We’re back with an insightful conversation on climate and Black liberation with environmental justice leaders Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, Mustafa Santiago Ali, Kerene Tayloe, and Amirio Freeman. This episode was originally by Our Climate Voices and is co-hosted by Kia Johnson. Thank you to Our Climate Voices and to the amazing guests in this conversation. In this episode, we discuss historical innovations from Black trailblazers in the US. Exploring cultural contributions from black creatives, scientists, policy makers, and youth. We talk about the continued commodification of natural resources and energy resources in a time of climate change. Then, we explore policy and community solutions to address the climate crisis and Black liberation. We discuss designing policy solutions to protect black communities, taking ownership of our time & platforms, the value of narrative intervention and climate storytelling.
We’re back with an insightful conversation on climate and Black liberation with environmental justice leaders Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, Mustafa Santiago Ali, Kerene Tayloe, and Amirio Freeman. This episode was originally produced by Our Climate Voices and is co-hosted by Kia Johnson. Thank you to Our Climate Voices and to the amazing guests in this conversation.
In this episode, we discuss historical innovations from Black trailblazers in the US. Exploring cultural contributions from black creatives, scientists, policy makers, and youth. We talk about the continued commodification of natural resources and energy resources in a time of climate change. Then, we explore policy and community solutions to address the climate crisis and Black liberation. We discuss designing policy solutions to protect black communities, taking ownership of our time & platforms, the value of narrative intervention and climate storytelling.
Our Climate Voices (OCV) is an organization that aims to humanize the climate crisis through ethical storytelling as a tool for climate justice. OCV focuses on uplifting voices on the frontlines of climate change including youth, Indigenous, immigrant, queer, people of color, women, and people from low-income communities. The OCV team is composed of BIPOC, queer, and youth organizers, creatives, and storytellers.
CREDITS
Featuring: Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, Mustafa Santiago Ali, Kerene Tayloe, and Amirio Freeman
Hosted by Kia Johnson and Kiana Michaan
Produced by: Kia Johnson, Kiana Michaan, Al Brady, and Khari Slaughter
Edited and Engineered by Lucy Little
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin - Website
Mustafa Santiago Ali - Website
Resources:
There’s No Black Liberation Without Climate Reparations | Atmos
How Food Connects to Conservation
The Summit: Transforming a Movement by Dana Alston
Watch Who Killed the Electric Car?
Who Killed the Electric Car?| Free
Madam C.J. Walker and a Forgotten History About Women & Electric Vehicles
George Washington Carver: A Pioneer in Sustainability
What We Owe to George Washington Carver
Hazel M. Johnson, ‘Mother of the Environmental Justice Movement’
Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice
WE ACT for Environmental Justice
ReGenesis Project | US EPA ARCHIVE DOCUMENT
This Kansas City neighborhood wrote the blueprint for transforming a community | Grist
Building a lifelong legacy in Queens
Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III Creates Black-Owned Food Systems to Reduce Food Insecurity
Meet Kristal Hansley, the First Black Woman to Launch a Community Solar Company
Lean Startups for Social Change by Michel Gelobter
Juicy J & 2 Chainz Invest In A Solar Energy Merger Worth $2B - AfroTech
Kia Johnson: [00:00:00] Welcome to In Conversation, a listening series and project of Our Climate Voices. Our fights for social and climate justice are often saturated by urgency and calls to action. In this series, we're slowing down to hold space for deep, vulnerable, and honest conversations to foster the growth that is necessary to sustain and propel our movements forward.
We are bringing together leaders from the climate movement and broader fights for justice to be in conversation about how we can build deep relationships and coalitions across struggle to achieve collective liberation, growth, and transformation. I'm your host, Kia Johnson.
Kiana Michaan: And I'm your host, Kiana Michaan.
Welcome to a special episode on Black liberation and climate justice. In celebration of Juneteenth, you're in for a treat because today's conversation features several amazing leaders and trailblazers in the environmental justice movement. Today's episode is a previously unreleased episode of the show In Conversation, a listening series [00:01:00] recorded and produced in 2021 by Our Climate Voices.
Our Climate Voices, or OCV, is an organization that aims to humanize the climate crisis through ethical storytelling as a tool for climate justice. OCV focuses on uplifting voices on the front lines of climate change. The OCV team was founded and composed of BIPOC queer and youth organizers, creatives, and storytellers.
This episode of In Conversation was co hosted by myself and Kia Johnson and was originally produced by myself, Kia Johnson, Al Brady, and Khari Slaughter. Please note, due to technical difficulties at the time of recording, the audio quality of this episode may differ from other episodes of the show. So without further ado, please enjoy this episode from Our Climate Voices on Black Liberation and Climate Justice.
Hello, and welcome to Climate with Kiana, a podcast that explores topics of climate, energy, and sustainability through a framework of joy and [00:02:00] justice. I'm your host, Kiana Michaan, a climate justice and clean energy advocate. This show brings you conversations with passionate people working in climate, and together we explore the many exciting and intersectional solutions to one of the greatest challenges of our time.
So if you've ever felt overwhelmed by the climate crisis, these conversations are for you. Whether you're already a climate nerd or just climate curious, let's cultivate hope and joy and vision new possibilities together.
Kia Johnson: Hi everyone. Thankful for y'all being here. My name is Kia. I'm from St. Paul, Minnesota. I live on Lakota land. I've been with our Climate Voices for the last three years, and I come to the not just to fight for climate justice, but. Because I just, I love being outside. I love nature. And, uh, it, it often feels like nature and being outside is a [00:03:00] privilege, often inaccessible to, um, Black folks.
And so, as we tackle the climate crisis and reconnect with the land, I, I want to change the narrative and make sure we're creating a climate just future for everyone. And whoever wants to introduce themselves, go ahead.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: I will jump in. I'm Tamara Toles O'Laughlin. I am currently in Piscataway, Cherokee, and Lumbee territory, also known as Charm City.
