FOCUS THE NATION DAY-- WHAT DOES RACE HAVE TO DO WITH IT?
Focus the Nation Day-- changing the world through a nation wide environmental awareness teach-in day-- doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me. i am in agreement with the concept that human beings today, living in hierarchical empire building industrial societies with over population and the mistreatment of our earth and its people as "resources" for "us" to exploit, are on a collision course with an unprecedented level of environmental destruction. in many ways, and for many people, animals and plants on this earth, the collision has already begun.
My reaction to the two articles below, which i have condensed, only strengthens my belief that the path to "saving the world" can happen only when "we" are all included in the design and action of "saving." in the recent history and political reality of so called 1st world nations, like the USA, "saving" so called 3rd world nations with colonial, globalizing programs that do little more than extract more wealth and exert more power over others, usually people of color, i am skeptical of yet another program to save something-- now the earth-- directed by (for the most part) WHITE PEOPLE. i have seen this formula before and it demands a strong critique by WHITE PEOPLE, themselves.
Well-meaning, liberal minded, progressive WHITE PEOPLE have still been overwhelmingly reluctant to own up to the power and privileges they have, which puts them in a position to believe they must be the voice for ALL PEOPLE. Environmental awareness-- reductively defined as the consciousness of the places we live-- must acknowledge the power inequities that exist in these places, the human unsustainability of living in a color based hierarchical society, which dispossesses people of their voices and their places at the metaphorical table.
and i am not even getting into issues of environmental racism, whereby it is people of color who physically suffer from living near places on this earth that have been environmentally degraded. here, i am just speaking about REPRESENTATION.
on january 31st-- focus the nation day-- i will be bringing some of my White Studies students into a class at the Pacific Northwest College of Arts to have this conversation with their students. we will also discuss it in our White Studies class that day. the question we will raise is how do ALL OF US participate in this discussion, design and action of SAVING THE WORLD?
No biggie: He's out to save the world
The Monday Profile: Eban Goodstein
Monday, January 28, 2008
SHELBY WOOD
The Oregonian Staff
There comes a moment during Eban Goodstein's pitch -- the one he's delivered to more than a hundred audiences -- when the size of his proposition, its audacity, grows clear.
This guy thinks he can change the world.
Better light bulbs and hybrid cars, Goodstein says, aren't going to prevent global warming from causing irreversible, worldwide damage. The United States must -- now -- create the tools that today's students soon will need to "rewire the entire planet with low-cost, clean energy technologies, create tens of millions of jobs, stabilize the climate, and lay the foundation for a prosperous, sustainable future."
His vehicle is "Focus the Nation," which Goodstein describes as the largest teach-in America has seen. On Thursday, more than 1,500 institutions -- mostly colleges, universities and high schools, but also churches and civic groups -- will host events that bring students, faculty and other citizens together with elected leaders to hash out solutions to global warming. Goodstein's endgame, however, is bigger than one day.
A middle-age professor in a corduroy blazer and Merrells, Goodstein needs his wife to remind him to get a haircut. Yet he talks like a superhero.
"It's got to be big," he says. "We don't have much time."
Goodstein, 47, starts from the premise that the Earth must not heat up more than 3 or 4 degrees Fahrenheit or numerous species and ecosystems will die off, leaving an uglier, poorer and more dangerous world. Global temperatures are on track to rise by 31/2 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050 if carbon emissions continue unabated, says the U.N.-chartered Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The solution, Goodstein argues, is two-pronged: The United States must not increase carbon emissions. And it must spend billions more public dollars each year to drive down the cost of fossil-fuel alternatives, such as biofuels, wind power and geothermal technologies. Without such investment, the tools won't be available, nor cheap enough, to hold global warming to a "manageable, low end."
Sunday, January 27, 2008
SCOTT LEARN
The Oregonian Staff
In the mainstream green movement, being any color but white can be a little lonely.
Take it from Marcelo Bonta, who's half Filipino. He got a job with the Portland office of a wildlife nonprofit, then began going to national environmental conferences.
"I'd see only one or two or three people of color out of 100 to 200 people in the room," he says. "I felt like I'd stepped back a few decades, if not more, in terms of race and ethnicity
Despite decades of hand-wringing by the typically liberal organizations, more than one-third of mainstream green groups and one-fifth of green government agencies in the United States don't have a single nonwhite person on their staff, according to a 2004-06 University of Michigan survey.
