Hey friends,

If you’re a political junky like me, the current national news cycle has been really depressing. It feels like every day we hear about a new racist tweet from the President of the United States. It’s awful, and it reminds me of the work that people in this country have to do when it comes to challenging and undoing racism. That includes people in the environmental movement. So many of the issues we work on intersect with race, but we just don’t see these connections because our movement has been too white for too long. If we are going to succeed at protecting the environment, we need to make sure our movement is big enough and welcoming enough to everyone.

And if you’re a white person reading this (and I imagine there are quite a few of them), I get it. You’re probably a liberal white person like me who agrees that racism is bad and diversity is good. And that’s great! But that’s just one step in the right direction. I’ve been fortunate enough to go to trainings and work shops about undoing internalized racism and white supremacy, and those courses completely changed me. I went into them thinking I wasn’t part of the problem because “I wasn’t a racist.” And no, but I was doing and saying things that reinforced white supremacy. I wasn’t thinking about communities of color when I was planning events or programs. I realized that I wasn’t being a good ally. I was only paying lip service to it.

So I’m trying to do better, and I think I am moving in a good direction. The work takes time, and it take patience, but the rewards are so great. Since recording this episode, I’ve worked on some really great programs, hand-in-hand, with tribal partners, and I’ve been directing more program resources to racially diverse and low-income communities that haven’t partnered with environmentalists before. But there’s more work to do, and it’s incumbent on us to do that work. Not only is doing this work good for the conservation movement, it’s good for the country, which so desperately needs to have a conversation about race, equality, and justice.

Ok…off the soap box now. I swear the podcast episode is a lot more fun to listen to than my rants. Hope that you enjoy it, and I hope it inspires everyone to do more to fight racism.

Cheers!