How I see it. A note on privilege, environment, and race.

To be completely transparent, I am a highly educated woman. I am middle-class, and have lived a life of immense privilege. I shy away from this fact...believing that it in some way people of color will feel that they cannot relate to my life, and vice versa, that I do not understand the pain of poverty, and injustice enough to relate to the experience of many people of color in this world. Further, by me believing in sustainability and environmentalism, I subscribe to the hugs trees, chastize people mentality. To put it more bluntly, it makes me feel that I lack street-cred. I was told once that it takes 21 instances to  break an initial perception. So let's consider this instance 1.

I believe there are two types of privileged people in the world. Those who take it and run, and those who take it, turn around, and share. Privilege for me means a responsibility to make change and take action. Privilege has meant that I understand aspects of our social system and have learned to take advantage of it rather than be taken advantage of. This does not mean in all realms, but I've had the luxury of a family line that has been able to succeed against expectations. And in those realms, I benefit from their experiences. I am privileged to be able to have had parents that believed in me to be a change agent which has created an intense drive to apply my skills and talents to some greater good. Privilege in my world, is a synonym for responsibility.

So what is it that I feel responsible for? I've called it infiltration, I've called it cross-communication, I've called it building bridges, I've called it breaking down barriers. Essentially I see myself as responsible for taking all the knowledge and experience I've been exposed to in life to build power, confidence, and strength for disadvantaged communities, particularly black communities. WHY BLACK? because if we can build social equity for black people in this country, and get to the point where we can talk openly about the systematic subjugation of black people throughout our history...we can begin to heal wounds and achieve equity for everyone. Native Americans are the only other group to have experienced worse. So much so that their lives are often completely ignored in society. I do not want to be an example of exclusion, I acknowledge that there are much more talented people with cultural knowledge and experience to be able to advocate than I can currently. That will hopefully change in time. So for me the starting point is the black community.

My passion for environmentalism starts here. It is rooted in my desire to preserve natural assets because I believe that the core of our culture lies in a balance with nature. And in fact, the destruction that our communities have felt is paralled in nature. We have not yet made this connection. The civil rights movement is the basis for much of what is right in the world today. Unfortunately, those who were most threatened by it (those who have power in this country) were successful in making sure that it did not address the economy --one that in its basic structure is socially and environmentally unjust. The work of civil rights and social justice is not done, and we as people of color cannot be led to confusion that living in abundance materially equates to the freedom we have always sought. We have been taught that convenience, style, independence and material wealth define our value in society, and in return we have chronic health problems, and dysfunction in our communities.

People and environment are not disconnected. We are part of an ecosystem. Let us redefine what is success, what is wealth, and remember what used to be most valuable to us. Then, let's arm and equip ourselves to make strides towards a new vision for our future.