As for choosing between saving “my people” and saving “my planet,” I choose both. The truth is, as a complex human being, neither extreme fully embodies my tastes, passions, or spiritual aspirations. And with the onslaught of global warming, the larger choice for all human beings is whether we will choose to care more about survival than we do separation. After all, if African-Americans are empowered and world poverty is ended, but the planet’s burned up, would my ancestors call that Freedom? Alternatively, if the environmental status quo fails to understand that people of color and the disenfranchised are a critical component of long-term sustainability in the truest sense, who wins? Until we begin to truly work together as a one world community for the good of mother earth—who is crying out desperately for help in a myriad of ways—we are doomed as a human race to reap the consequences of a zero-sum game where everyone loses whether they’re black, white, or green.
As an African-American treehugger, I’ve still got a ways to go. After all, I could already be driving a hybrid car as opposed to shopping for “the right one.” I might have figured out a way to compost in an apartment complex. I might be living in a custom LEED-certified green home. Better yet, I might already be living off-the-grid altogether on a yurt in the wilderness. Had I been enrolled earlier in the “green movement,” perhaps I’d be further along. But for now, it’s one step at a time. I try to consume consciously. I walk seven days a week. I try to support local businesses. I reduce, I reuse, and I recycle. And most of all, I work on being the change that I want to see. If they could see me now, I think my ancestors would be proud.
By Bianca Alexander
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