And about 90 percent of the staff and board members for groups belonging to the Natural Resources Council of America are white, according to a 2002 survey for the group.
Oregon is no exception. The 115 staff members for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, Oregon Environmental Council, Ecotrust, Oregon Wild and the Audubon Society of Portland include two Latinos, two Asian Americans, one Native American and no African Americans, their leaders say.
Ecotrust has two Native Americans on its board. Of the 56 board members for the four other groups, 55 are white and one is Asian American.
Bonta, 34, now a Portland-based green consultant, is teaming with Charles Jordan, 70, a former Portland city commissioner and parks director, to help mainstream green groups walk their progressive talk.
The two co-wrote the keystone chapter for a just-released Yale School of Forestry book on diversifying the green movement. Bonta advises environmental groups on how to diversify, and he started a center for diversity and a group for young environmental professionals of color in Portland . Jordan, the first African American board chairman of a national group, The Conservation Fund, has emphasized the importance of green diversity for years.
The clubbiness of mainstream environmental groups threatens to leave out the fastest-growing portion of the population. That limits outreach to nonwhites and contributes to a segregated green movement, with more minorities heading to grass-roots environmental justice groups…
My reaction to the two articles below, which i have condensed, only strengthens my belief that the path to "saving the world" can happen only when "we" are all included in the design and action of "saving." in the recent history and political reality of so called 1st world nations, like the USA, "saving" so called 3rd world nations with colonial, globalizing programs that do little more than extract more wealth and exert more power over others, usually people of color, i am skeptical of yet another program to save something-- now the earth-- directed by (for the most part) WHITE PEOPLE. i have seen this formula before and it demands a strong critique by WHITE PEOPLE, themselves.
Well-meaning, liberal minded, progressive WHITE PEOPLE have still been overwhelmingly reluctant to own up to the power and privileges they have, which puts them in a position to believe they must be the voice for ALL PEOPLE. Environmental awareness-- reductively defined as the consciousness of the places we live-- must acknowledge the power inequities that exist in these places, the human unsustainability of living in a color based hierarchical society, which dispossesses people of their voices and their places at the metaphorical table.
and i am not even getting into issues of environmental racism, whereby it is people of color who physically suffer from living near places on this earth that have been environmentally degraded. here, i am just speaking about REPRESENTATION.
on january 31st-- focus the nation day-- i will be bringing some of my White Studies students into a class at the Pacific Northwest College of Arts to have this conversation with their students. we will also discuss it in our White Studies class that day. the question we will raise is how do ALL OF US participate in this discussion, design and action of SAVING THE WORLD?
No biggie: He's out to save the world
The Monday Profile: Eban Goodstein
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FACTBOX
• "Focus the Nation"• Eban Goodstein |
SHELBY WOOD
The Oregonian Staff
There comes a moment during Eban Goodstein's pitch -- the one he's delivered to more than a hundred audiences -- when the size of his proposition, its audacity, grows clear.
This guy thinks he can change the world.
Better light bulbs and hybrid cars, Goodstein says, aren't going to prevent global warming from causing irreversible, worldwide damage. The United States must -- now -- create the tools that today's students soon will need to "rewire the entire planet with low-cost, clean energy technologies, create tens of millions of jobs, stabilize the climate, and lay the foundation for a prosperous, sustainable future."
Rewire the planet? Tens of millions of jobs? Goodstein's parents, civil rights trailblazers in small-town Tennessee , showed him that ordinary people could make extraordinary change. But Goodstein, who teaches environmental economics at Lewis & Clark College , wasn't going to alter the course of history from behind a lectern. So he left the classroom to try to channel the national buzz about global warming into a movement that might cool the world.
His vehicle is "Focus the Nation," which Goodstein describes as the largest teach-in America has seen. On Thursday, more than 1,500 institutions -- mostly colleges, universities and high schools, but also churches and civic groups -- will host events that bring students, faculty and other citizens together with elected leaders to hash out solutions to global warming. Goodstein's endgame, however, is bigger than one day.
A middle-age professor in a corduroy blazer and Merrells, Goodstein needs his wife to remind him to get a haircut. Yet he talks like a superhero.
"It's got to be big," he says. "We don't have much time."
