There are sometimes identities and life experiences that result in one being called to activism work. It is not always that we actively seek it out, but that when we recognize the opportunity, we bravely accept it. Becoming the face of a movement or issue requires a level of vulnerability and conviction because one knows that doing so does not always result in acceptability or praise.
As a person whose parents have tried to shield me from the full impact of what it means to exist in a Black woman body, I could choose to minimize my activism and willingness to fully be vulnerable in my identity as a Black woman. Yet, I knew that there were beliefs about what it means to be a Black woman that were needed to be challenged. I was keenly aware that societal issues being discussed from a Cis-Heterosexual White woman lens were not my experience and needed to be confronted. I needed to speak up loudly proclaim my humanity and insist that activism be intersectional.
It is because of recognizing the importance of speaking up that throughout my life I have engaged in community and activism work and know that it is a requirement that my generation not only continue the work of prior generations but expand on it to meet the new challenges we are facing. We must do this from the perspective of learning from the mistakes of prior generations while also being innovative in the approaches we use and with the recognition that many societal ills are intersectional. It is not enough to worry about gender-based violence if we do not acknowledge how the lack of housing and pay inequities influence whether non-cis-heterosexual white males have the resources to live. We cannot address racial injustice without examining the role of voting disenfranchisement and redlining in relation to Communities of Color. In choosing my career path of focusing on environmental causes, I build upon my volunteerism in politics, gender-based justice organizations, and fundraising for Trans Youth to address the need for environmental justice and ending environmental racism.
Within social justice movements, we have often failed to include environmental racism and its impact on historically excluded communities within our Call to Action. Although we hear about the contaminated water in Flint, we have failed to address how it is linked by a collective resistance to neoliberalism. During COVID, we have seen how the lack of fresh food access contributed to poorer health outcomes for Communities of Color, and we have struggled to address how this issue is also rooted in climate change and redlining. In addition, we minimize how lack of fresh food access in marginalized communities has also been linked to the poor school performance that contributes to the vicious cycle of decreasing higher education attainment as a pathway out of poverty. Just as our lives are not single-issue, neither can our movements be if we want to truly affect societal change.
My vision for my current and future work seeks to embody the words of Majora Carter, the founder of Sustainable South Bronx, an organization that addresses economic and environmental issues in the South Bronx and throughout New York City through a combination of green jobs training, community greening programs like solar installations, as well as social enterprises. Carter said, “Environmental justice, for those of you who may not be familiar with the term, goes something like this: no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.” Within her work and my own, I plan to incorporate engagement of GenZ and Gen Alpha in political activism around legislation that permits or chooses not to effectively regulate toxic dumping in Communities of Color, that includes increasing the presence of Black women and nonbinary people in urban farming, and that develops mechanisms using social media and other mediums to educate Communities of Color on the effects of climate change and strategies to combat it. Within all of the work I do and plan to do, it is rooted in racial justice activism and policy. Even as I wrestle with the best ways to implement my work, I know that my interest does and will go beyond simply addressing climate change but extends to examining and combating environmental planning that results in redlining, food deserts, and other environmental impacts/practices/policies that are detrimental to my community and cause my community to be saddled with more environmental burdens than other communities.
Through the next phase of my activism, I hope to also be able to speak with knowledge and passion about my work to the point that even those who are skeptical of the importance of it will be open and gain new perspective. That in doing my advocacy work someone will benefit from it long after I am gone and that others will view it as being done from a place of compassion and fearlessness.
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