The following is a letter I sent today in response to three really fucked up letters published in the most recent Earth First! Journal. Unforturnately, there is no way to link to the articles, so you’ll have to get a hold of a print copy to read exactly what I’m talking about. You should get the jist, though. Seems I’m making a habit of calling out Earth First! for racist behavior.
There are many thoughts that run through my head as I read the responses to Problem Animal’s The Peace That Must End. To me, the letters from John Johnson, Paul Watson and Gloria De Lio read like the perfect montage of covert, overt, and unapologetic racism. I have to admit that I didn’t take issue with the premise of Problem Animal’s article. I didn’t feel it was an unwarranted attack on radical environmentalists or a plea of desperation from a failing activist suffering from White guilt. As I read the article, I found it to be an honest invitation for a desperately needed conversation within the Earth First! movement. Beyond conversation, I felt the article highlighted the need for serious anti-racist action within the radical environmental movement.
I have been grateful for the articles that the EF!J has included over the past few years talking about issues of oppression and how to fight it. I originally got involved with Katuah Earth First! because I was inspired by the few anti-racist activities that they engaged in when I first moved here (supporting the Cherokee nation in a land swap and showing up to disrupt a klan rally). But these actions alone are not enough to end racism, let alone sexism, genderism, ableism, ageism, classism, heterosexism, speciesism, and so forth. And participating in two solidarity actions over the course of two years does not nullify the oppressive acts carried out everyday by Earth First!ers.
There was a very important part of Problem Animal’s article that seemed to be overlooked by Johnson, Watson, and the EF!J editorial collective – “Whites must learn that when non-white people criticize us, the most revolutionary thing we can do is to respectfully think and listen.” Its seems to be a common theme among Earth First!ers to react first by defending themselves and marginalizing or completely devaluing any criticism. I recently came across this behavior at a KEF! meeting where I delivered a letter from the local Anarchist People Of Color chapter and acting as an ally called out KEF! on rescheduling the solstice campout the same weekend as the Southeast APOC conference. While some members of KEF! were open and supportive of what was said, others were very deceitful and defensive (this mostly involved talking about APOC and I behind our backs, and included at least one threat to my physical safety). The initial reaction of most local KEF!ers was to defend their decision and justify their actions, rather than to take a moment and listen to the criticism at hand. To act defensively to criticism is deeply founded in traditions of hierarchy, patriarchy, and a prime example of entitlement.
While I won’t go into the specifics of each written response, I do feel it is important to highlight pieces from each so that we may better understand some of the ways that we perpetuate oppression.
De Lio proposes that Problem Animal’s article was written out of White guilt. My interpretation and experience is quite the opposite. I believe that guilt never serves any productive purpose and is only found in the absence of action. I do, however, believe that a lot of White guilt can be found in the response from John Johnson. Nowhere does Problem Animal talk about the need to draw attention away from ecological movements, nor is it stated that Deep Ecology is the equivalent of Nazism. Yet Johnson comes out swinging, claiming that Problem Animal is attempting to recruit activists from radical environmental movements into an “urban-centered social justice campaign” by “baiting them with guilt and racism.” If anything, I feel as though Problem Animal is trying to create a more powerful radical environmental movement by challenging White activists to stop the behavior that continues to marginalize and exclude people of color. This challenge also needs to be extended to include all other identities excluded from radical environmental movements. Problem Animal does mention Nazis and neo-Nazi groups including ideals found in radical environmentalism. Part of this is to co-opt environmental movements, part of this is because such groups have always recruited from angst-ridden White youth. After all, Nazi recruitment is also deeply entrenched in the punk sub-culture. Again, I don’t think that Problem Animal is implying that all deep ecologists are neo-nazis, what is implied is that White Supremacy has strong roots among the people in radical environmental movements and White folks need to be conscious of how that plays out in our everyday lives so that we are sure not to repeat the cycle of oppression. Simply stating that we are anti-racist or anti-speciesist doesn’t make us so. We must be aware of who we ally ourselves with. There is an important question that has remained throughout radical movements – which side are you on? In many instances, this question creates a false dichotomy (e.g. the argument that you can’t fight for social and ecological liberation), but it can create a good guide for us to live by. If we say we are anti-racist, but we ally ourselves with a group that is known to be racist in practice and principle, how anti-racist are we really?