I'm originally from Lenape territory and my pronouns are she and her.
Kerene Tayloe: Hi everybody, uh, Kerene Tayloe here in Washington, D. C. I'm really honored to be here.
Mustafa Santiago Ali: I'm Mustafa Santiago Ali, he, him, uh, residing on Pamunkey and Mattapan Island at this moment and, and honored to do so. And I'm honored to hold space with so many incredible leaders who are focused on the upliftment of our people and to be surrounded by the sheroes who actually founded and continue to [00:04:00] move the environmental justice movement forward.
So it's an honor, uh, to be with everyone.
Amirio Freeman: Yeah. And I'll round us off. I'm Amirio Freeman. I use he, they pronouns. I'm originally from Hampden, Virginia, which is like Kecoughtan land. I'm also here in DC right now in my day to day. I work in the anti hunger movement. So a lot of my lens on climate and Black liberation is really focused through this lens of food, land, agriculture.
And I've also been leaning into just this identity of being a climate storyteller. And. And being in this space, what brings me here, I think just very broadly, kind of theoretically, just because of my lineage, um, I have grandfathers from South Carolina who were both gardeners and farmers and who really just, um, helped me absorb this idea that our people have always cultivated these really beautiful, uh, relationships with the more than human world. So like through that inheritance of that knowledge and epistemologies, I am here in that way.
Kia Johnson: So as we get [00:05:00] started on this conversation. Let's start by just talking about the intersection between Black liberation and the climate crisis, between Black liberation and climate justice. What is that intersection?
What is Black liberation and how does it intersect with climate crisis?
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: That's a big question because it supposes a bunch of things, right? It supposes that Blackness is one thing, that liberation can be determined for many people by the lens of any one person or one group, and the intersection with climate change, I feel like.
I spent a little bit of time with a good friend of mine, um, Judith LeBlanc from Native Organizers Alliance. And we, we spent some time dissecting the idea of climate and indigeneity and like, how indigeneity is about your relationship to the land, not a specific place, right? And so if we think about it that way, we realize our systems are backwards.
So climate change isn't happening to us. It's the real check and balance that's knocking down all the things we built and treat as systems. And so we think about it that way, right? Black liberation requires us to, one, have an expansive view of [00:06:00] Blackness, hold space for ideas that are big enough for all of those things to happen simultaneously, and recognize that climate change was always coming in this direction because we keep putting these influences into that space.
So I think, For our community, the best thing that all of us can be doing is determining how people can show up in the bodies. They're already in as the, as the context keeps changing.
Mustafa Santiago Ali: I mean, I think the other part of that, um, and I completely agree with everything that tomorrow just shared with folks is to understand that we are the indigenous people of the planet.
Um, and when we, when we actually call that out, uh, and understand. What that means, the responsibility, um, but also understanding that there are those who would like to eliminate that narrative, right? So they understood that if Black liberation ever became a reality in this country and across the planet, um, that there would have to be systems changed.
And then we also have to anchor it in the fact that one of our great [00:07:00] thinkers and doers, W. E. B. DuBois, once shared with us that, you know, a system cannot fail those that was never meant to protect. So we have got to also infuse into our understanding about the power of Black liberation, the fact that there have been, uh, policies that have been put in place to stop that from happening or to limit.
The ability of that to become the reality, uh, and an anchoring factor in the sets of work that need to happen in the climate space, in the environmental space, in the housing space, in the transportation space, in the job creation space, in the public health space, and so on, and so on, and so on. And when we begin to do that, then We have the opportunity to actually make real this transformational moment that folks keep talking about which is a dangerous paradigm in itself To think that this particular moment is the only moment when we can actually make sure that truth and justice becomes a reality Uh, and I look forward to unpacking that.
Kerene Tayloe: Not much to add. I think both [00:08:00] Tamara and Mustafa really crystallized the topic but I think when we think about Black liberation, at least when I do, I really want to stress the the value and the importance of self determination and I think our people are constantly looking for that and demanding that. And what that looks like to each person is going to be different, but the ability to determine, you know, how our lives are lived and the quality of our lives, um, unfortunately has been impacted and impeded on because of these systemic issues and capitalism and, and And we think about the climate, uh, crisis, just this daunting thing that's happening to everyone, but to us at a very, um, heightened level.
So with all of those isms that, you know, exist, like how do Black people live and, and make choices and, and have choices that aren't consistently determined by others, I think is the biggest challenge. [00:09:00]
Amirio Freeman: And just kind of building off of what Kerene just offered, when I think about why these two fights are connected, I just think about the fact that they're fighting the same thing.
They're really symptomatic of these larger systems, you know, from white supremacy, to anti Blackness, to capitalism, just these systems that really are Motivate and propagate these cultures of like extractivism, extracting resources, um, a culture of uncontrolled growth, you know, investing in growth in a way that's unmitigated, that's unreined in, um, that's investing in rugged individualism versus like investing in a culture of interconnectedness, circularity, healing.
So when I think about what Black liberation is, it's kind of like, it can't be this one thing. It can't be this siloed thing. Like Black liberation is housing justice, environmental justice, is food sovereignty. It's ultimately all coming back to this root idea of how do we break down this totalizing system that hasn't just been existing here in the U. S., but has [00:10:00] been globalized. How do we really break that down?
Kiana Michaan: So I want to move into our next question about what wisdom and leadership that specifically as as black folks we bring to the conversation on climate change in the climate crisis and how we ensure that black communities are centered in climate solution making. And I know all of you have a lot of wisdom and experience in this.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: Well, since I started before, I'll, I'll kick it back off and say that I think we have a record of surviving in America almost longer than anyone because it didn't exist before we got here. Right? So what I left up that the, the construction that is America is literally a thing that we built out of Turtle Island.
So these are different things happening at the same time. And so we have a lot of wisdom about what it takes to survive on this thing. Because literally our blood is in the bricks and in the soil and the highways and the byways and the state houses, we built them with our own bodies and we made them functional with our labor and our intellectual capital built all [00:11:00] of the technology that has become the world's technology.
