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00:00:30.000hey for the wild community carter lou here to present this week's homebound episode
00:00:38.760homebound brings you wisdom from the for the wild archives offering guidance and perspective to
00:00:45.160anchor us and help us to navigate this current moment today we are re-listening to our conversation
00:00:51.460with jackie patterson on eco justice in the age of the anthropocene originally aired in 2017
00:00:59.680Jackie Patterson has worked as a director, researcher, program manager, coordinator,
00:01:06.080advocate, and activist working on women's rights, violence against women, HIV and AIDS,
00:01:12.800racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice.
00:01:18.540We're bringing this episode back from the archives because over the past couple of weeks,
00:01:22.980we have seen far too many narratives of disposability when it comes to the communities
00:01:27.480who are already impacted the most when it comes to environmental, social, and economic injustice.
00:01:34.960Jackie reminds us that we must strategically address the needs of our communities,
00:01:39.560for when we work to uplift those at the bottom, we all rise.
00:01:44.820In light of this conversation with Jackie, we are asking ourselves,
00:01:48.820why is it that so many of us are willing to sacrifice others?
00:01:53.240Where did we first learn disposability?
00:01:57.480Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today we are speaking with
00:02:13.120Jacqueline Patterson. Jacqueline is the director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice
00:02:20.100Program. Since 2007, Patterson has served as coordinator and co-founder of Women of Color
00:02:26.440United. Jackie Patterson has worked as a researcher, program manager, coordinator,
00:02:31.660advocate, and activist working on women's rights, violence against women, HIV and AIDS,
00:02:37.320racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice. Patterson served as a senior
00:02:44.520women's rights policy analyst for ActionAid, where she integrated a women's rights lens for0.87
00:02:50.220the issue of food rights, macroeconomics, and climate change, as well as the intersection of
00:02:55.600Violence Against Women and HIV-AIDS. Previously, she served as Assistant Vice President of HIV-AIDS
00:03:02.340Program for IMA World Health, providing management for technical assistance to medical facilities
00:03:08.000and programs in 23 countries in Africa and the Caribbean. Patterson served as the Outreach
00:03:13.400Project Associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Research Coordinator for
00:03:18.760John Hopkins University. She also served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica and the West
00:03:25.420Indies. Wow, and there's even more to your bio, but what an incredible body of work you have,
00:03:34.340Jacqueline. Thank you so much for being on the show with us today. Sure, it's a pleasure. Thank
00:03:39.520you for having me. So I just want to start off by saying that we at For the Wild here and this
00:03:47.560whole team know that any initiative for ecological renewal must be tethered to intersectional
00:03:54.080justice, or it just becomes another manifestation of that which we seek to dismantle and transform.
00:04:02.600So I want to kind of set the stage and I want to speak to the under-representation of people0.95
00:04:09.260of color in the environmental and climate movements, and I want to acknowledge the
00:04:14.620interwoven systemic physical spiritual dimensions that continue to silence the voices of those most
00:04:21.140marginalized in this system and now we're just seeing how these systemic inequalities are being
00:04:29.140exacerbated as the climate grows more unpredictable as public services and environmental degradation
00:04:36.020and toxification only worsen as gentrification continues as a new form of colonization and
00:04:43.120the prison-industrial complex increasingly consumes communities striving to survive.
00:04:50.600And just thinking about the first shackled journey across the Atlantic and the era of
00:04:56.480sharecropping, which held as much violence and lack of autonomy as slavery did, to the
00:05:01.140intentional hyper-segregated design of urban spaces and the disproportionate exposure to
00:05:06.640toxicity of fence-line communities, and then the relationship between people of color and
00:05:11.900nature has been severed manipulated and convoluted by colonial forces and I've really been sitting
00:05:20.060in this train of thought a lot recently and Jacqueline you have worked tirelessly just
00:05:29.180researching so many different avenues of climate justice environmental justice racial justice I
00:05:39.200mean, the list goes on. And I'd love if you could start off by explaining to us how your work has
00:05:46.640been guided by history towards a future of intersectionality and justice.
00:05:56.860Hmm, thank you. Yeah, so I'm my work really around environmental and climate justice has
00:06:05.680It stemmed from, as you say, a history of doing work around starting off with a view towards kind of more social services and then with this kind of broad and naive notion of, quote unquote, helping.
00:06:19.600And then then then came enlightenment in terms of what actual of how our systems of quote unquote helping are actually in some ways keeping people in powerlessness and keeping people oppressed in some ways.
00:06:40.480and that we really have to think more transformatively.
00:06:43.920And that really came out of experiences from starting to do work on special education and public health
00:06:51.260and really recognizing that a lot of the special needs that existed when I was doing this work,
00:06:58.100particularly in Jamaica, were because of the way the country and our larger kind of geopolitical system
00:07:06.100means that there is an amassing of wealth for a wealthy few where, you know, we just take things
00:07:12.500like immunizations and healthy diets and so forth for granted in wealthy contexts while in nations
00:07:20.520where we're taking natural resources and not really properly compensating people for the
00:07:28.600sharing of resources, they end up living in relative squalor in many cases and resulting
00:07:36.740in everything from poor sanitation to, you know, lack of immunizations. And that actually resulted
00:07:43.780in the special needs that I was addressing through the special education programming.
