Category Archives: Community building

An Open Letter to My Activist Friends

This post was updated on Sept. 22, 2020.

Dear friends and fellow activists,

I am relatively new to activism, but over the last few years I have been pretty actively engaged in a variety of causes, from the environment to anti-racism to gun control. In addition to writing, Most of my activism has consisted of planning and participating in protests and other forms of expressive activism.

When I first started participating in protests, it was exhilarating. It felt empowering. I experienced for the first time in my life the power of masses of people gathered for a cause. It’s not an exaggeration to say it restored my faith in democracy. It offered me an avenue for action outside of the more traditional modes of political participation (like voting), with which I had become disenchanted.

I never expected marching, by itself, to effect revolutionary change. Rather, I saw mass events as opportunities to raise energy and build solidarity, especially among those who participate, but also among those who witness from afar. When people would ask me if I thought events like the Women’s March and the People’s Climate March “accomplished anything”, I would respond that what those events do is to help people realize that they are not alone, that together they have power when they act collectively, and to motivate them to organize when they go back home.

I still believe all that.

However, over time, I have come to see another perspective as well. There’s three problems that I now see with much of the protesting which we progressives do.

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21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Learn Old Skills

Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.

I previously suggested that building community can be one thing we do to honor the Earth this Earth Day—specifically, building local, sustainable and resilient communities.

Resilient communities are those can better withstand the shock of environmental change and economic collapse.  One part of building resilience is re-skilling.

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21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Support Front Line Communities

Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.

While climate change affects us all, there are some populations who are more vulnerable than others, including low-income communities, communities of color, coastal communities, and communities on the front lines of fossil fuel extraction. One way you can honor the Earth this Earth Day is to fight for front line communities.

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21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Build Community

Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.

When we think about climate change, we have been socialized to think about individual actions, especially our choices at the market and gas pump. There are many ways we can change our individual consumption habits in response to climate change. But we need to understand that no slave was ever freed by individuals choosing to purchase products that are free from slave labor.

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“An Inescapable Network of Mutuality”: Martin Luther King’s Ecological Thought

“A Single Garment of Destiny”

In his penultimate sermon, delivered on March 31, 1968, at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of our interconnectedness:

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21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Organize Your Community

Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.

One thing you can do to honor the Earth this Earth Day is to become an ecological voice in your community.  You can organize a meet-up or a local group to plan an action, host a workshop, or petition your elected representatives.

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