So I think. Some of what we bring is experience, and along with indigenous peoples who are here on Turtle Island, we bring the sum total of what this land has been able to do for millennia without killing us. So, so we bring relationship, we bring equity, we bring wisdom, and we bring A lot of right relationship in a place where that's hard to pull off.
And so among the things we bring to the conversation, we bring the ability to make sure that the solutions of all wisdom and things we've already tried and have been successful at, as well as innovation. I think one of the coolest thing that's come out of the current moment is recognizing that, you know, racial suppression, uh, prejudice, discrimination, and racism is a real suppressor of innovation.
So the other thing we bring are tons of patents, trademarks, licensing, and all, and all of the good stuff that might just save us before we've done it ourselves. [00:12:00]
Kia Johnson: Yeah. And, and in addition to like resiliency. And all that I, I think a lot of what black folks bring is joy and excitement and creativity and community.
And when we do things, we want to have fun. We want to enjoy it. We want to really connect with each other with our community and create and build something beautiful. And I think a lot of what's missing a lot of times in, as we work towards fighting the climate crisis, is recognizing that we need to connect with the solutions, we need to connect with each other, and we need to connect with the land.
And that's something that Black folks do everywhere, in every country, in every way, and that's something that we really bring to this movement.
Mustafa Santiago Ali: That's the difference between A spirituality led movement and an extractive led movement. So let's just have some real talk I always tell folks don't invite me if you don't want real talk um We the first principle of the environmental justice movement is honoring [00:13:00] mother earth So we can go back throughout history and see whom are the individuals who actually?
Honored mother earth who lived in harmony with the earth and all of the fullness Uh of what that means and of course it goes back to africa You For, you know, millennia upon millennia upon millennia, we were able to live in harmony with the land, uh, and with the animals, and make sure there was spirituality and culture, um, that was anchored in that space.
When we talk about an extractive economy, all we have to do is look at Europe. There's a reason why people left Europe and came to America and to other locations, and it was because they had depleted the resources that were there. And that, you know, that they needed to find another place. It's almost like when we see Jeff Bezos, uh, and some of these other folks now trying to leave the planet.
Um, we won't go into that conversation, but we can really unpack what that's all about. And then, of course, the extraction of people as [00:14:00] well. You know, uh, grabbing brothers and sisters from Africa and enslaving them, trying to enslave. indigenous brothers and sisters in the original context. So when we understand the dynamics of the differences that, that folks have and how they approach their connection, then it also shows you, um, why we have not been as effective.
On addressing the climate crisis. Let's call our ancestors into this conversation. Those who were willing to put it all on the line. Uh, you know, folks like Hazel Johnston, the mother of the environmental justice movement, who decades upon decades ago were telling folks that there were changes that were happening to the environment and that some of those reasons were because of the actions that we were doing.
The architect Dana Alston, who helped to put the first People of color summit together in 1991, um, who began to say, we need to be able to bring all these different folks of color who are having these sets of experiences together so that we could have strategies [00:15:00] on how we can make change happen or someone like Connie Tucker, one of the greats, um, and being able to organize, uh, and to uplift folks.
So my mentor, Damu Smith, Uh, who may have been one of the greatest, uh, organizers in the history of our country. These are all folks of color, um, who had the ability to galvanize folks, but to also link it back to where we come from, um, to make sure that we understood that. So this is a cultural set. of opportunities for us to address this climate crisis.
And it is also a gap that exists inside of the climate movement, where traditionally, and some would say even into this moment, and my sister Tamara will really open that up for you, of the lack of honoring Of the expertise that exists inside of our communities on multiple levels, uh, not honoring, uh, the creatives that are in our space, not honoring the [00:16:00] scientists that are in our space, not honoring the policy makers that are in our space.
Not honoring the youth that's in our space, you know, and I can go down the list of the contributions that we make continually, both in the past and in this moment, and the lack of honoring of that. And then folks asking the question, well, why is it that we have a climate crisis where we have wildfires that incinerate a million acres?
Or why is it that we have biblical floods happening? Or why is it that we have over 100, 000 people who die prematurely from air pollution every year in our country? All of them. It's tied to the lack of spirituality and culture being a part of the sets of actions that we must do. Moving forward.
Kerene Tayloe: And I'll just add just real anecdotally. I found myself reusing a piece of foil aluminum foil and I had cooked something and it was something that I learned from my mother that she probably learned, you know, [00:17:00] just out of the lack of resources. You know, how do we reuse what we need to have? How do we Um, you know, find multiple uses for the things that we do.
And I think innately black people because of our circumstances have had to be Economically creative have had to thought of think about how do we make do with very little? And when we see that even come through our movement a lot of our organizations Um aren't funded at the same level of some of greens or whatever But we do so much work to empower and embolden our communities through activism through information through policy And I think when I think I appreciate too that, you know, there's so many examples of us Taking back our historical connection to earth, taking back our historical connection to reusing things and re and just, we never had those labels of environmentalists or conservationists or all of these other things.
We innately did those things. And, and I think, That's the beauty of [00:18:00] our people and that's the beauty of the movement that so much of what we do without even thinking about it is connected to protecting the earth is connected to being close to it. And as more people of color come into the circle of environmentalism and thinking about climate change.
I think we'll see more of who they already were reflected in some of the principles of environmental justice and all of that. So a lot of what we are innately is reflected in our, in our desire to be close to our resources.
Kia Johnson: And I also feel like reusing things is, is in a sense of protest to extraction culture. I feel like talking about extraction, why do I need it to be new? Why can't I reuse it? Because I already have it. It's not even regardless of your economic situation, we reuse it. Because I already have it. Why does it need to be new? And that's part of the extraction culture that we need to get rid of, um, that exists in a lot of, in our, in our society right now, that's going to help us going forward.