00:07:48.980So I really recognize that while special education programming is always going to be needed because
00:07:55.080special needs develop from a number of different sources, there's also systemic ways that we can1.00
00:08:00.640address the way our economy and social systems are designed so that the special needs don't
00:08:09.220even arise in the first place in terms of some that are based on these inequities. So that's
00:08:15.860just an example. But similarly with HIV, I was doing work around HIV and AIDS and infectious
00:08:22.200diseases. And similarly with that, particularly as I began to work with women who are disproportionately
00:08:29.440impacted by HIV in the global South and in the United States, it just again very quickly came
00:08:36.900to light how sexism, patriarchy, and so forth really led to the situations of women who are
00:08:45.340HIV positive, whether it was because of gender-based violence or whether it was because women felt
00:08:51.320forced into transactional sex because of the fact that we know that worldwide women make 70 cents on
00:08:59.500the man's dollar. And so that state of poverty, the fact that women are often, there's so many0.90
00:09:06.220female-headed households, so women feel forced into certain activities because they're needing1.00
00:09:11.680to provide for their children. So again, every place that I was where I was doing this work,
00:09:19.780It just became very evident that, quote unquote, helping means to actually transform a system that's based on this notion of winners and losers and really uplifting and making sure that there is self-determination for folks so that we can change these systems so that people can provide for themselves.
00:09:38.120I'll pause there. But that's kind of part of the evolution and the way that I saw this intersectionality, whether it's around gender, whether it's around global South nations, and certainly our economy and how it's formed and how it is designed to where it's the people who are in power and making decisions are perpetuating the status quo in terms of the economic conditions of the many suffering from the luxuries of a few, to paraphrase Martin Luther King.
00:10:08.120people are more and more awakening to the realities of the earth, feeling the overwhelm
00:10:19.280of where to begin. And I think sometimes we started helping the symptoms rather than the
00:10:27.120core of what's creating those symptoms, which is the system. So thank you for acknowledging that
00:10:34.520for us. You know, part of your work, as you've been saying, not only spanned North America,
00:10:42.400but also the Caribbean and Africa. And I'm wondering, how does the cultural relationship
00:10:49.220that people of color hold with the environment and the land differ in the Caribbean and Africa
00:10:56.060in comparison to mainland North America?1.00
00:11:24.600And so we know that from what I have observed from being in the Caribbean and in sub-Saharan Africa, that the folks live a lot closer with the land and really are in harmony with the land in ways that are a lot more evident and observed.
00:11:42.160So from subsistence farming and the fact that whether you're a professional going to an office or you are living in a rural area, subsistence farming is a lot more prevalent regardless of what station you have in society.
00:12:00.640And so that connection with the land in terms of its bounty actually feeding one's family begs a certain understanding of the land, respect for the land, and as I said, harmony with the land.
00:12:16.160And also that a number of cultures, rituals and spirituality is connected with soil, is connected with water, and connected with the notion of the divine feminine in terms of the women as birthing and the earth as birthing.
00:12:36.840And seeing that real connection is a lot more prominent and prevalent in some of the Global South cultures and nations.
00:12:43.900And so people of color in the United States who have, you know, more recently or in the distance past migrated or been brought here in the hulls of ships in some ways hold on to those values and cultures.
00:12:59.600But the practices become eroded by the forces of the United States society, which is in some ways built on a very countering relationship with the earth in terms of extraction, reckless extraction of natural resources.
00:13:18.220And then in terms of taking people away from their land, the reckless extraction of humanity in terms of the slave trade and so forth, the enslaved trade.
00:13:29.600And then and then, of course, the way that we even interrupt the natural regenerative cycles, whether it's development by some of these big ag corporations of terminator seeds or it is this notion of of growing food for fuel as opposed to what it's originally supposed to be intended for.
00:13:54.720So there's so many ways that the disruptive nature of our dominant culture has taken people literally from their land or just the societal mores and norms are separating people from that relationship of harmony with the land.
00:14:54.720Yeah, I think about the consumer nature culture
00:15:24.640I mean, most of the time looking at whether it's the Internet or ads for hiking or backpacking or any of these things.0.54
00:15:35.840And it's really strange how the segregation remains with nature and people of color.
