Learning from BLM to Dismantle White Environmentalism in Bellingham

Learning from BLM to Dismantle White Environmentalism in Bellingham

 

By:  Franny McLarty & Karey Sharp

 

This week we had the class listen to “Black Lives Matter and the Climate”, an episode of the How to Save a Planet Podcast by Alex Blumberg and Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. The episode explores the lessons that the environmental movement can learn from the Movement for Black Lives, while emphasizing that the fights for racial justice and for the environment are deeply intertwined and must happen simultaneously. Guests Maurice Mitchell of the Working Family Party and Colette Pichon Battle of the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy highlight some of the on-the-ground strategies used by BLM that incorporate environmental justice. The podcast also discusses how the dominant white environmentalist narrative at the forefront of the environmental movement upholds white supremacy and inhibits the climate movement from reaching many potential audiences and fighting for true justice. Colette Pichon Battle stresses what happens when this white environmental movement fails to incorporate racial justice into their work: 

“We don’t see ourselves as part of an ecosystem. We see the ecosystem as a thing over there to go drive to on the weekends and be a part of. We commodify the very thing we need to survive when the environmentalists don’t bring in racial justice” 

Our breakout groups discussed some topics we wanted to explore and examine in more depth with this blog post, with the idea that the more we can learn about the systems that uphold environmental injustice in the Bellingham community and within WWU, the more prepared we can be to dismantle them. Some of our groups discussed how Colette Pichon Battle highlights the

dangers of equating “the privilege of enjoying nature as symbolic of being an environmentalist”(Blumberg & Johnson, 2020). This idea is present in the “outdoorsy” culture and expectations in the WWU community. Through brainstorming what stereotypes are associated with the word “outdoorsy”, we thought of brands like Carhartt and Patagonia. We realized “outdoorsy” is really used to describe someone who engages in extreme (and often expensive) outdoor sports. Our professor, Kate, mentioned the dissociation of the term “outdoorsy” with people who actually work in the outdoors like agricultural workers, loggers, and miners, and the type of knowledge held by those workers is disregarded and villainized by mainstream white environmentalism. 

Having clear stereotypes of white, athletic bodies being considered “outdoorsy” and by default being considered environmentalists, contributes to the othering of people of color in the outdoors. In Carolyn Finney’s Outside magazine article “It Matters Who You See in Outdoor Media”, she describes experiencing frequent expressions of surprise by white people (especially in the PNW) when they see her in outdoor spaces: “I’ve been asked more than once to have my picture taken, and people want to know where I come from. Still, it never ceases to leave me with a deep-seated feeling of discomfort, of being different, and feeling decidedly out of place in these outdoor settings” (Finney, 2016). Undo-ing the dominant WWU stereotype of white, rich, extreme-sporty people being environmental activists means expanding outdoorsy to mean those who like walking, who know about soil, those who work in the outdoors everyday, and especially those groups that have extensive traditional histories and relationships to outdoor knowledge. 

We also discussed how the Mt. Baker Ski Area promotes the harmful, dominant, white narrative of outdoorsy environmentalism. On the website there is a description of “who we are” at Mt Baker. It describes the environment as “rugged” and “off grid”. These words bring up feelings of a need to conquer (that sure sounds a lot like colonize). Additionally, each year the CEO gives a little wooden plaque with a quote by John Muir to the employees, one of them reads “going to the mountains is going home”. There is no acknowledgement that John Muir advocated that traditional Indigenous lands be into National Parks. In Brentin Mock Outside magazine article “The green movement is talking about racism? It’s about time”, Mock mentions that “[g]iven the history of conservationists elevating endangered plant life over endangered people of color, it is environmentalism’s soul that most needs saving”. White environmentalists and white outdoorsy people must take a step back to investigate how their/our elitism is harming others and have the humility to acknowledge that what they/we are fighting for needs re-thinking and re-evaluating. As Collete remarked in the How to Save a Planet podcast “When you bring in racial justice, you cannot just focus on the rivers that you like to kayak”.

 

Reparation resources: 

1. Mutual Aid orgs in bham 

–https://www.facebook.com/downtownbhamwagonbrigade/

–https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TGzkU-8sdCluM2OHHL1WEkog S2BJeyG-QpT9zQflRT0/edit 

1. BIPOC Outdoor Groups and advocates 

–https://www.vamosoutdoorsproject.com/donations/donate/ 

–https://www.fieldmag.com/articles/black-indigenous-poc-outdoor-collecti ves-nonprofits-instagram 

–https://www.diversifyoutdoors.com/ 

iii. Donate to the Duwamish: https://www.duwamishtribe.org/donate/ 

Extra Resources to Share: 

– https://www.the-outrage.com/pages/environmental-justice 

– https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Y3H5GEg7JL14FWktpNfrU?si=RwSve6-zTUaf5r6a5 -hwyQ 

Works Cited 

How to Save a Planet: Black Lives Matter and the Climate 

By Alex Blumberg and Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3vO0O6COrqqB9HS710UWqa?si=se2GKzasQM6wLbXj3sqr BA 

Finney, Carolyn. 2016. Aug., 6. “It Matters Who You See in Outdoor Media” Outside https://www.outsideonline.com/2075586/it-matters-who-you-see-outdoor-media#close 

Mock, Brentin. 2017. Feb., 27. “The Green Movement is Talking about Racism? It’s about time” Outside 

https://www.outsideonline.com/2142326/environmentalism-must-confront-its-social-justice-sins