Kerene Tayloe: And to your point [00:19:00] about the extraction culture, like the, um, the realization that Solar energy and even electric vehicles have been around way longer than we We know and then electric cars too. Like there's a picture of Madame CJ Walker driving a vehicle that was an electric car And so imagine, you know one That long span of time where we could have really dived in to have those technologies um advance and the realization is When something is electric or when it's something is provided, this is forever, but with a capitalist focus.
There is no, there's less money in that. So I think that that drive that maybe that it's more motivated by capitalism is always looking for the money in it and the extraction in it versus having a resource that is plentiful that never ends. Also, no one who owns the sun, right? We all have access to it.
So now that's the big challenge as we see this transition to more [00:20:00] renewables. Um, no one owns the sun, but someone wants to own that land where we're pumping and pulling all this oil and fossil fuels from the ground. But how is that impacting those communities around it? And just, you know, this larger, this larger view of, of Our resources and not always having to commodify everything.
And I think that is the difference. Um, when we think of people of the global majority, like the need to commodify, everything isn't always a part of who we are. It's more about the shared experience versus what we've seen through Western society.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: I'll just add asterisks and say, uh, Madam CJ Walker was driving at Waverly in 1910.
So anybody who just saw Ed Begley's movie on who killed the electric car is looking at chapter two of a whole production line that was started and restarted. So there are there are historical tenants and precedents everywhere. And so starting from the moment we're in is never the right moment, which goes back to Emmanuel's point about context and epistemology and taking in the [00:21:00] whole, which is why this work has to be multi generational.
Because we can make mistakes in our analysis if we think we're only starting with what we got even though our DNA is a giant computer. spitting out, uh, facts and an algorithm that Google does not yet own.
Amirio Freeman: I just want to like elevate another ancestor. George Washington Carver was a genius and such an innovator when it comes to sustainable ag.
I really want to like recontextualize him because I think a lot of them were kind of like he's just the peanut guy and he was weird and had an obsession with peanuts and that was it. But like if you look at the record and look at his writing and sort of like the way he was mapping out his work, he was sort of like, okay, at the time that I'm living in, cotton was the king crab, but cotton at the time was like heavily extracting nutrients and just like completely destroying land in the south.
And he was like, how can I find and create a market for like a new commodity that will allow us to, you know, still make money, But in a way that's way more [00:22:00] sustainable. And he was like, Oh, peanuts, that's it. Um, sort of leading to this long history of him innovating all these amazing uses of peanuts, you know, peanut butter, et cetera.
So these conversations and best practices and ideas that we're kind of like excited about now and really harping on, like they have been evolving. So yeah, this one's like elevate my boy, George.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: I mean, keep it going. We're going to turn this into the innovators podcast because because we wouldn't be in a fossil fuel situation had we taken on the peanut oil that he suggested, right?
So like, When we're talking about the climate crisis, we're not just talking about, it's why I started out talking about patents and innovation and trademarks, because we were there at the beginning. That system has our fingerprints all over it, from the light bulb to the light switch to the, to tan packs to fossil fuel capitalism.
We would not be here if we took all that, all that data that people who were dragged here. Brought and added to the to the larger [00:23:00] conversation about what we need to innovate to survive. Had we made the choice that was recommended by his work to fuel all of these cars in that moment where we could have gone electric or oil, we instead of going with the leftover spent Product of petroleum from a process that we now have our whole lives around.
Like I almost started a podcast. I'm about to say, and that's the word plastics in your pussy, right? I was about to start that podcast just to let people know that's how much plastic is in every part of your life. If you could reach out and touch something that isn't plastic in your home, congratulations.
It's just you. So I do think it's really important for us to be thoughtful about the fact that these choice points led to entirely different ways of doing things. Being and had we made the choice that he recommended amongst the many volumes in Carter and Carter's work, we would be healthier. We would have more value and we wouldn't be in a spiral.
So it's just huge to, like, think about the choice points we're making now and about whose innovation [00:24:00] matters and whose leadership matters. Mustafa referred to it earlier when he mentioned that, like, not honoring us isn't just about suppressing people, but about suppressing the thing you need. Like we are both critical and essential. We are invisible. And that is to the detriment of everybody.
Mustafa Santiago Ali: And let's just call out, Tamara's 1000 percent correct. Let's just call out how we got to where we are, and it's based upon policy. Uh, and the decision making that went into that space to limit Or eliminate the innovation that existed inside of us and continues to exist inside of us and folks don't want to do that.
They don't want to call out the racism that was infused into policy and all the areas that we've talked about today, whether it's in science or medicine or the environment or housing or transportation. Or job creation, all these various things. And when we don't do that, then we don't understand how that has also limited our [00:25:00] opportunities to be able to move toward a clean economy, which everyone talks about now and that we have to do.
So it's all tied up in that. And that's why, if we were going to have true Black liberation, Then we've got to understand the power that exists inside of policy. We've got to understand the power that exists inside of our vote that's going to make the decisions about who's actually in those positions.
And we've got to make sure we've got stronger representation of our own in that space. So there is a continuum across time that is all tied to that.
Kiana Michaan: Kerene, you were talking about the commodification of everything within capitalism. And I think, you know, who owns the sun, this idea that. Even within some of our, you know, quote unquote, solutions to environmental problems that are still within capitalism, we're just commodifying, you know, the solutions to and not just recognizing the inherent value of the earth.
We have so, so much power as, as people and, um, but because of [00:26:00] these, these racist policies that go back, you know, so far. And. redlining and the structures we have in place, right? It's not always as simple as just being able to tap into those resources, right? Who owns the utility and the solar companies and the energy companies and what are the policy and financial barriers, right, that are within a, A geographic pattern of environmental racism,
Kia Johnson: I kind of want to touch a little bit on the the idea of policy and creating policies that are inclusive.