00:15:44.940And I guess it kind of brings me to this other point that one of the greatest hindrances to a more just or inclusive culture is the unequal access to land by different groups of people of color.0.66
00:16:03.360And that in turn affects the ability of communities to live a healthy life and in deep connection to place, to land, to nature.0.95
00:16:11.580so while indigenous peoples have an inherent right to land through ancestry and of course we know that
00:16:17.900so many of those treaties are broken so i'm wondering how this lack of access to land and
00:16:24.900land ownership affects people of color but you know also black leadership in the environmental movement
00:16:32.540yeah whether it is the so i'll even take an explicit example of the recent situation that
00:16:45.540happened in east chicago indiana where people who were in public housing discovered that over
00:16:54.480the decades that they lived in this public housing they were being exposed to lead and
00:17:00.520arsenic in their soil multiple times the quote-unquote allowable levels of lead and arsenic
00:17:08.180in our soil. And so once this came to light, the folks ended up with a 90-day notice to get out
00:17:16.840of where they were living and where some had been living for generations. One person we spoke to
00:17:24.400was 60 something years old the only place she had ever known and had 90 days to move there were so
00:17:31.780many people who were affected it was um some like 300 households or so in this housing complex
00:17:38.200that um they were they didn't have enough section 8 housing vouchers to even accommodate the folks
00:17:45.980in the state and so not only did they have to move away from the only home that they've known
00:17:51.640the only community they've ever known, and for multiple folks, the only state they've ever known.
00:17:58.900And so that kind of complete lack of control over one's destiny, over one's circumstances,
00:18:10.320the fact that that disruption and the fact that one had to really focus inwardly to figure out
00:18:18.480how to cater for the needs of the family, but the people weren't really able to organize in the way
00:18:25.540that they might have been able to organize if they had had the stability of a place of control over
00:18:31.240the situation. Because even, you know, if they had all been homeowners, then there might have
00:18:36.240been some organizing they could have done to try to push for remediation, but it was public housing
00:18:42.620And therefore, they were literally at the mercy of the state, not the state as in the state of Indiana, but like, you know, the government oversight over where they live because of the Section 8 situation.
00:18:55.660And so that's another example, as you said before, gentrification in ways that communities have historically been displaced by or forced into certain places by redlining.
00:19:08.700and and then now and with this modern day gentrification and still suddenly existing
00:19:15.600redlining people again are being displaced with changes in property values and changes in
00:19:22.420resources meaning you know rental properties are are more expensive people being priced out of
00:19:28.520their homes um places where because of the connection with sea level rise there's places
00:19:33.840where it used to be that the coastal properties were the most desired and they pushed people of
00:19:42.040color and low-income communities away from those coastal properties because they were most of
00:19:47.320value. And now that the people of color and low-income folks are living on higher ground,
00:19:51.820more inland, that has become more valuable because sea level rise is inundating those
00:19:56.620coastal dwelling places and people are being further displaced from their original communities.
00:20:02.780So there's just so many examples of displacement and the lack of power to fight back against and the lack of ability to be able to organize around it.
00:20:14.140But at the same time, people are organizing, finding the ways to organize, even with the East Chicago situation.
00:20:20.720Some of the people are living in Illinois now as opposed to Indiana or living very far away, but yet still they're keeping their connections and they're fighting for the right to return. They're fighting for a proper level of remediation and also fighting for resources to help them where they are.
00:20:40.640In other places, folks are fighting against gentrification and fighting against displacement, pushing for ordinances that can quell the development that would be happening to their communities and really helping to control how development happens and enabling them to stay, implementing models like community land trusts and so forth.
00:21:05.840So people are starting to be able to strategically think of ways to address this constant displacement that communities are facing, and so that's happening.
00:21:18.220So I don't want to kind of make it sound, you know, really kind of perpetuate this deep victimology, but also really saying that people are fighting back against multiple, you know, mechanisms of oppression that they're being assailed with, besieged with.
