Eco-Apartheid

As an anti-apartheid student activist in the 80's, the term eco-apartheid caught my eye today. In researching for my post today, I found the term several times in various web searches. It speaks to the lack of visibility of African Americans and Latino's in the green movement. This touched me because as an African American, when I think of enviromentalists or the green movement, I usually have visions of young white college students protesting or suburban housewives shopping at Whole Foods. I recently attended a Bioneers Conference and was definitely in the minority, although there were one or two other African Americans among hundreds of participants. One would think that blacks have no interest in the topic of sustainability at all. I was pleasantly pleased to discover Van Jones of Oakland, California and his interest in applying the green movement to solve some of our communities economic problems. www.greenforall.org. I discovered Majora Carter, MacArthur Fellow and founder of Sustainable South Bronx, and organization that develops community based sustainable economic development projects. I picked up some great tips from Damali Ayo, an artist and fellow treehugger. I would encourage all of my fellow eco-conscious sisters and brothers to become more vocal and more visible not only among our families and friends but in our surrounding communities and community organizations.