So as we start to implement new policies. And as we start to kind of tackle what's going on. How do we make sure that what does that look like? for making sure we're including Black people, Black communities, and how we're moving forward.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: So I think that if we, if we think about policy less as like an innate or inert part of the environment and more like a thing we did and can undo, then we have more agency to talk about whether we see ourselves in it.
Like [00:27:00] the environment is the system we actually live in. The city is a thing we built out of the country. Politics are a thing we do so that when we fight, somebody knows when they're gonna stop and when they're gonna start. Congress is this machine that mostly says no to things unless enough of us yell and then they're like, okay, we were already going to do it.
So I just want to put policy in that, in those containers, inside those containers, inside those containers to recognize that it is supposed to be a set of agreements that represent what it is we want to see in the world. And the problem is when we treat policy that we can create on Monday and then delete on Monday evening.
So really it's just a mirror that reflects stuff we prioritize in the same way that a budget is a moral document and really is just a list of stuff you care about in the order in which you're willing to sacrifice. So I just want to just lay it all out and say the reason why it feels like policy is far and away is because it is far and away is the enshrinement of stuff we care about today that we hope with our invisible dead hands are for us tomorrow to deal with unless we keep redoing it.
Kerene Tayloe: One of my [00:28:00] challenges with policy is it really is. The answers are already there. Like right now we have an administration that is, um, is, is very expressive about their interest and their desire to be, um, more centered in environmental justice to put equity with throughout the whole administration. And the reality is.
a lot, like the White House Environmental Justice Advisor Council, those groups, the report that they had, nothing in that report was uniquely new because it's been what environmental justice communities have been demanding for years. It's just, you know, depending on the administration, our access to the table changes.
But the reality too is we're, we're not saying anything new. We want, we, we want to address legacy pollutions. We, we want. You know, within the climate crisis and the need to address greenhouse gas emissions, we must address all of the co pollutants that come along with it because our communities have been the sacrifice zones for decades.
That's point blank the issue, but is the political [00:29:00] will there to do what it is that we demand? Is the political will there to not water down our requests Are our lives of value more than, you know, a fossil fuels interest in maintaining their economic and, and their investments that they've made, even though they're harmful to the communities that are adjacent to those facilities.
Like how are the policy makers and the people who have the ability to choose, what are their perspectives and why do they value those things more than our lives? Right. And that's the, the constant. Like redundancy of the movement. Like, you know, when I think about Dr. Beverly Wright, Dr. Bob Bullard, Peggy Shepherd, they are not saying anything new.
And they're actually quite annoyed that they're being asked to say what they've already said before, because the reality is we can make recommendations, but until our recommendations become the thing that drive policy, that drive legislation, we're going to be here. with the next administration, but the reality is more people [00:30:00] would have died.
And then that's the, that's the redundancy. We're, we're constantly being asked, what do you think when we've already told you, but the next step needs to be, what will you do with what we think? And that's what you, that's what we're seeing. And that's the frustration that I personally have. It's like, how many times can we tell you that this is a problem?
And you say, that's great. But we're going to do this other thing and that's what's happening, you know, and that's my concern. You know, we have a really great opportunity with the Biden administration to have all of these great leaders who understand and believe, but how do we then drive policy to become law?
Because that's the biggest challenge of environmental justice is so many of the things that we require are not law. And so many of the things that we assume have been put in place to protect us have really been put in place to balance corporate needs and then to Minimize and you know, honestly, it's like how much can we pollute before [00:31:00] communities start to protest?
Like that's that's been the challenge, right? And we need to get past that because too many people have died and too much time is being wasted for us to really address The climate crisis.
Mustafa Santiago Ali: Let me just add real quickly James Baldwin once said that if I love you You I have to make you conscious of the things that you can't see.
So if we're going to have real talk about what's going on with the things that Kareem just highlighted for everyone, let's unpack that. So, on Capitol Hill, how many folks work on Capitol Hill that come from an environmental justice background, who sit on the committees, or who are even just major staffers in an office?
I know I'm going to get in trouble here, but I'm just going to say it like it is, because I love all these folks, and I work with them to try and help make change happen. At the federal agencies. How many senior advisors for environmental justice exist at any federal agency or department at this moment in time?
And if the federal agencies don't do it Then the state [00:32:00] agencies aren't going to do it and the county agencies aren't going to do it and the local governments aren't going to So if you leave these gaps, it makes it really difficult for us to be able to achieve Many of the things that folks are asking for but i'm not done.
How many folks in the fortune 500 companies on their boards? You Is there a representative from an environmental justice community or background or leadership? I know the answer to that question. And then you can start to unpack that in all these different places where there are forms of power. And if you ask the question, you will be hard pressed to find someone who has that kind of power.
Sets of experiences. So that goes back to, do you really value our lives? Because these are the folks who are playing a role in making decisions about what actions and what resources will actually take place and where they will actually go. So if we're not willing to unpack where these gaps are, Then it makes it really difficult for us to [00:33:00] not just protect people's lives because it is about protecting health, but it's also about protecting wealth.
And that's supposed to be a part of our sets of conversations and actions around the clean economy. Again, if we love each other, and you know, everybody who says that they're progressive and liberal and independent and, or even some conservatives, if we're serious about this, then if we can't fix the basic gaps that are existing about the power structures.
Then, you know, we're kind of spinning our wheels and we're spinning our wheels in a time when we know that the grains and that hourglass are slowly ticking out. And I don't want to get into a situation where we're trying to scare people, but the reality is the science is very clear about what we're dealing with.
And we know that as we go through that transition of moving to a very dangerous situation, if we don't address these issues, we already know who are the folks who are going to be the ones that are going to have a very difficult time in navigating. As in the movement, we always say that we're hit first [00:34:00] and worst.
I don't even think that that explains the depth of what's going on inside of our communities. And we can change it. That's the North Star, is that we actually have solutions. and innovations and models of how we can actually change these dynamics. So we don't have to get anchored in the, in the gloom and doom, but we also got to fix this stuff.