00:21:35.840sorry yeah no there's so much there and when I was asking that question I wasn't even thinking
00:21:43.300about how the constant displacement disrupts organizational focus and power because you're
00:21:52.160trying to organize and then you have to move and you're having to figure out where to move and you
00:21:56.080don't have stability and how much energy that takes away from actually focusing on standing
00:22:02.300up for remediation rights and uh property i mean all of it i'd recently interviewed clayton thomas
00:22:10.520muller who's an indigenous activist out of ottawa in canada and we had this really beautifully
00:22:19.540intense conversation about land rights and if we're not talking about access to land and land
00:22:28.800ownership in this dominant culture we're not really discussing solutions for climate justice
00:22:34.700because if the most of the land is still in the ownership of the white dominant supremacist
00:22:43.240culture and we're not allowing the system to dismantle so that people of color and
00:22:49.320marginalized people can actually have access to land for growing food for connect reconnecting
00:22:54.740with soil and nature and balancing the power the access to land is so fundamental and I think it
00:23:03.320kind of gets sidelined or like brushed under the rug a lot especially in the environmental movement
00:23:08.340of course you know I think we hear a lot more about indigenous rights to land which we should
00:23:14.480of course that is so important and true that this was the first peoples of this continent it was
00:23:22.260their land, but for other groups, other people of color, the inequality of land ownership is just
00:23:31.520something that's been on my mind a lot lately. If there's anybody else that's coming to mind,
00:23:36.860any other groups, initiatives that are seeking to resolve unequal access to land and land
00:23:42.920ownership, I'd love to also hear more about those people, those groups, those initiatives, so
00:23:48.380people in the audience might be able to support and get involved yeah thank you that's a great
00:23:55.680question um yeah i mean there's just so many everything from groups like uh shelter force
00:24:03.180i don't know if you're familiar that really curates a lot of the work that happens around
00:24:08.320housing displacement um some of the techniques that people have around using ordinances and
00:24:14.860other local policy. So it's kind of a national organizing group. And then there's individual
00:24:22.700frontline groups, everyone from Uprose in Brooklyn to Got Green in Seattle to, I mean,
00:24:30.760there's so many. The Climate Justice Alliance has a number of members that are working on
00:24:35.680these issues, land and displacement and so forth. Actually, also Movement Generation
00:24:41.880facilitated recently a black land liberation convening and out of that came a network of
00:24:50.200folks who are focused on on land housing and how to build power and ownership of land as well as
00:24:59.180to resist the challenges around housing and have everyone having a right to a place called home
00:25:06.080so those are just a few examples yes thank you for those and i'm sure uh if people want to start
00:25:15.960uh diving into those groups that you've mentioned they'll probably
00:25:20.120find more the more research one does so thank you for starting us off um
00:25:25.860so to transition to another topic because there's so many things that i would love to cover with you
00:25:34.080I know that so much of your work lands within women's rights, racial justice, and HIV AIDS, particularly with the Women of Color United, the organization that you co-founded.
00:25:45.560And I'm wondering if you could tell us about what this work has shown you about how HIV AIDS intersects with climate change.0.82
00:25:53.700hmm yeah so on the on the challenging front are the ways that women are disproportionately
00:26:05.500negatively impacted by climate change everything from the spike in gender-based violence in the
00:26:12.580aftermath of disasters that's been that has been documented in disaster after disaster
00:26:18.560whether it's the earthquake in Gujarat to Hurricane Katrina to the BP oil drilling disaster
00:26:25.480is a well-known well-documented fact that women experience more sexual violence and the insecurity
00:26:32.940of the aftermath of disasters during and after and that women experience more domestic violence
00:26:38.980and the aftermath whether it's because of the stress or otherwise after disasters and so
00:26:45.180this is a cautionary note as we begin to experience more in the way of the frequency
00:26:52.920and severity of extreme weather events. Secondly, that women, both in the global south and the U.S.,
00:27:04.960who are more likely to be food insecure, where we have these shifts in agricultural yields resulting
00:27:12.960from climate change, we are seeing where there's a risk to women becoming even more
00:27:21.460food insecure, particularly female-headed households. On the driver's side of climate0.75
00:27:28.680change, the fact that there are these toxic facilities that are spewing pollution,
00:27:37.140that some of which includes endocrine disruptors, specifically, of course, interfering with
00:27:44.640reproductive health of women. And one of the other toxins that comes out of these smoke stacks is
00:27:52.600mercury, which is known to be tied to birth defects. So just multiple ways that the women1.00
00:28:00.860are impacted by those polluting facilities that are also emitting the greenhouse gas emissions1.00
00:28:06.700that drive climate change. And then also on the driver's side, some of the operations
00:28:14.520of oil and gas industries, and particularly as we talk about indigenous women in the man
00:28:22.360camps, quote unquote, in South Dakota, North Dakota, and elsewhere, there is again documented
00:28:29.260known they even did a big thing on CNN on the the impacts of these man camps on women where women
00:28:38.640indigenous women and others have have disappeared or have have suffered from high rates of sexual
00:28:45.220violence in the context of these man camps where men are coming to work these oil operations they're
00:28:51.060away from their families for months on end and it just literally develops into these places where
00:28:57.160there's high levels of trafficking, high levels of sexual violence, high levels of drug usage,
00:29:05.080opiates and opioids and heroin and so forth is proliferate in those places. And it's women who0.99
00:29:14.060are paying the highest cost. So there are so many ways that women are disproportionately impacted.
00:29:20.020But at the end, at the same time, women are are most able and time and time again, it has it's shown that women have a higher awareness of climate change, have a higher likelihood of acting on climate change.
00:29:38.060Um, that if women are controlling resources, they're more likely to make, uh, choices that0.78
00:29:45.800are, that are more, um, sustainable choices in terms of, uh, whether it's products or1.00
00:29:55.260So women have a more of a conservation edge and leadership around these issues.0.98
00:30:00.020Yet at the same time, women are underrepresented in the leadership and the decision-making0.96
00:30:06.740that can stem the tide of climate change and address the impacts of climate change.1.00
00:30:12.220So whether it's the halls of Congress, the public service commissions and the public utilities commissions
00:30:18.180that govern energy practices, and we know energy practices are a major polluter
00:30:23.960and tying to those very challenges that I talked about with women, as well as a major driver of climate change.
