I Could See How Far We’ve Come
It’s exciting to be engaged in a project in which people are able to think more all the time, and at the Racism and Care of the Environment Workshop,1 I could see how far our work on racism and the environment has already come.
Barbara and Diane pushed each other and us the whole weekend. They pushed us to work on the early defeats that leave us discouraged and hopeless as we take on2 new, big challenges. And they were cheerfully confident that human beings are capable of changing the world in big ways.
The reports on what United to End Racism3 groups have already pulled off4 in their efforts to support and change the climate movement were inspiring. I heard that climate groups want to hear what we know about racism and how this provides opportunities to tell sometimes large groups of people working on climate change that they need to focus on ending capitalism—that when white people try to solve climate change without addressing this unequal system at the same time, it comes across as racism to people of the global majority.
London, England
1 A workshop held in Warwick, New York, USA, in August 2015, led by Barbara Love, the International Liberation Reference Person for African-Heritage People, and Diane Shisk, the Alternate International Reference Person
2 "Take on" means undertake
3 United to End Racism is a project of the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities in which groups of Co-Counselors go to non-RC events to share what we've learned in RC about ending racism.
4 "Pulled off" means successfully accomplished.