Fortunately, there is now a growing BIPOC Environmental & Climate Justice Collective in Berlin, where we share these experiences of being silenced or tokenized and work together on how to link anti-racism and inequality in climate justice.
Or do this?
I’m pretty sure countries that aren’t the US are an op.
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There are legitimate differences in the threats climate change presents to minority communities. And many "solutions" to climate change end up as little more than poor-taxes that disproportionately fall on these communities.
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These are just proxies for class conflict. None of the performative identity politics BS is helpful when it's just PMCs forming cliques in the lunch room.
To check I'm understanding, what are you calling performative identity politics BS?
Whenever I would question the whiteness of these spaces and how strategies didn’t take race into account, I would be met with uncomfortable silences. The last time, at a nationwide movement-building workshop last April, I was asked, “Well then, why are you even here?”
This shit. It reads like something out of a Robin DiAngelo piece. Selectivized anonymous anecdotes designed to stir the pot.
From my other comment: "In the UK we have Extinction Rebellion, which is worse than useless because it’s totally unwilling to make any link between climate change, capitalism, and global inequality. They try to be apolitical or neutral on every other issue and treat climate change like it can be addressed in a bubble. It’s fundamentally in conflict with a leftist view of how the world works."
Do you agree that this is a problem with many climate activism groups? If so, why are you assuming that this particular instance of a person complaining about that is being made in bad faith? Given that the person's solution is join an org that's "working together on how to link anti-racism and inequality in climate justice", and not "buy my book and training courses", I'd make the opposite assumption.
Do you agree that this is a problem with many climate activism groups?
If I was actively engaged in a few climate groups, I could probably say one way or another. As it stands, the organizations I've participated in that were even somewhat productive tended to be focused on the work at hand (which tended to be overwhelming and preclude time for this kind of bickering). Any organization where people were complaining about getting cut out of a photograph or marginalized as a speaker was one I'd bow out of reasonably quick. The Coffee Party - some lib shit I dabbled in back in 2010 - felt like this. Just everyone asking to be seen and heard. Nobody giving a shit about the politics of it all.
Given that the person’s solution is join an org that’s “working together on how to link anti-racism and inequality in climate justice”, and not “buy my book and training courses”, I’d make the opposite assumption.
"Don't join their group, where I'm not in charge, join my group where I am in charge" isn't activism, it's self promotion.
I'll admit, maybe I'm just reading this shit wrong and I've got a cynical chip on my shoulder. But it feels like they're spilling a bunch of ink to say "Please clap".
Maybe I didn't read that part, but I didn't see where they said "join my org instead"
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Just gonna reply to my own post and not delete since I’m not a coward.
I got this wrong, the author is actually POC and does have some genuine critiques with elements of the climate activist space in Germany—not US. Why was this posted in c/dunk tank?
With that said, the article itself has some disingenuous takes on the face of it, though I’m willing to be corrected. There’s this bait and switch in which promoting low or no meat diets is equivocated with neglecting the harm done by palm oil production. I absolutely agree that western activists can do much better jobs at highlighting where their corporations are causing harm through environmental degradation and violence against indigenous peoples, but the framing used was weird, claiming that vegans promoting a plant-based diet was neglecting leveling critiques at palm oil production.
There’s other things too, but the general trend is a fairly surface level critique when I know there’s more complex aspects to a lot of the issues raised. Also a degree of naïveté about how power is going to respond to genuine criticism— trust me, everyone is dismissed and sidelined if they target the sacred cows of capitalism
In the UK we have Extinction Rebellion, which is worse than useless because it's totally unwilling to make any link between climate change, capitalism, and global inequality. They try to be apolitical or neutral on every other issue and treat climate change like it can be addressed in a bubble. It's fundamentally in conflict with a leftist view of how the world works.
This article talks about something very similar- the focus is more on race and global inequality than specifically capitalism, but as leftists we should understand that these are all very closely linked. I don't see why this is dunk tank material at all.
remember dipping your hand in paint and turning yourself in afterwards?
They try to be apolitical or neutral on every other issue and treat climate change like it can be addressed in a bubble.
Good points from the article...
But after a while I realized I would only be called upon when climate organizations needed an inspiring story or a “diverse” voice, contacts for a campaign, or to participate in a workshop for “fun” when everyone else on the (all-white) project was getting paid.
Whenever I would question the whiteness of these spaces and how strategies didn’t take race into account, I would be met with uncomfortable silences. The last time, at a nationwide movement-building workshop last April, I was asked, “Well then, why are you even here?”
Other times it’s more major, like how activists here promote veganism as the single biggest way to reduce their carbon footprint, but ignore how people have been killed after protesting against the sourcing of plant-based foods like palm oil on Indigenous lands.
Anti-racism and anti-capitalism need to be made part of organizing. If “Green” policies fail to consider anti-racism and migrant rights, how is any person of colour supposed to feel voting for them or organizing in the same spaces?
Fortunately, there is now a growing BIPOC Environmental & Climate Justice Collective in Berlin, where we share these experiences of being silenced or tokenized and work together on how to link anti-racism and inequality in climate justice.
This isn't some privileged snob not being given something fun to do, this is what happens when intersectionality is not a part of the activism.