00:30:30.440And yet the people who are making decisions about our energy practices are the ones who are least affected by these by these things.
00:30:39.420And so so you see that kind of pattern there of most impacted, most likely to make good decisions, less likely to be in a decision making position.
00:32:28.700oh yeah i see that time and time again where the people that are most affected don't have a seat
00:32:36.720at the table they don't have the opportunity to even be heard um let alone have any decision
00:32:44.800making power and then furthermore the mainstream media doesn't pick up the other narrative
00:32:52.360so it's this complete silencing of the voices it's a silencing of power making decision making
00:33:02.380i was able to speak with candy mossett from the indigenous environmental network
00:33:09.660a few months ago and she spoke about the man camps in north dakota this is a topic that
00:33:18.320does not get enough attention at all and then with these women who are experiencing such intense
00:33:26.140suffering on top of their communities being destroyed on top of not having access or power
00:33:33.520they they're many times not even heard and justice is not served especially for indigenous women in
00:33:39.740those areas they couldn't even most of the time take these rapists to court there's no justice
00:33:46.420so uh i just want to take a moment and um yeah the people that are most affected
00:33:57.360are not the ones who have the decision-making power and i have a few statistics here um so
00:34:05.760one of the statistics an african-american family making 50 to 60 000 per year is more likely to
00:34:11.660live near or next to a toxic facility than a white american family making 10 to 15 000 per year
00:34:18.540another one over 78 of african americans live within a 30 mile radius of coal-fired power plants
00:34:25.660i just want to read that again over 78 of african americans live within a 30 mile radius of coal
00:34:32.760fired power plants which also emit sulfur dioxide nitrogen oxide mercury arsenic and lead
00:34:39.140also another one 71 percent of african americans live in counties in violation of epa air quality
00:34:47.480standards so communities of color to quote you from an article that i read are quote the global
00:34:55.080south within the north and they are being sacrificed so the rest of the dominant culture0.98
00:35:04.240can keep polluting keep consuming it's no coincidence that these sacrifice communities
00:35:10.540are also the ones who are politically disenfranchised with low property values
00:35:15.840who are food insecure and contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions you know these are all
00:35:22.260things that you've touched on and so I guess I'm wondering what does a just transition mean
00:35:30.680for these communities that are up against so much and that are just trying to deal with
00:35:38.580the toxicity and and all the things that we had mentioned before you know what does a dress
00:35:45.240transition look like and what are the steps to getting there not and of course I know so many
00:35:51.000have already started like with with yourself with the groups that you've mentioned before
00:35:55.260But I'd love to give the audience some visual aid on what a just transition future, when it's really put into play, could look like.
00:36:06.920Mm hmm. Good question. So, so one, I mean, kind of core principle and practice around a just
00:36:17.080transition is that it needs to be led by those who are most impacted by where we are now in terms of
00:36:25.680the very systemic oppression that we've talked about. Because, you know, there's this fallacy
00:36:31.160of a rising tide lifting all boats. But unless there are people in those boats, I mean, there's
00:36:38.220some people who aren't on the boats at all, whose birds are not seaworthy in any way. And so it
00:36:43.580doesn't, you know, that analogy doesn't work for systems in real time. And so really having
00:36:51.540the folks who are most impacted, defining what a just transition is for them, and then following
00:36:58.440that that vision in terms of implementation and then of course the devil becomes in the detail so0.81
00:37:03.740as we talk about a systemic trans transformation from a society that's built on principles and0.89
00:37:11.360practices where it's in there are inherently winners and losers where kind of capitalism0.78
00:37:17.120means that you know there's there's capitalization and then there are those who are capitalized upon
00:37:23.400And it's usually, you know, of course, through the reckless extraction and usage of natural resources. And then usually, and then we've had this extraction of people and then the use and abuse of people through systemic oppression.
00:37:41.640And so how do we really affirm human rights and earth rights as we move forward? And how do we affect a systemic transformation where the vision of people most impacted will be things like everyone having access to clean air, clean water, uncontaminated land, and the commons in terms of a place called home, access to energy, access to clothing.
