Practical Ideas for an anti-racist radical ecological movement

By Maria

While I’m excited to be a part of Earth First! at a time when the movement as a whole seems to be making a concerted effort to break with a past littered with xenophobia, racism and other oppressive elements, it’s still frustrating to see expressions of white-dominated culture manifest themselves in other ways, unchallenged and invisible to those who benefit from this social arrangement. Our solutions thus far have mostly involved creating more discussion spaces that deal with these issues and arguing over the same points time and time again about the necessity of “people of color (POC)-only spaces,” the reality and construction of race in our countries, about the liberatory possibilities of nationalism, indigenous fetishization (which is sadly more prevalent than I had hoped prior to becoming involved in EF!) and tokenization. While these discussions raise great points, they are not enough. They might be illuminating or interesting to some people, but as a consequence of feeling personally affected by some of them, I have talked these issues to death both at ecological gatherings and in my day-to-day life.