Green justice not easy

The Sheaf
Written by Crystal Clarke
Thursday, 30 September 2004

Green Justice. The name sounds easy enough, but behind it are issues of oppression, racism, classism, and hierarchy. The environmental movement is being taken by storm by a bunch of newly educated people across Canada. The myths of the environmental movement have been deconstructed and replaced by understanding and information. So allow me to share the information with you.

During the weekend of September 16th, the Youth Environmental Network held their annual Capacity Building Retreat right here on the Prairies. The retreat usually brings youth from around Canada to build support for their environmental organization, in ways of getting more members, finding funding and funders, policy-making, and networking. However, this year was a little bit different as the weekend’s focus was issues of oppression within the mostly white, middle-class environmental movement and how diversity within the movement can be established without white people taking power, tokenizing non-white people, or maintaining respect of the diverse groups throughout this large country.

Environmental justice is a new term to the environmental movement, let alone to the general university public. This movement started in the mid-80s when groups started connecting social justice issues and environmental issues. Environmental racism was defined when a study found that race determines where hazardous waste facilities are located in Los Angeles. The YEN’s Green Justice Retreat Resource kit states that “Environmental racism brings attention to how systemic racism is a key factor in environmental planning and decision making processes as they are carried out by governments, as well as the mainstream environmental movement. People of colour are often excluded from or restricted within decision-making bodies that are responsible for creating and implementing environmental policies, programs, and permits.” The kit also states that non-white people and poor people suffer more from environmental hazards, mostly caused by the lifestyle of white, upper class people. Environmental justice is about taking action against environmental racism.

The idea of environmental justice is not one that many people think about within environmental organizations, let alone environmentalists. Racism and environmental justice was the focus of the retreat, challenging people’s comfort zones and ensuring that people learn about issues within environmental justice and issues of racism that are faced everyday. It started out with a focus on racism within the last few centuries and how little progression there has been. A recent example of how racism still exists within the system is Africville, a town in Nova Scotia that black people fled to during the slave era in the United States. In this town, racism and environmental racism still exists and has pushed the people out of their town into larger centers.

Heavy issues of anti-oppression workshops to teach the participants how systemic racism is, how to recognize it, and how to deal with it were also discussed at the retreat. A particularly interesting workshop was conducted by the Indigenous Environmental Network, based out of the United States, a group that focuses on the rights of Indigenous people for environmental and economic justice. A workshop that I attended was based on climate justice and how climate change affects people of colour and Indigenous people more than predominantly white communities. As we see an increase in the number of hurricanes and large storms hitting places like Haiti, we can see this affects minority groups.

So what do we do? The YEN set aside an entire morning for people to come up with “Action Plans” for their respective organizations. Within this, they looked at anti-oppression training opportunities, anti-oppression policy-making with the organization, meeting and decision-making procedures, coalition building between organizations, organization promotional and program literature review, and program development and review. For example, if a group wanted to build a coalition with an Aboriginal group and work on a project together, the action plan would help to make that coalition fair and just.

Needless to say, none of these issues are easy and anti-oppression training is very hard to go through as a white person. As a “white” environmentalist, I learned that instead of feeling guilt I need to recognize the systemic racism that some people are faced with and how the groups that I am a part of can try to get away from participating in and supporting that racism. This is no easy task, but one that is obtainable. Since participating in this retreat, I have found that I see the world in a different light: through the lens of the anti-oppression framework. I also know that I cannot fight racism alone, so I encourage you all to take a moment to look around at the racism that exists on our campus and in our community…and then do something about it.