00:38:11.060and you know shelter and food and all of those basics and and but if we have a system that's
00:38:18.280fundamentally based on you know again the luxuries of the few um sacrificing just the very basics for
00:38:25.980the many then that total systems transformation is such a a large and comprehensive vision
00:38:34.760the question is how do we get there and how do we make sure that we have kind of interim systems
00:38:41.840in that in that transition so a lot of times when we talk about just transition we're a lot of times
00:38:48.300talking about what's happening on the end point which is the realization of that vision I just
00:38:53.040described but then the pathways to it how do we kind of affect a like completely turn over the
00:39:01.940system but while not having casualties in the process you know um so they say to make an omelet
00:39:11.780you have to break some eggs and that's kind of the way that people not necessarily dismiss those
00:39:16.000types of impacts but um just kind of make them sound like accepted inevitabilities but it is the
00:39:22.200people who are most marginalized and end up being those broken eggs so we really have to think
00:39:27.760through, like, okay, if we're going to transform our energy system from one where we're, you know,
00:39:33.660where we're joint burning energy through, you know, oil and gas production and coal-based
00:39:38.000production and nuclear energy as well, then as we transform to a system that, you know,
00:39:44.520the frontline communities talk about in terms of distributed generation and community ownership
00:39:49.620and control of resources, what are the interim steps to get there? And how do we make sure
00:39:57.740that people aren't harmed in the meantime. One example of the same is that I am totally on the
00:40:07.960camp of being against water privatization. But in Baltimore, for example, after they fought off
00:40:14.760water privatization, right after that, there were 23,000 people on the rolls to get their water
00:40:19.720shut off. So how do we make sure that we're being just as strong about what we're against,
00:40:24.860and then really knowing what that alternative system looks like
00:40:28.740and making sure that as we move towards that alternative system
00:40:31.720that there aren't casualties along the way.
00:40:36.780So we can really do that and talk about that system by system,
00:40:39.920energy systems, our water system, our food systems.
00:40:44.200Each and every one of those systems needs to undergo a change
00:40:47.940because whether we have food where it's not even based on agriculture
00:40:53.920So it's put together in some kind of test tube.
00:40:56.440And it's not only not good for you, but it's actively bad for you
00:41:00.400in terms of the foods that we have access to,
00:41:03.580and particularly that communities of color, low-income communities have access to.
00:41:07.240So how do we transform that entire food system?
00:41:09.980And what are the steps that get us there without having casualties along the way?
00:41:14.060So literally for each and every system where this total transformation is needed,
00:41:17.480We have to have, you know, the hearts and minds together to figure out what the process is to move towards that transformation. I know that was kind of long and repetitious, but hopefully that makes some level of sense.
00:41:32.580No, it totally does. And I think back to a conversation I had with Sharif Whitland, who works down in Louisiana. And we were discussing just transition. And it was really fascinating to understand it from her point of view, which I really agree with, which is we have one version of renewable transition that we're sold, which is mostly
00:42:02.580white dominated mostly male dominated solar and wind and really the ownership and the investment
00:42:10.460stays within the small already elite group and none of the financial gains or the positive
00:42:21.240impacts are really shared with other communities and so how she was explaining it the working
00:42:29.880class people are really amazing with oil rigs and what's happening is as renewable comes along
00:42:38.460those people who have the skills are not always given the jobs they don't have ownership in the
00:42:44.900companies and so sometimes they're just used as modern day slaves to these renewable projects
00:42:51.880that are then shipped out somewhere else for another community say in new england to get the
00:42:57.980benefits while they're still having to deal with the repercussions of the fossil fuel industry
00:43:03.300so i don't know if i explained that well but it was a really important view and understanding of
00:43:12.600the transition to renewable and why we talk about a just transition it's not transition to renewable
00:43:19.260and leave the marginalized people behind as in the same type of system it's how do we
00:43:25.620uplift communities specifically marginalized communities and like you said
00:43:33.060how the the very few have the luxury items while the majority of people don't even have the basic
00:43:42.780needs and you know I have this quote from you and I'll just kind of pull out a few things but
00:43:47.840you were saying that quote we only have 1.1 percent of the energy jobs and we have less
00:43:52.580than 0.1% of the revenue from the energy sector. So we're getting all the negative impacts of the
00:43:57.880energy economy, but none of the gains of the energy economy in terms of economic well-being.
00:44:02.900So again, like that's just right there. I mean, those are the numbers, the impact,
00:44:07.920the consequences and no benefits. And then there's, you know, in this quote, on top of that,
00:44:14.720that $41 billion being extracted from our communities, it gets sent back in the communities
00:44:21.000in pollution because of the burning of fossil fuels and at the same time it's also being used
00:44:24.920when those companies use that money to pay to push back against clean air regulations when
00:44:31.260they're paying lobbyists to do that and this is you know this quote really puts into perspective
00:44:36.240how convoluted and complex the system is set up to keep people down and poisoned honestly so
00:44:45.780yeah because the environmental movement has had this reputation or at least the the leaders have
00:44:56.140been mostly white upper to middle class people who aren't being affected as much and all of these
00:45:03.960stories that you've been telling that we've been talking about aren't in the forefront and then
00:45:10.260we're not really thinking about the thorough solutions it's really detrimental to us it's
00:45:16.360really detrimental to this movement to be having these partial narratives um yes so uh you know
00:45:25.360it's just the truth is that segregation and colonization and slavery and all of these things
00:45:30.560that we've been talking about are still really alive and well they're not put to rest and i think
00:45:37.240the conditioned psychological barriers separate us even further on top of that and then the impacts
00:45:43.360of climate change are vastly disproportionate and i think everyone is that at least is aware
00:45:49.920is feeling this urgency and uh this this one intensive i was in uh this amazing woman this
00:46:00.360woman of color stood up and said you know i am the polar bear on the ice and there also are
00:46:08.900actual polar bears on the fading ice and um i'm trying to get to this i'm trying to get to a
00:46:16.880question but it's just um i guess maybe how do you see the dissolution of white supremacy being
00:46:25.160influenced by rapid climate change? Yeah, I would say a couple of things with that.
