As American companies, politicians, and institutions seek to atone for a history of systemic racism, the environmental movement is also grappling with a past based on white supremacy and an evident lack of diversity in its current range.
On Wednesday morning, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune wrote a missive on the organization’s troubled history: from founder John Muir’s racist statements about black and indigenous peoples, to his membership in the eugenic movement, and its predominantly white membership and sentimentality. .
“… voluntary ignorance is what allows some people to close their eyes to the reality that the wild places we love are also the ancestral lands of native peoples, driven from their lands in the decades or centuries before that they become national parks. ” He wrote, It is this ignorance, he said, that “allows them to overlook, too, the fact that only people isolated from systemic racism and brutality can afford to focus solely on preserving wildlife.”
As advocates of a more equitable nation tear down Confederate statues in the south and those of Christopher Columbus and Father Junípero Serra in California, Brune called on the organization to reexamine its own role in perpetuating white supremacy, “beginning by saying something. really about the early history of Sierra Club. “
The legacy of Muir, the father of the national park system, whose words shaped the way generations have thought about the desert and how it should be protected and managed, has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. Many questioned whether their ethos is still relevant in today’s world.
This story has taken on an even sharper focus since the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis as a renewed social awareness of systemic racism consolidates.
“The first step is to have personal and institutional mistakes,” Brune said in an interview. “There were early leaders in our organization who made damaging and derogatory remarks about Native Americans and blacks who have not been recognized by the leadership of the organization for more than a century, so we must acknowledge and apologize for it.”
Club staff, membership, and volunteers are predominantly white and membership is higher.
“The Sierra Club is multi-generational and multi-racial, but not enough,” said Brune. “There is a lot of work to be done in that regard.”
Many of the polluting industries that are driving climate change disproportionately affect poor, non-white communities living alongside refineries and pipelines.
“It’s been an evolution over time,” said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California. “Since the 1990s, the Sierra Club has become more involved in urban issues and air pollution in California … What is happening now is that we are openly recognizing that we must make sure to include everyone.”
In 2004, the club was nearly dismantled after an internal gap emerged between those who advocated strong immigration restrictions as a way to control environmental damage and those who felt such policies were inherently racist.
Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš de Azul, an Oakland-based group that aims to bring more Latino voices to coastal issues, said the Sierra Club’s reckoning with its history “was a long time coming, and sadly is a reflection not only from the Sierra Club but our field in general “.
Gutiérrez-Graudiņš has spent years framing issues from an environmental justice perspective, but said until recently, it did not have the impact and reception it is now receiving, not only from decision makers but also from fellow conservationists.
“We are at a point where people can no longer ignore it,” he said. “There is a confluence of all these changes coming together, and people are now taking action in this work that has been going on for decades.”
She pointed to generations of work by advocates such as Robert Garcia of Project City, and others who fought for equal access to clean air and clean water. Together, they pushed for the recent California case. environmental justice law, which explicitly authorizes state officials to consider not only impacts on plants, animals and coastal habitats when making decisions, but also the effects on underrepresented communities.
Gutiérrez-Graudiņš left the dominant environmental movement almost a decade ago to amplify Latino voices and show that there is no one way to be a conservationist. For years, he has struggled with the misperception that Latinos do not care about the environment and has urged colleagues in the environmental space to recognize that diversifying their meetings and events is not just about ticking boxes.
“I was basically tokenized left and right, and I wanted to be able to say ‘no’ and do things the way I thought they should be done, informed and led by my community,” he said. “There was the idea that there is a way to do environmental work, that there is a way to do conservation, that there is a way of outreach, and that if people don’t show up for you, they don’t care.”
The Sierra Club has taken several steps in the right direction in recent months, he said, including the appointment of the first Latino in its 128-year history to lead its board of directors.
A recent survey, conducted by Yale and George Mason Universities, shows that people of color are more concerned about climate change than white people.
The survey found that 49 percent of whites are concerned about climate change, compared to 57 percent of blacks and 69 percent of Latinos.
“There is definitely a reckoning going on, and it’s been long overdue,” said Meera Subramanian, chairwoman of the board of the Society of Environmental Journalists, which oversees a predominantly white membership-driven organization of environmental journalists. “The challenge now is to translate the promises made at a committed time into long-term action.”
“The environment is not polar bears and Yosemite National Park,” he said. “It is the water in Flint, Michigan, and the air in New Delhi.”
Gladys Limón, executive director of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said Sierra Club and other major environmental organizations have traditionally wielded most of the power and benefited from the largest budgets.
To advance his racial justice commitments, he said that key actors must make room for smaller grassroots groups and transfer philanthropic financial support directly to environmental justice organizations and communities.
Rene Henery, California chief science officer for Trout Unlimited, noted that the environmental movement grew out of a culture that was white and patriarchal: “Everything from who could participate in that movement and have a voice on how organizations emerged, to who was in boards and how organizations are structured ”reflected that culture.
“It is what it is. Now we are trying to set a new limit,” Henery said. “It is in everyone’s interest to take care of others because we are all interconnected.”