And that goes back to our vote, but that also goes back to the education inside of our communities. Nobody teaches our folks. We don't teach it in the churches or the synagogues or the mosque. We don't teach it in our schools about what this system really is. Uh, and how we can unpack and dismantle the aspects of it that don't work so that we can make transformational change that everybody keeps saying they want.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: I'll jump back in super quick and say what just got outlined is design. Like, I often refer to this, the issues that we face as design problems. It's why I think of policy as a set of agreements that you point into and you renegotiate. Because at the end [00:35:00] of the day, if we design it, we can redesign. And if we're not calling a question, which is what's happening, people are constantly negotiating the ins and outs.
Uh, as someone who has, I've been a lobbyist at the national level and the federal level and the local level. Let me tell you, trying to convince the people whose job it is to do the redesign that they are empowered to do that is a whole nother podcast full of conversation. I actually thought about dressing up as Alexander Hamilton and sitting on a panel with a bunch of people just to remind people that you actually can change these things, you know, it's not just you watching me say things.
that make you feel like you're empowered to move. You could do this on your own. That's literally what you got sent for. You are a proxy of what we all want to do. And so I do think that some of this conversation isn't just about us and community. It's about us and the places that Mustafa just laid out.
Are we empowered when we're in those roles to do the work and to really think about the reason that we're there? Are we just going along to get along from one day to another? And that's true in and outside of our community. Like, are [00:36:00] we constantly reminded of what we are there for?
Mustafa Santiago Ali: So if we're going to talk about Black liberation, And how it intersects with the climate emergency, the climate crisis, climate change.
Then we've got to also make sure that we understand what are these vehicles, what are these systems that there has to be significant change to. And that scares people. Because that means that also, here's a real dirty word, you know, Tamar shared something with y'all, and I was like, okay.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: I know, plastics. I try not to say that in front of people I like.
Mustafa Santiago Ali: That's right, don't say the p word
Kia Johnson: It scares people into banning it in their education systems.
Mustafa Santiago Ali: Right. The other dirty word is power. It really is. Because folks don't want to share power. Um, and they understand that if you get power, that you are then going to demand something different. That's right.
That's a whole nother course that we need to be teaching kids from the time that they can conceptualize basic things all the way up through college, because nobody teaches you about power, [00:37:00] it's something that you have to go out and seek and be surrounded by other individuals to really understand that dynamic that's going on. And all of this is tied to power.
Kiana Michaan: Speaking of power, our Climate Voices, we are focused on climate storytelling and ethical storytelling. So I want to talk a little bit about that. What your experience has been of the power of climate justice storytelling in your work?
Amirio Freeman: I'll start and I think like first and foremost, I think with this question, I'm automatically starting at like a very high level as far as like what's like the function and utility of like a narrative and a story and And I'm just thinking so much about how stories, like, kind of hold together the fabric of our lives, especially when it comes to us being taught to, like, embody and replicate these, like, death dependent systems of capitalism, white supremacy, so on, like, those are all stories that we've been indoctrinated into, into, like, believing and absorbing, and I'm thinking about it.
Yeah. [00:38:00] All those like foundational like micro narratives that support these things from like, you know, the bootstraps theory to this idea of manifest destiny to, you know, this like overwhelming idea that like poor people are lazy. And that's the reason why I have all these problems and have to make, um, certain policy decisions.
And so when I think about that, it really does kind of like make a resonant for me that there's such a strong, powerful. plays for storytelling, especially like this idea of like narrative intervention, because I think if we really do fill in the gaps or at least intervene and disrupt and tell new stories, I think that sort of allows us to really almost like flex like our imaginative muscles and like we're given a portal to really say like, Oh, I have a new set of stories that this person is shedding light on, which opens up sort of like this multiverse of ways that, like, I can be living and that, um, how our reality can be [00:39:00] structured.
So I'm also thinking about Alexis Pauling Gumbs, the amazing theorist writer, and she has this quote, one of her books, around how when it comes to living in the world that we want to live in and building it, that's going to require, and I love this, it's going to require a species scale betrayal of our founding mythologies.
And I think that's the power of narrative intervention, like allowing us to betray those founding mythologies so that we can start believing in new things, building new realities, again, stepping into these new options for how we can live. Um, and again, I, see myself as like a climate storyteller. Just overall I'm like really invested in this idea of like narrative intervention and how again it can just open up us to like a multiverse of like ways of living and being as humans and with our more than human kind.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: I want to fully support this idea that climate storytelling and narrative are not distinct except [00:40:00] narrative gets much more funding. I like that, that the difference in the way that the work happens is very, is very distinct. The idea that we tell stories to share information is the original data point, right?
So, so I also just want to lift up that like the idea that we have an academy where we store data and our storytelling has to be ushered in secretly into that process is about having a paradigm shift. That is different than the reality we actually live in, because we all of our data is in our stories.
You learn what to do and what not to do, because community stores its lessons and storytelling. And so doing that work in the climate space is about making sure That we don't let the stories that get told about climate become the same stories that have been told about conservation, which is usually a lot less murder than happens in real life, and almost a seeming and divine placement of people in a natural world where they are safe.
Right? Another bag of lies. So just when I left off that, like, we had to be really important. We [00:41:00] have to really recognize that the stories that you tell, the images that you create, the people who you put in the archetypes of a leader, of someone who is powerful, someone who is an architect, all of these labels really determine the stakes for, for folks as they engage or they disengage in this.
conversation. Disinformation is information. It's just not information that is of consequence or goes and takes people in the direction that you want. So if we're not engaging in storytelling in this work, if we are not shifting the narrative, if we are not adding other data points, the only people who are talking are the ones with an agenda.
And so we lose out in not engaging and then we don't bring in new people and our work dies on the vine. So, so I think it's really important for us to recognize that it is useful and necessary for our survival to tell our stories and to be seen doing this work, to have images, uh, the, even the idea that people are who work are lazy is antithetical to the idea of working.