00:46:40.320Particularly for better or worse, with this current political context that we're in,
00:46:48.460there's a growing understanding of the pervasiveness of white supremacy in modern day
00:46:56.320society, like a recognition that we have not overcome to the extent that many had allowed
00:47:04.520themselves to believe. So one thing is that I am seeing a greater level of acknowledgement and
00:47:14.560of organizing around white supremacy with that with that deeper understanding so there's
00:47:24.320that on the promising side uh the challenge is that it is so pervasive and systemic and written
00:47:36.640into in some in invisible ink but no less influential into each and every one of our
00:47:45.440systems and so many of our policies and so forth it's just so insidious and pervasive that
00:47:52.140that it's going to take so much more than people just kind of waking up to the fact that racism
00:47:58.540still exists so um and i don't think that enough people are there in terms of recognizing the need
00:48:06.520for a total systems transformation, because our, our systems are rooted in white supremacy,
00:48:15.620you know, that it's going to be a pretty heavy lift, just to say it mildly, to get there. So
00:48:25.260I guess that's all to say that, that I think that there's a dawning recognition and a dawning
00:48:31.400sense of cohesiveness, even amongst the different nodes of social justice organizing, where we've
00:48:38.060had some silos or a lot of silos around, you know, whether I'm organizing around health or
00:48:45.360gender justice or climate change or racial justice, recognizing that the white supremacy
00:48:52.000is a common enemy for us all. And it affects each and every one of our silos, so to speak.0.97
00:48:58.980and and so you see like more of a um a collective organizing around what that means
00:49:05.980with regard to intersectionality being rooted in how we organize but folks are still learning that
00:49:14.120and there's still a lot of um a lot of fault lines and and getting to what that means in
00:49:20.140terms of working together and working through working across the differences in a way that
00:49:25.680builds power um yeah so hopefully that makes sense that's all to say in sum that uh that we
00:49:33.460see more people kind of waking up and and recognizing that racism still exists and and
00:49:39.360beginning to see the pervasiveness of white supremacy just regular folks we see people who
00:49:44.820are in the organizing in the social justice organizing who are recognizing that we can't
00:49:51.260we're not going to get too far unless we work on white supremacy and that there is a need
00:49:57.780for intersectional approaches. And we need to, and it's going to take a bit for us to get there
00:50:04.480in terms of going beyond the recognition to actually making the changes that we need to make.
00:50:12.980But again, there are some bright lights that you're seeing in there, everything from,
00:50:17.660you know, watching Dr. Phil and seeing a white nationalist coming together with a Black Lives
00:50:24.840Matter person and a white nationalist recognizing the error of his way to seeing, you know,
00:50:32.340just seeing people who are making connections across differences and people who are experiencing
00:50:38.240major self-transformation in the process. So that always gives hope. We just need
00:52:23.740To have that healing happen at scale is mandatory to move forward in a way that's actually dealing with the root causes.
00:52:50.160Because, you know, like we've been discussing, we can't just capture carbon out of the atmosphere and keep going in the way we're going and think that that's the solution or sign the Paris Accord or put on some solar panels and think we've done it.
00:53:07.160when you were talking about all the siloed groups them coming together with commonalities
00:53:17.080is so important and how that is absolutely challenging especially when resources you know
00:53:26.520financial resources are are tight because things that are actually beneficial for earth and people
00:53:32.860aren't funded well and then um and then of course there's so much wounding and horizontal hostility
00:53:42.780that comes up and i've been thinking about this a lot with the groups that are in this movement
00:53:48.000towards regenerative culture how in a way sometimes they're even pitted against each other
00:53:53.720while the other side let's say like the capitalist extractive industry side seems to be so organized
00:54:04.460and so on top of how to keep their machine running i am always thinking about how to
00:54:15.920learn from their organizational prowess. Everybody in this regenerative movement can support each
00:54:24.100other more, teach each other. I really feel like this is this moment where we can just be real and
00:54:31.400honest, but ultimately love one another because we need everyone. We need each other right now
00:54:37.540to dismantle and rebuild and um and i i'm like i said i have so many questions and thoughts for you
00:54:45.980i i know we're coming to the end of our talk and i definitely wanted to ask you about mass
00:54:53.460incarceration and climate justice and a number of other things but perhaps i could just open up
00:55:02.840the floor any other topics that you feel you want to mention or you know whatever topic is is most
00:55:08.580pertinent and passionate for you right now I'd really love to hear about as our time is coming
00:55:13.120to an end yeah thank you yeah so this whole matter of mass incarceration has so many intersections
00:55:23.240with climate change both on the problem side and on the solution side and uh on the problem side
00:55:32.560We have the challenge of the tie between what's coming out of these smokestacks and some of the challenges faced by children, whether it's kids who are having a hard time going to school, having a hard time paying attention in school because, you know, lead and manganese and other cognitive functioning disruptors are part of what comes out of those smokestacks.