Goodstein, 47, starts from the premise that the Earth must not heat up more than 3 or 4 degrees Fahrenheit or numerous species and ecosystems will die off, leaving an uglier, poorer and more dangerous world. Global temperatures are on track to rise by 31/2 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050 if carbon emissions continue unabated, says the U.N.-chartered Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The solution, Goodstein argues, is two-pronged: The United States must not increase carbon emissions. And it must spend billions more public dollars each year to drive down the cost of fossil-fuel alternatives, such as biofuels, wind power and geothermal technologies. Without such investment, the tools won't be available, nor cheap enough, to hold global warming to a "manageable, low end."
In Oregon and U.S. , green groups are mostly white
Sunday, January 27, 2008
SCOTT LEARN
The Oregonian Staff
In the mainstream green movement, being any color but white can be a little lonely.
Take it from Marcelo Bonta, who's half Filipino. He got a job with the Portland office of a wildlife nonprofit, then began going to national environmental conferences.
"I'd see only one or two or three people of color out of 100 to 200 people in the room," he says. "I felt like I'd stepped back a few decades, if not more, in terms of race and ethnicity
Despite decades of hand-wringing by the typically liberal organizations, more than one-third of mainstream green groups and one-fifth of green government agencies in the United States don't have a single nonwhite person on their staff, according to a 2004-06 University of Michigan survey.
And about 90 percent of the staff and board members for groups belonging to the Natural Resources Council of America are white, according to a 2002 survey for the group.
Oregon is no exception. The 115 staff members for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, Oregon Environmental Council, Ecotrust, Oregon Wild and the Audubon Society of Portland include two Latinos, two Asian Americans, one Native American and no African Americans, their leaders say.
Ecotrust has two Native Americans on its board. Of the 56 board members for the four other groups, 55 are white and one is Asian American.
Bonta, 34, now a Portland-based green consultant, is teaming with Charles Jordan, 70, a former Portland city commissioner and parks director, to help mainstream green groups walk their progressive talk.
The two co-wrote the keystone chapter for a just-released Yale School of Forestry book on diversifying the green movement. Bonta advises environmental groups on how to diversify, and he started a center for diversity and a group for young environmental professionals of color in Portland . Jordan, the first African American board chairman of a national group, The Conservation Fund, has emphasized the importance of green diversity for years.
The clubbiness of mainstream environmental groups threatens to leave out the fastest-growing portion of the population. That limits outreach to nonwhites and contributes to a segregated green movement, with more minorities heading to grass-roots environmental justice groups…
The problem with the Forest Service being a strong majority white is an issue. I once worked for the Forest Service as a Youth Corps Supervisor. The program was made to try and encourage hispanic children to join the forest service when they get older.
I had 8 kids, all low income and hispanic. From what I saw it was a great program. It allowed the children to make some extra money to help their families. The job offered them experiance and opportunities that may have otherwise been available.
I liked the program.
What I wonder is, does it work?
Perhaps the children gain experiance and opportunities, perhaps they gain interest in working for the forest service, however, I do not think it is a matter of these things, but a matter of hiring practice. No matter how experianced some one is, if people not hired because they are a minority, what good are these programs?
(Comment this)
You pose an intersting and difficult question. On one hand, people groups that normallly don't get opportunities or exposure in the area of forest service getting it is a good thing. Of course on the other hand, if they are being looked over in the hiring process it's all to no avail. I think the bigger question is whether or not these students would be allowed to be themselves and still be hired. What I mean is, many times, if marginalized groups don't display a form of whiteness on interview day, mainstream English, "dress code", gestures, etc..., then they won't get the job. To most whites, these cultural things are like second nature, they're seen as "normal". To people of color, doing these things takes additional work and isn't normative behavior but a part of our survival. People unfortunately look at different as deficient. So Latino kids coming in to an interview process aren't viewed as unique and a benefit to the workforce diversity, but deficient and a challenge. This is very complex.
I'm glad that the Forest Service made this effort, but it's sad that it many times is contingent on people assimilating or acculturating (words to do homework on). Instead of people of color having to leave their culture at the door, (and become "white" upon arrival) both people of color and those from the dominant culture should meet halfway--both groups able to be themselves--we should be equally accommodating to each other.
Thanks for placing this question! Will you provide comments and questions on my blog?matthewross.blog.com
I'd like to comment on yours as well! (Comment this)