How can you be caught being [00:42:00] lazy at work? You don't have to go to work. If you're a slave, you definitely didn't get any days off. So like even this idea that you'll work, you could be lazy at work just presupposes that that is possible because if you were really lazy, you would not be there. So I just, so I just, so I think we just need to unpack some of that and some of how we fight the fire is with more fire, unfortunately.
So we meet lies with truths. We meet disinformation with more information. We meet paradigms with paradigm shifts, and we have to do it through our storytelling. If we started to frame some of the new energy or the old energy of the heavily recycled third or fourth version of it, solar and wind that we bringing back and, and put those images of ourselves in it, we wouldn't have conversations about, uh, the just transition and the way that we do because people would recognize they're already in it.
They bought us this last transition. So we'll be transitioning with that same group of people. So I think without leaning too much into a fire analogy in these times, it is just fighting fire with fire.
Kerene Tayloe: [00:43:00] We see so much data, especially in the policy world. So being able to. tell a story of how a community was impacted is remarkable and I think essential to connecting.
We've been talking like the idea of being lazy and I'm sure everyone here has visited the African American Museum of History and Culture here in D. C. On the bottom floor is where we learn what Africa and what our lives were like before slavery and then there's that whole section at the basement. If you look against the walls, they also have descriptions of slaves in their bill of sale or how they were advertised.
And there's always one that catches my eye and it's there and it's the shortest one. And it's this woman, her name was Fatima or Fatima. And then it says comma, it usually lists their skills. And they said Fatima was good for nothing. And so when we talk about laziness, some of what others perceive as lazy is taking agency over who you are.
So imagine being that woman and [00:44:00] having been enslaved and not having the agency of her hours, not having the agency of her body and her ideas. And then her making the consistent choice to not do anything, but to own her time. Right. And so her slave master saw no value in her, but Fatima somehow was able to take back her body.
And so, And do nothing. And all that's to say is we need to continue to own ourselves and own our time. And sometimes in our movement, we're demanded to do so much and we have to do so much because there's so much to do. And I think all that's to say, that was my long way of just valuing self care. And I think that's what I learned from those four, you know, that one statement about her being good for nothing.
She was good to herself. And she owned her time. And so in our space, find that self care, find that value in your time. I wish we could hear more about her story. Cause I'm sure she was awesome, but she was [00:45:00] good for nothing, according to that slave master. But you know, in that story, you know, there's so much to that.
Mustafa Santiago Ali: I think the other part to this that may be helpful. It's who owns your platform. You know, our storytelling, as amazing as it always is. If you don't own your platform, um, or if you don't have, uh, leadership over your platform, Can often get watered down and then we also have to understand where people are placing value So let's just I'll just call out some stuff here real quick You know When's the last time you saw someone from the climate justice or environmental justice space on CNN or MSNBC?
And I love them. I'm on there from time to time ABC NBC CBS MTV I can go down the laundry list And my, and my good brother Roland Martin always helps me to remember this is that we have to own our own platforms if we want our story to be told in the fullness of what it is. Um, and that beauty of this moment [00:46:00] is that through the internet and through a number of different vehicles that we can now begin to make sure that that happens.
You know, you can go on IG Live and you can talk about something, and you can invite other people into that space, or Twitter Live, or whatever your particular platform is, or you can do something incredibly innovative on TikTok, or a number of other places that, that you can go in this moment. So that is an evolution of us being able to fully own who we are and what we're sharing.
Not just here, you know, in the States, but across the planet. So, that is an important part. Here's the other part that I want to call out to folks. Our stories far outshine others who have got millions and millions of dollars to do their work. The Regenesis Project in Spartanburg, South Carolina, taking a 20, 000 grant and leveraging it over 300 million in changes.
When's the last time y'all saw someone from the major community being able to make that type of transformational change? Ms. Margaret May [00:47:00] and the Ivanhoe community in Kansas City being able to shut down crack houses, bring in new green spaces, get new housing inside of our communities. But you never hear her story, unless it's one of us who call it out.
Or the work of Buster Soros in Jersey City, or Reverend Floyd Flake in Jamaica, Queens, or the work of Bethel New Life in Chicago. All of them bringing transformational change in amazing ways. But because it was a community based set of efforts, because it was folks of color doing this transformational work, sometimes it just didn't get done.
The exposure that would then have brought additional resources that would have expanded that work even further. And those examples could be shared with other folks around the country so that as they're moving down their path, that, you know, folks could say, you know what, I see someone who looks like me.
I see someone who comes from that rural background or that suburban background or that inner city background. Who've made change. Let me reach out to them. And then let me institute something similar based upon [00:48:00] what our particular needs are here in our communities. That is a part of the storytelling.
But if we don't also talk about the infrastructure that's underneath of that, and the choices that people have made in the past and in the present of which stories actually get shared. Then we're doing a disservice to where we need to go So again, it's an exciting time that we have new options and new sets of opportunities And I want to call that out and that the climate movement has to realize this as well That you cannot win on climate change if you don't win on environmental injustice and environmental racism And for some folks that's awful hard for them to be able to digest and i'm gonna give you all some real talk You And sometimes it's because folks can see themselves being impacted from the climate emergency, but they don't see themselves being as equally impacted and willing to stand in solidarity with the impacts that are happening on the environmental injustice side of the equation.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: I just want to add two bookmarks, Heber Brown and the Black [00:49:00] Church Food Security Network. as an innovator using all that empty yard space across churches up and down the eastern seaboard to make sure people have food and communities are redlined so they don't have to wait for a community garden to be built.
I also want to flag Crystal Hansley for We Solar. who door to door knock in Baltimore and is bringing the revolution of solar arrays at a scale that could actually make change. So the community solar could stop being the best idea. We never did anything about. So I just want to add those other folks who are innovating at at scale at this moment who were dealing with people who were trying some stuff and left up the idea that What Mustafa and Kareem were just raising was that what we don't talk about is failure to make a very, um, a different kind of analogy around it.
