It’s Still Happening

This past week Philadelphia police gunned down Walter Wallace while responding to an incident in which Wallace was carrying a knife. This despite the fact that the officers were ten feet away and thus Wallace, armed with only a knife, posed no threat. This despite Wallace’s mother’s fervent pleas and attempts to de-escalate the situation, which availed naught.

Predictably, protests ensued throughout Philadelphia and in other cities as well. A certain amount of rioting and violence was mixed in as well. Donald Trump’s White House has promised to send in federal troops if the unrest continues.

It’s still happening, people. The protests and the unrest. And it will continue to happen for as long as American society at large insists on holding the lives of black people in such low regard. It will continue to happen until we as a society come together and declare that enough is enough.

One big thing you can do: Vote. Our presidential election is just days away. This is our chance to set the tone for the next four years of our country’s history. Will it be more of the same? Or will we choose a leader who at least gives us a chance for a break from the status quo? It’s up to you. So vote, if you have not done so already. This is our best chance as a society to say “Enough is enough”.

Arctic: A Tale of Environmental Injustice

In a previous post I raised the point that environmental justice is racial justice: the two are inextricably woven together because bad environmental policy decisions have disproportionately impacted people/communities of color and other minorities.

We now have a massive environmental justice issue brewing.

To frame this issue in its proper context, I am going to take you on a journey.

We are going north.

A long way north.

Like, as far north as it is possible to go and still be on dry land.

We are going to a place where the sun shines for 24 hours a day (almost) during the summer months. What passes for night up here at this time of year is just an hour or two during which the sun dips ever-so-slightly below the horizon and the sky gets just a little darker than what it is in broad daylight.

Yet despite all this sunlight, it never gets very warm here. Summer up here is like January in Georgia. You don’t want to be up here during the winter.

This place is immense like nothing you have ever experienced before. Vast, icy tundra stretching out as far as the eye can see, snow-capped mountains off in the distance, and all of it criscrossed by rivers of deep blue glacial water like no blue you have ever seen before. You can actually drink this water straight out of the river. (Just try drinking water out of the river in Atlanta. See what happens.) Caribou thunder across this plain along well-worn paths that they have traversed for generations. Salmon swim these rivers and streams en route to their nesting grounds, though not nearly in as great abundance (the caribou or the salmon, or other animals for that matter) as just a few hundred years ago, for reasons which we will get into later. There are no roads or power lines, no sign of any human infrastructure for hundreds if not thousands of miles around. On the ground, this looks like an alien landscape, one which belongs on some other planet but not here on Earth. Everything about this place screams that it is not for us, not intended for human habitation.

Yet people live here.

Indigenous peoples make their home here, living off the land to the best of their ability, exactly as they have done for thousands of years.

Now this place has come into the crosshairs of recent policy decisions by the Donald Trump administration.

As you may have guessed by this point, the place of which I speak is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is home to the Gwich’In, an Inuit people grout that has lived here for over 30,000 years.

Thirty thousand years, people.

That’s fifteen times longer than the history of Christianity. Five times longer than the length of history depicted in the Old and New Testaments. American history–all four hundred years of it–is but a blink of an eye in comparison.

Think about that.

Back in 2017 Donald Trump opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration. That is happening, even as we speak, with drilling soon to follow. We don’t know when but Donald Trump is committed to a very aggressive timeline. The spot where they want to drill is right smack in the middle of the caribou herd’s nesting ground. Needless to say, if drilling moves forward the Gwich’In’s primary food source will be obliterated. Also needless to say: Untold amounts of irreversible damage to the environment will follow from any drilling that happens here. And I have not addressed the untold damage that has already been done to this point by climate change, which will continue unabated if things remain as they presently are. Of course, in the eyes of Donald Trump and his supporters, those who raise any concern whatsoever over any of this are godless communist punks who are hellbent on destroying America and who can and should all go to hell.

But this is bigger than Donald Trump. Donald Trump is only the end of a very long line going all the way back to 1492 when white Europeans first set foot on the shores of American soil. A line of white supremacy which has directed genocide and oppression against the native Americans who were here already, and oppression and injustice against blacks who were brought from Africa to be slaves here.

As bad as 2020 has been for all of us, it has been 2020 for the Gwich’In ever since 1492. This is just one more kick in the gut to a people already reeling on the ground from the effects of white supremacy which continue to this day.

So what can you do about any of this?

Glad you asked.

The Liturgists recently released a 20-minute documentary arising from a trip which several of them took last year to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Go to the page and watch the film. There is also a podcast episode which delves more deeply into all of this.

Listen to the Gwich’In elders who tell their stories. Note the pain, anger, grief, loss, and trauma which fills their voices and is directed–rightly–toward all of us as Americans. Those of you who are experiencing white fragility might react like: But I wasn’t there. It wasn’t me who committed those atrocities. We’ve moved on from all of that. Don’t judge me based on what my ancestors did.

Fair enough. But actions speak louder than words. If you truly are not your ancestors and are opposed to the atrocities committed by your ancestors, then show it by your actions. Start by listening to the anger, grief, pain, and trauma, without any plea or other attempt to defend yourself. This is not the time or place for that. Just listen. If you say anything at all, let it be “I’m sorry” or “I hear you” or something to that effect. Further action steps are given here.

Those of you who are black, because I am pretty sure there are at least a couple of you running around out there who are reading this: Listen to the pain expressed by the Gwich’In elders and note how it parallels and intersects with your own pain. Because both you and the Gwich’In have been disproportionately impacted by bad environmental policy decisions over the years and centuries of American history. But on a deeper level, both your pain and theirs proceed ultimately from the same root, namely the root of white supremacy as expressed down through the centuries of American history. As noted above, environmental justice is racial justice; the two are inextricably linked together. OK. Enough whitesplaining from yours truly.

Another big thing you can do: Vote. There is a general election coming up in just a couple of weeks. Needless to say, this is likely the biggest and most significant election of our lifetime. By the time this goes live I will have cast my absentee ballot.

OK. I know that not all of you are pumped/jacked/stoked about saving the environment or the wilderness. Your eyes glaze over profusely whenever some tree-hugger starts waxing rhapsodically about the beauties of pristine, unspoiled wilderness. I get it. But people live here, in said pristine/unspoiled wilderness. People created in the image of God, whom God loves and for whom Jesus died. People who have experienced a grave injustice carried out over several centuries and which continues to this day. If you are Christian, that should be reason enough for you to have at least some level of stake in this fight.

But whatever you do, do something. The genocide may have been in the past, but if you do nothing then it will have continued into the present day, on our watch. And that is unacceptable.