As to Paul Watson’s article, I’m unsure why the EF!J even printed it. Was it because Mr. Watson has achieved legendary status among Earth First!ers? Surely it wasn’t to prove that radical environmentalists aren’t racist. It would have been different if Watson used the space provided to renounce his past decisions, but instead he spends hundreds of words explaining how unapologetic he is for supporting the messed-up policies of groups like SUSPS. While Watson starts off by saying that he is unaware of any anti-immigration sentiment in the organizations he supports, he then goes immediately into explaining the negative costs of immigration. Yes, we need to question what roles humyn populations play throughout the world, but what questions are asked, who is asking them, and who feels entitled to answer? White Supremacy tells us to focus on overpopulation and to stop it through forced sterilization, refusal of health care, genocide, destruction of ecosystems, and other forms of violence. As someone who sees no need for (and has no respect for) centralized governments, I don’t understand anti-immigration sentiment. Borders are nothing but imaginary political boundaries. When we begin to look at why people take daily risks to cross those militarized boundaries (and why those in power prefer to keep them militarized) we can begin to understand why our population grows that 1.3 percent each year.
When most White people in the US think about immigrants, they conjure up images of Mexicans. I’ll stick with that stereotype, but first I want to point out that a large number of immigrants flock to this country from Europe every year (a population that is largely overlooked because they are better able to blend into the White power structure). Let’s ignore, for a moment, the fact that a war of attrition turned thousands of families into instant illegal immigrants in one day when a group of White men signed a piece of paper annexing what is now the Southwest United States. So why would so many Mexicans cross the border risking their lives and livelihood? Those in the business world would say it’s about a cost benefit analysis. Imagine your family is starving (or close friends that you love dearly). You work full-time in a US-owned factory in Mexico, but you aren’t able to feed yourself enough, let alone your loved ones. If you ask for a raise, you are immediately fired. If you try to organize a union, you may be killed (possibly along with your family). Maybe, as the Patriarchs of Anarcho-Primitism tell us, you should move into the forest and live off the land. The problem is that Starbucks kicked your family off your land to start a coffee plantation and if Monsanto finds you wild-crafting medicinal plants you could be sentenced to prison. You’ve already got down the part where you live without electricity and running water – you can’t afford either one. A friend of yours has just come back from an H2A program in North Carolina, where he was able to make enough for him and his family to live off of for the next year. It is then that you decide the survival of your loved ones depends on you traveling thousands of miles away from them to work in the United States.
I don’t think people should have to travel thousands of miles away from their loved ones and their land just to survive. But I will never advocate for the closing of some imaginary border. Those borders only exist to create a global economic system where labor is cheap, environmental protection is weakened, and everyone and everything is a possible target of violence. If we want to stop massive immigration, we must be radical – we must hack at the roots. The only way to stop forced immigration is to stop the global systems of violence that forced people from their homelands. If we close borders, we create a death sentence and enforce a policy of genocide.
As an animal and Earth liberationist, I understand it can be hard to care for the humyn species. But aren’t we also animals? To simply say that millions or billions of people are going to have to die for the survival of the Earth is insanely simplistic. As someone from the APOC caucus at this year’s NCOR said, “they are saying that billions of people have to die. Well, [people of color] know who those killed will be, because we are being killed everyday.” It is largely White people that create the policies that destroy our planet. It is largely White people that initiate or carry out policies of genocide (even the recent genocide of Tutsis by the Hutu was initiated by a false and arbitrary dichotomy created by the Dutch). Racism implies a system of power. White people are those that hold global power. This doesn’t mean that all White people are evil or that all White people should die. It means that we live in a world dominated by a culture of White Supremacy. If we are to create a better world, we must not lash out at those that are the victims in this culture, we must fight against all systems of hierarchy.
Paul Watson and other anti-immigrant environmental and animal liberation activists must ask ourselves what it means to be radical. Are we really hacking at the roots like we say? Or are we keeping the blind folds on and hacking at the branches, only to tell ourselves and others that we are hitting the roots?