If you don't fail, you can't succeed. It is the step towards success is failing, and we don't have enough examples of people trying things. We focus a little too much on black girl magic and excellence as opposed to [00:50:00] recognizing that it takes many, many, many hours to get to a place where you are excellent.
And so if we don't recognize that as infrastructure. Um, and I'm going to be talking about the role of infrastructure as knowledge. Um, Michael Gelobter wrote a book called Lean Startups for Change, which is about failing fast and doing it often. And if we talked about that, people wouldn't be afraid to make interventions regardless of where they go, because that's the road to actually winning.
And so just wanted to lift up that, that that is also a function of the narrative, which is that you don't wake up like this. That's a great song and that's all it is. But like, you need a lot of work and people have to support you and community has to hold you. And even as you go out and get all this The community is not welcome.
It is not welcoming you back with open arms unless there's work happening on both sides, and we need to tell that story. Otherwise, leadership is lonely. And as Vernice Miller Travis says, it should also be fun, which also means you need other people.
Kia Johnson: I want to ask one last question before we wrap up. In terms of your hopes and visions for the future, When you [00:51:00] imagine a future where Black liberation and climate justice have been realized, what does it look like, or what are your hopes and your visions for the future?
Kerene Tayloe: And Mustafa's talked about the clean economy a few times. But just stressing that as we make this transition, because it's happening, That black people specifically must be a part of the economic growth and potential. And we can't just be laborers. We must be owners. We have to be entrepreneurs. I'm thinking about like, what can I do as much as I'm learning?
Like, how do I look at this as an opportunity for wealth creation for my families. It's one thing to have the information, but how do I act on it? So how do we make sure that enough of us have access to the information, enough of us have access to these, um, clear income and, and, and wealth creation opportunities. Those are my hopes.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: I would like to stop meeting so many exhausted black people. Like, [00:52:00] I mean, in general, I mean, we're in America, everybody's exhausted, but you know, we're talking about a specific group of people. I think, I think that view would be people who don't feel like their worth is tied in how much labor they produce for other folks.
Um, they are not wedded, to the idea that busyness is more important than stillness, and that rest is a part of the practice of doing great work. I ask for it every time I take a break and I put it in my email. They're like, it's hard to, it's hard to do the work of liberation over the internet, so pardon me, I'll be back after, uh, spend some time in the real world and and not feeling burdened to make sure people are okay with that.
So I think that that view of the work happening, of us winning, has to be about delivering a bottom line that actually allows us to exist in the future. Everything that I care about is about Black life, Black lives, and Black livelihood. And that means making sure we exist in the future in some form and fashion and everything that we have been given gets passed to the [00:53:00] next generation.
Mustafa Santiago Ali: I was just going to say, you know, when we look back, I hope that we actually were able to help our communities move from surviving to thriving, that both our mind, bodies and spirits are whole. Um, and that touches on so many things that we've, um, been unpacking today. That we honor our elders, that we honor the youth, that we honor our ingenuity, that we honor our transformational power, that we honor creatives, like my brothers 2 Chainz and Juicy J.
Who just invested hugely in solar, you know, so that we, we, that we are honored and that we are honoring others who are standing in solidarity with us. And that's my hope looking if we're, you know, 10, 20, 30 years in the future, and that there's a building upon that that continues to expand it and uplift it.
And I believe that it will happen because we don't have a choice.
Kiana Michaan: My hope is that we're actually able [00:54:00] to take action in a timely matter, because we have. such a wealth of innovation and solutions and technology and policy and community and that these do become more uplifted that they are our new systems and that we are able to peacefully in a just transition dismantle these old systems of extraction and destruction and oppression and and rebuild.
Kia Johnson: I'm just going to share like a quick short story, uh, of a A native man living on an island. He's just laying on the beach as he does every day eating a papaya. The American tourist comes and he sees the man who lives on the island with the papaya and he says, Well, why don't you plant papaya seeds all over?
Then you can work the land for years. And then when you get older, you can retire and you can lay on the beach every day and eat papaya. Just kind of a circle of, you know, I hope one day we realize that life is [00:55:00] now and that living is now and that honoring the people in our lives and the resources and the beauty around us is now and that we don't always have to extract ourselves to enjoy life, but we can enjoy life now.
And before we close today, does anyone have any, uh, thoughts or anything they want to share?
Mustafa Santiago Ali: I was just going to say, everyone, we always have to remember, we have to infuse it into our communities that we have power unless we give it away. Black liberation is going to require us to honor our power. There are other groups who refuse to take a step backwards on any affront.
And we have to be the same way if we truly want to make sure that liberation becomes reality and that we're able to make the changes that are necessary to protect and uplift our community.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: I'll just add that to everybody to know that we need nuance. This is like, we're not going to solve this in maxims or clips.
We're not going to solve it with the right IG. We need really to be in relationship to always [00:56:00] be teaching and learning. And if we hold on to nuance, there are no politicians that we throw out. We just figure out how to use them better. There are no laws that we like or don't like. We just retool them.
There are no problems that we're looking at. We just reorient. And so that, so I think that, you know, we can do it if we embrace nuance.
Kia Johnson: Thank you everyone again for being here in conversation with us. This is lovely. Beautiful.
Kiana Michaan: This episode was co hosted by myself and Kia Johnson, and was originally produced by myself, Kia Johnson, Al Brady, and Khari Slaughter.
A special thank you to Our Climate Voices for allowing me to share this episode with the Climate with Kiana listeners. Thank you for listening. Climate with Kiana is hosted and produced by me, Kiana Michaan This episode was co produced and edited by Lucy Little. Theme music by Colette Michaan. This podcast is recorded and produced in New York City on unceded Munsee Lenape land.
If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a [00:57:00] friend, leave a comment, and subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts. For more information about the guests and topics discussed, please visit ClimateWithKiana. com.