xposted to journal: Intersectionality, get you some!!!

[the_future_modernes]

ETA: Tell us in comments the books that you feel would blow our minds!!!


Alternet has 28 books that they aver will change the way you see the world, environmentally, at least. Most of which seem to be written economically privileged cis het white men. There is 1 possibly two white women in the bunch. And thats it. Fuck this shit. Honestly? The only book I want to read out of that bunch is the book about the Gaviotas community in Colombia. Here are a couple of articles and a book review: Gaviotas, Gaviotas: Village of Hope, Alan Weisman: Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World.

But seriously. Where is Vandana Shiva, for instance? The woman is famous and prolific, and is a wellknown activist against food monoculture and various other environmental ills, so why the black out? Why are there no books about the environmental justice movement?

Repost from ecominded poc lj version: None of these resources have mind changing abilities?

Articles:

A Selection of African-American Environmental Heroes


Indigenous Environmental Justice Issues Enter the Global Ring




Books:



African American Environmental Thought: Foundations To Love the Wind and the Rain:


African Americans and Environmental History


The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution

New Perspectives on Environmental Justice: Gender, Sexuality, and Activism


All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life


Ecocide of Native America: Environmental Destruction of Indian Lands and Peoples



The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution


Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices From the Grassroots


Just Transportation: Dismantling Race and Class Barriers to Mobility

How about the The Revolution will not be funded: Beyond the Non profit Induatrial Complex? That sure as hell blew my mind?

!Cochabamba!: Water War in Bolivia

How about Sistah Vegan, a look at how veganism can be considered in light of class and race? Then again, that might expose issues that could be just a little too uncomfortable for some!


Or Dam Nation Which sure as hell ripped my beliefs about dams and waterways and how waste is dealt with completely to bits.


And this stuff is just what came into my mind, you know? Its US-centric, I haven't read all of the stuff here unfortunately and I haven't been keeping up with enviro books so I am sure I missed a ton. But my argument is this, can we PLEASE stop having the enviro movement pretend that its only readers are middle to upper class white people? Cause they are actually the damn minority on this planet, and other stories need to be told, thank you very much!

Comments

[colorblue]

Thank you for these links - there are a lot of books/publications that I wasn't aware of, and the ones that I am familiar with totally deserve to be there.

You know what we should do? Come up with our own list of 28 (or more) books. In addition to the things you listed, I would also include:

Raj Patel's Stuffed & Starved & The Value of Nothing
Andrea Smith's Conquest (which talks about how Native Americans are the ones that bear the consequences of things such as nuclear tests, how one of the tactics used against them was killing the entire buffalo heards, stuff that is not raised nearly enough in environmental justice forums, imo)
David Naguib Pellow's Power, Justice, and the Environment: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement
Jace Weaver's Defending Mother Earth
any of the books and publications on the Via Campesina site

[the_future_modernes]

Awesome idea! And Yes for Raj Patel, HOW could I have forgotten him!

[colorblue]

while looking through Amazon I also came across this book: Garbage Wars: The Struggle For Environmental Justice In Chicago, which I haven't read yet, so I can't include it on my list, but just from the title & summary (how poorer neighborhoods are more likely to be located on/near landfills, how environmentally friendly tech like recycling plants end up adding to the pollution in those neighborhoods, etc) it seems very pertinent.

[the_future_modernes]

oooooh. Nice!

[bossymarmalade]

I feel like there's this huge disconnect in the global West when it comes to environmentalism: like you have to be rich and educated and leisurely enough to have the time and bother to devote to ecological sustainability and health. Like it's only if you're middle-to-upper white that you have the time and inclination to learn about this stuff, that you also do yoga and wear buddha beads and eat organic food.

There's a total refusal to see that poor people, people of colour, are *directly affected* by ecological fragility and it's their foodways and agri-knowledge that will help preserve the earth. A refusal to see that these people are often intensely active when it comes to advocating for themselves and their land. Because then the West would have to engage with them like they're intelligent people with a much-needed contribution to make, and who wants THAT?

[urocyon]

A lot of things to check out! An oldie but goodie I would include here: Akwesasne Notes, ed. A Basic Call to Consciousness: The Haudenosaunee Address to the Western World (partly online here).

"The destruction of the Native cultures and people is the same process which has destroyed and is destroying life on this planet. The technologies and social systems which have destroyed the animal and plant life are also destroying the Native people...Processes of colonialism and imperialism which affected the Haudenosaunee are but a microcosm of the processes affecting the world."

[urocyon]

One I forgot to add, on a similar note: Jack Forbes' Columbus and Other Cannibals.

In his own words: 'CANNIBALS is focused upon my use of the Native American concept of the “Wetiko” psychosis, the disease of cannibalism. I believe that the exploitative consumption of the earth, the living creatures of the earth, and, above all, other human beings and their homelands, constitute actual, real, unmitigated cannibalism. Tragically, the cannibalism of which I write has become more and more an acceptable part of modern economic and personal exploitation, with those who do the consuming giving little or no thought to the diminishing or even elimination of the lives of those at the receiving end of their quest for profit and super-sustenance.'