“You’re a black tree hugger, interesting.” When I told my grandparents that I was moving back to Detroit to work as an environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club they chuckled and called me a tree hugger. This quip was understandable, their interactions with the environmental movement were not particularly positive; they contended that, in their time, most environmentalists cared more about protecting remote habitats than protecting their black neighbors from discrimination and violence.
Today, to fight our climate crisis effectively, we have to transcend cultural, racial and political differences and build a broader coalition of engaged citizens. We have to engage all citizens, some who may not care about conservation but certainly care about the safety of their drinking water, the cleanliness of their air and the safety of their homes. This requires all of us, from journalists and politicians to activists and voters, to engage with communities in a culturally competent manner. We must bring to the table an understanding that we don’t have to agree on every political issue to work together towards building a better future for all of us.
Whether it be in Detroit, Birmingham or Houston, my lived experiences tell me that contrary to what has become a popular narrative, communities of color care about addressing the climate crisis. Our interests may not fit neatly into what has been deemed “environmental” thus far; nonetheless, we’re frustrated by injustices that permeate in the aftermath of natural disasters, we’re frustrated that our communities are littered with asthma because we stand on the fence lines of polluting industries, and we’re frustrated that, in the wealthiest nation on Earth, access to clean water seems ever so scarce. Learning how to connect to different communities, meeting people where they are and communicating in a way that brings people together, are cornerstones of culturally competent communication. It’s incumbent on activists, politicians, media figures and academics to embrace culturally competent communication to engage diverse communities in the climate crisis.
When Kanye West proclaimed “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it resonated within many parts of the African American community and whether it was incompetence or negligence, it resonated for a reason. I was 10 at the time, living in Birmingham, Alabama, watching the horror unfold on TV with my mom. We watched images on our screen of black families stranded on rooftops and huddled into the Superdome, we saw racist coverage describe black residents as “looters” while describing others searching for food and supplies as “families desperate for help”, and we watched as all levels of government failed to take adequate steps to prepare and protect residents.
In Houston, the most diverse city in the country, 11 years after Katrina, I witnessed similar disparities firsthand in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. In my work as an organizer, I traveled to historic black neighborhoods, where blue tarps that were used to cover badly damaged roofs still line blocks as if they were a part of the architectural design of the neighborhood. At community health fairs in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods of the city, I met countless families fighting tears because the mold that had overtaken their home had still not been adequately removed over a year after the storm. And as Hurricane Maria demonstrated to a wider audience, these systemic barriers to an equitable recovery are more widespread than we may like to acknowledge. These experiences have made it clear to me that our communities do care about climate’s role in driving natural disasters, we yearn for having a livable future for generations to come, and we want our lawmakers to take active steps to address climate change so that these disparities are no longer perpetuated.
Since moving back to Detroit to continue my work as an environmental justice organizer, I have learned how to better communicate issues involving the climate crisis to communities often overlooked in these discussions. Access to clean air and water is a fundamental human right. Algae blooms, driven by the climate crisis, contaminate our freshwater supplies. However, when I talk to residents about the climate crisis’ detrimental effects on access to water, I talk about how these rights have been violated in Flint, I talk about Detroit’s mass water-shutoffs, and I talk about lead exposure in Detroit public school water. Climate change will only further entrench existing inequalities when it comes to access to water.
When I talk about the relationship between the climate crisis and the fossil fuel industry, I talk about their proximity of oil refineries to our neighborhoods and the fact that this proximity impacts our ability to live healthy productive lives free from disease. The fact is, many oil refineries, coal plants and other industrial sites locate themselves adjacent to low-income communities of color. The lack of political, economic and social capital in our communities often render us helpless to fight back against these forces and this is why we organize. This is a racial justice, residential segregation and human rights issue that anyone involved in the environmental movement must learn to speak to.
But improving our communications and outreach to communities often left out of the conversation is not enough. We need to fully shift and challenge how we group and categorize what environmentalism and “climate change issues” look like. When our climate crisis threatens the global economy, drives mass migration creating climate-linked refugees, and risks the health and wellbeing of countless communities there is no such issue that is solely related to the environment and climate.
In poll after poll evaluating what voters care about, many voters place increasing access to economic opportunity, addressing racism and discrimination, and fixing our healthcare system above the environment and climate. The reality is, the climate crisis intersects all of these issues and failing to acknowledge this, whether in a poll, a news article or in a political debate, greatly diminishes the scale of the crisis we face.
Why? Because instead of making investments in the economy of the future, particularly in green tech and manufacturing we have made investments in publicly financed stadiums, jails and tax cuts. Our communities stand on the edge of industrial zones not out of preference but out of redlining and racial segregation policies that packed us into those neighborhoods. And yes, we need to dramatically transform our broken healthcare system, but we also must recognize environmental injustice’s role in driving health disparities.
There are many moments that we have come together in our nation’s history to build movements that meet the scale of the challenges we face: the civil rights movement, battling the Great Depression, the women’s right’s movement. The climate crisis is such an unprecedented threat because it compounds the challenges that we’ve faced: racial inequality, economic opportunity, access to a healthy environment. Unprecedented challenges require unprecedented approaches so it’s imperative that we all adjust the way we communicate and think about the environmental crisis. Our challenges may be many, but our struggles are linked, and we are capable of rising to this challenge.