00:56:01.380We know that sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide come out of those microflux on mass and that kids who have asthma are more likely to have asthma attacks when they're exposed to those particular toxins.0.84
00:56:15.840And we also know that if you're living next to a toxic facility, which, as we said, at least 70 percent of African-Americans are, their property values on average are 15 percent lower.0.89
00:56:26.920So and therefore our schools are underfinanced because property values are what finances our school.1.00
00:56:34.040So you have kids having a hard time paying attention in school, having a hard time going to school on poor air quality days or just because they're not feeling well with the asthma.
00:56:43.460And then you have under-resourced schools.
00:56:46.440Then we know the studies show that if you're not on grade level by the third grade, you're more likely to enter into the school to prison pipeline.
00:56:53.840So right away we see these connections.
00:56:56.920We also see that some of these toxins are actually tied to violent behavior and behavioral issues where we saw the spike in the exposure to lead in communities like Flint actually came at the same time as a spike in murder rates in places like Flint.
00:57:18.280And so in countries in Europe in particular, they've found with studies a direct correlation between exposure to a number of these kind of metals in our air from lead to manganese to others and violent behavior in communities.
00:57:35.640So we see all of that linked together. Then on the other side, in terms of climate change impacts, we saw that after Hurricane Katrina, that the deputies literally abandoned prisoners in their prison cells and left, just evacuated and left people locked up.
00:57:55.640And so sewage-tainted waters were rising and getting into these cells. People didn't have food to drink, food to eat or water to drink. They had to dig through the walls for ventilation and literally just treated as if they weren't human and weren't worthy of rescue and weren't worthy of safety and of food and water and that they were just, you know, expendable.
00:58:19.720And so that lack of humanity of people who are in prison, whether they were guilty of what they were charged for or whether they were a victim and or a survivor of their environment that led to certain behaviors or whether they didn't commit any crimes at all because we know that racial profiling has led to incarceration of folks who didn't necessarily even do the crimes that they're being accused of.
00:58:46.880whatever category people fall into, no one deserves to be disregarded as if they aren't
00:58:53.400even human and unworthy of concern. And then at the same time, we see where prison labor
00:59:01.080is actually used in the cleanup and the aftermath of disasters. And so we've seen that the BP oil
00:59:08.080drilling disaster and other disasters. And we've seen that we saw that even in fighting the
00:59:13.800wildfires out in California. And so people are engaged in these hazardous activities,
00:59:20.480being exposed to toxins or exposed to things as dangerous as fire. And all of these circumstances
00:59:29.140are on the increase with the increase in the severity of extreme weather events.
00:59:34.100So there are so many linkages with our prison industrial complex and the climate change
00:59:42.660circumstance, not to mention the privatization of prisons, just like the privatization of water,
00:59:48.840the privatization of schools, all in similar categories of privatization of whether it's
00:59:54.640using water as a basic resource to gain wealth for others while other people are having their
01:00:00.380water shut off, privatizing schools as opposed to investing in public schools, where again,
01:00:06.540people are having uneven school experiences, which again, as I said before, is tied to the
01:00:12.140prison industrial complex itself. And then when we have privatization of prisons in that same
01:00:19.420pattern where people who, as they're building wealth, are advantaged by having as many people
01:00:26.600imprisoned as possible, which only exacerbates an existing system that over-incarcerates
01:00:33.640generally and particularly people of color so so much there but um yeah I could really go on
01:00:42.880oh my goodness thank you Jackie for going where you did go there's you know you had kind of
01:00:55.320mentioned not in these words but um we can analyze and think and feel and and talk about
01:01:01.880these issues but we have to do things all of us actually step up and take action
01:01:09.600and there's so many ways to do that in all of our communities all over the world and I think that
01:01:16.660in this country we still have certain rights to stand up uh although that can be argued
01:01:26.160but yeah it's it's I think imperative that we all hold our line of integrity and our beliefs of what
01:01:38.300we know is right and support each other through this and I am so appreciative of you and your
01:01:46.520work and how thoroughly you have being able to share about that complexity to people like me
01:01:54.700and the people who are listening if we're activists if we're conscious people uh really
01:02:00.340understanding the fullness of the story and feeling it acknowledging it and then doing something about
01:02:06.460it from that place um yeah so thank you so much for your time i know you are a really busy person
01:02:14.800with so many important things to do so i appreciate all the time you spent with us today
01:02:19.400Absolutely. Yeah, and thank you for helping to build a movement and getting the word out there and stoking these conversations. I think we appreciate it.
01:02:29.720Thank you for listening to For the Wild podcast.