin or the lack thereof imbues you with any magical powers of insight.

    Posted by canaro71 at 04/23/2009 @ 11:30am

25. LMAO - you people are a parody..it is all about making yourselves feel important. When in truth, you are making NO difference whatsoever. Your futile efforts will not change the planets temp at all. But you look good to your friends doing it and that is what really matters. Posted by vrwc at 04/23/2009 @ 09:46am

    rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

    what about rivers full of pcbs?!?

    what about the sky full of mercury?!?

    what about the soil full of arsenic?!?

    what about your children full of fungicides?!?

    trasherican.........

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 11:32am

26. What about the new "green" flourescent lightbulbs that have mercury in them and are made in China which means they have to be shipped to America using oil?

    Posted by abell12ct at 04/23/2009 @ 12:46pm

27. abell,

    there is mercury in:

    "thermometers, thermostats, fluorescent lights and tubes, button batteries, light switches, pilot light sensors, shoes that "light up", contact lens solutions, nasal sprays, neon lamps, high intensity discharge (hid) lamps, dental amalgam used in dental fillings, pesticides (manufactured prior to 1994) and alkaline/carbon batteries or latex paints (manufactured prior to 1991)."

    as to making stuff in china,

    well that was mr. greenspan's plan to hide inflation on the backs of brownies.....

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 1:15pm

28. check this one out, snow:

    Catalytic converters cause rise in osmium

    Last update: 1:47 p.m. EDT April 22, 2009

    HANOVER, N.H., Apr 22, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- U.S. scientists say they've determined the global increase in the rare element osmium is being caused by refined platinum used in catalytic converters.

    Dartmouth College researchers said a volatile form of osmium is generated during platinum refinement and also during the normal operation of cars. The osmium is then dispersed globally through the atmosphere.

    "It's interesting, maybe ironic, that we stopped adding lead to gasoline in the 70s so that catalytic converters could be introduced to remove smog from car exhaust," said Associate Professor Mukul Sharma, who led the study. "Now we learn that using platinum in the converters is responsible for an increase in osmium. Fortunately, unlike lead, the concentration of osmium in water is extremely small and MAY [emphasis by fz] not adversely affect biology."

    The research conducted by Sharma, doctoral student Cynthia Chen and Peter Sedwick appears in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

    ••••••••

    if you feed pigs corn or apples, they're still pigs.....

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 1:29pm

29. I am just astonished at how many commenters, whom I can only assume are white, get defensive about a statement about the relationship of (obviously generalized) black communities & the environmental movement.

    Anyway, I think that the increasing visibility of blacks in the environmental movement means just this: blacks are becoming more empowered not only in majority black communities but in areas that are relevant to everyone. I'm glad. Because we all need to pull together on these issues.

    Posted by cdlepthien at 04/23/2009 @ 5:49pm

30. I don't particularly like CFLs (I think LED lights will win in the long run when the cost comes down), the mercury issue is really overblown, as usual. Each bulb has about 5mg of mercury - about the amount needed to cover the tip of a ballpoint pin. If you should break one and if you are so inclined to ingest part of it, the broken glass is infinitely more harmful than the miniscule amount of mercury. Just sweep it up and dump it in the garbage. The government takes everything to the extreme, I guess to justify all the PHDs.

    Posted by pyeatte at 04/23/2009 @ 9:06pm

31. white ppl are something else.

    Posted by she_bad at 04/23/2009 @ 11:08pm

32. white ppl are something else.

    Posted by she_bad at 04/23/2009 @ 11:08pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    They are called albinos. I don't know any personally.

    Posted by comancheamerican at 04/24/2009 @ 12:42am

33. Giant Asteroid to Impact Earth! Reuters Dec 12, 2012

    A giant asteroid more than nine miles across has been confirmed to be on a collision course with Earth. It will impact near the island of Diego Garcia around noon on Dec 12th. A number of activist groups have claimed that this will likely have negative consequences for marginalized persons, and demand government programs. "An Extintction level Event cannot be allowed to only affect women and minorities" said a spokesperson for a well known environmental group.

    Posted by sntauri at 04/24/2009 @ 3:10pm

34. "Do you have to "be" black? "

    If only that were the question: the real question, one lacking in the iterative processes insight and maturity, bring with aptitude and time to such matters, but unlike some... functional, and honest, would ask;

    How the fuck do you, did you... go there, get there, from that?

    "How do you do it? Does the phrase "stay black" have a tangible meaning us non-blacks never realized? Does retaining one's blackness require maintenance?"

    A question such as the above would get your business bought just to fire you, so as to keep such an enterprise, if not asshole proof, to at least keep such a blight to a minimum.

    Or, you could... us a all favour and go ask Fiddy Cent.

    "What about whiteness? Can one fall out of whiteness through a lack of white-itude?"

    Would never occur to someone, secure, in their image of self, and esteem of same... to ask.

    Any of it, in point of fact, if you would just get to the itch you need scratched...

    Posted by gangpapist at 04/22/2009 @ 5:46pm

    Posted by V at 04/25/2009 @ 4:44pm

35. In any case bio-diversity, the life and health of our oceans... (the two I care about the most) could be, would be, as most other environmental concerns-issues, shelved, if the economy tanks.

    Bringing the full gamut of societies ills and issues for the ride, on crack.

    On the bright side, the same skill-sets needed for the solution of the concerns raised in and by this post, are of a like nature to those we need in the solution, to date of all of the others that come to mind.

    And if it can be brought to one it can be brought to any. Same growth.

    Posted by V at 04/25/2009 @ 5:15pm

36. Al Gore the great hoaxer exposed

    http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

    Posted by antisocialist at 04/25/2009 @ 5:20pm

37. Giant Asteroid to Impact Earth! Reuters Dec 12, 2012

    A giant asteroid more than nine miles across has been confirmed to be on a collision course with Earth. It will impact near the island of Diego Garcia around noon on Dec 12th. A number of activist groups have claimed that this will likely have negative consequences for marginalized persons, and demand government programs. "An Extintction level Event cannot be allowed to only affect women and minorities" said a spokesperson for a well known environmental group.

    Posted by sntauri at 04/24/2009 @ 3:10pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Question is....what color is it? If its white there will be programs to mass all white people in the ground zero impact area!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 04/25/2009 @ 6:57pm