Science Is Climate Activism Inclusive Enough? - The BBC has its finger on the important issues again

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account


The mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah - the nine-year-old girl whose fatal asthma attack may have been linked to illegal levels of pollution - has said there is a lack of representation in climate activism.

People living in parts of London with high proportions of black, mixed or other ethnic groups are disproportionately affected by air pollution compared to those in areas with a high proportion of white people, according to research by the Mayor of London.

Yet people from BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) backgrounds are often invisible in climate protest, says Rosamund Kissi-Debrah - who is due to speak at the World Health Organization on Monday.

Ms Kissi-Debrah, who lost her daughter in 2013, says black or ethnic minority people care about climate change as much as other groups.

"I focus on air pollution, obviously because of what happened to my daughter, but also because people where I live care about pollution.

"Pollution has a direct impact on their lives."

Echoing Ms Kissi-Debrah's comment is Professor Akwugo Emejulu - a sociology lecturer at the University of Warwick specialising in women of colour's activism in Europe.

She says the main reason for what she sees as their lack of representation in activism lies in some of the tactics used by action groups, such as Extinction Rebellion.

One of the strategies adopted by Extinction Rebellion during their 10-day demonstration in April was to get as many activists as possible arrested.

Prof Emejulu says some black campaigners are put off this approach because they fear violence and hostility from the police.

Samantha Moyo is the coordinator for Extinction Rebellion Together - a section within the group that provides training on diversity.

She says it took a lot of effort to overcome her fear of police when joining protest campaigns.

"I don't know what it is about being black that makes you feel scared around police," she said.

"I've always got a feeling of, 'they're going to get me - out of everyone here, they're going to come for me'."

Ms Moyo says she only felt safe from police at the latest protests because she was "holding hands with a fellow protester, who was white".

She says police could help to reduce the fear sometimes felt by people of colour if they behaved in a more approachable way.

"Something as simple as a smile. Or maybe something like a declaration from a police department, saying: 'We admit this has been a problem', that would be quite healing.

"Or even allowing or creating spaces for people who are traumatised by police to share their stories. A lot of people of colour are traumatised."

Kids of Colour - a platform for young ethnic minority people to explore identity and "challenge institutional racism" - says climate protests do not always allow for the realities they face.

School students around the world recently went on strike to demand action on climate change, but some at Kids of Colour question how inclusive the protests were.

"The school strikes have been fantastic to witness, but it is also a privilege to be able to skip school," says one representative.

"Many young people of colour feel a pressure to succeed in education because society does not work in their favour."

The Wretched of the Earth, which describes itself as "a collective of grassroots indigenous, black, brown and diaspora groups", wrote an open letter to Extinction Rebellion asking the group to rethink its tactics.

While commending Extinction Rebellion's successes, the letter said ethnic and minority voices were missing from the movement and need to be included early on, in order to effectively challenge systems upholding "racism, sexism and classism".

Referencing Miss Thunberg's "house on fire" analogy, the group said: "Our communities have been on fire for a long time and these flames are fanned by our exclusion and silencing."

So how can pressure groups draw everyone in?

People from BAME backgrounds need to be taken into consideration from the very start, says Prof Emejulu.

"It's not about organising in your own terms and then trying to draw people in. You have to be embedded in the communities with the people that are affected by this.

"It's also about democracy - if democracy isn't reflected in your activism then that's a problem."

Ms Moyo says Extinction Rebellion is working on taking action to ensure that people of colour are not being left out.

"I'm excited about what we're doing," she says, "because we'll be raising awareness and providing training around racism, colonialism, systemic trauma and other important issues."

Other campaign groups are also addressing the matter.

Greens of Colour is part of the Green Party, aiming to represent BAME members. And Friends of the Earth (FoE) has also acknowledged there is a problem with diversity in climate debates.

In particular, says an FoE spokeswoman, groups need to be better at recruitment and "bringing people in that the sector hasn't done very much to interest".

FoE now gives potential supporters a variety of ways to join and tries to make sure they see their experiences reflected in campaigns.

The spokeswoman adds: "But we own that we have a long way to go."
 
Ah the left, can't have a social movement without one of the other exceptional branches getting butthurt. See also BLM invading pride.
 
THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE REPRESENTATION OF MINORITIES IN THE RANKS OF THOSE WHO ARE GOING TO GET PUT AGAINST THE WALL,



Godfucking DAMN THIS SHIT. Fuck This Inclusivity Bullshit, Feedme Some Nanomachines and Just nuke the Entire Freaking Islamic Western Europe and Fuck USA and Chinks for God Measure. I EAGERLY AWAIT CLIMATE ACTIVIST TEARING ITSELF APART IN BLOODY CONFLICT WORTH OF KHORNE.
 
Hasn't the last 5 - 8 years shown what a disaster intersectionality is?

From Occupy Wall Street to the LGBTQXYZWTF (and still growing like pi) movement, when you try to grow your movement by tacking on bits that only have a 3% overlap with the original goals of the core, you don't build a stronger movement, you build a more fractious movement that spends more time fighting with itself than pursing it's mission, which has become so watered-down it can't make policy (AOC's New Green Deal, anyone?) and the lack of success inevitably leads to a desire to either militantly FORCE things to happen or, militantly witch-hunt the traitors in their midst who "aren't REAL allies" as you can certainly make yourself FEEL like something is progressing if you can hound out a few mid-level members for wrongthink Tweets.
 
The original point: We need to protect the environment from big bad corporations who pour dangerous things into our water and kill sea life. We all share this planet and we need to protect it or we won't have it in future generations.

This point: Look we all share this planet, but we need to also recognize the innate racism of the planet. So we need to make the planet itself more inclusive, before we can truly focus on the environment fairly.

The future point: Holy shit just as we had a PERFECT distribution the planet is now a total bio hazard that is now impossible to repair, I don't understand why this happened.

Please keep your priorities in order people.
 
The grand social plan is failing and the pendulum is swinging back. An increasing number of people are engaging in wrongthink lately, I can feel that change in the air.
 
The original point: We need to protect the environment from big bad corporations who pour dangerous things into our water and kill sea life. We all share this planet and we need to protect it or we won't have it in future generations.

This point: Look we all share this planet, but we need to also recognize the innate racism of the planet. So we need to make the planet itself more inclusive, before we can truly focus on the environment fairly.

The future point: Holy shit just as we had a PERFECT distribution the planet is now a total bio hazard that is now impossible to repair, I don't understand why this happened.

Please keep your priorities in order people.

I say more global warming. Its gonna kill Nigers and shell numbers of Nigers Nigering towards european shores in I-Day is gonna SEE RISE OF OUR REICH. from Slaves To Kangz, Fuck Yeah Eastern Europe
 
Isnt that just homeless cows from San Francisco Farting ?
That & the smell of money burning in great piles for any number of failed left coast social initiatives.
 
BBC: Ban cheese, it kills kids.
BBC: Ban climate, it kills kids.
BBC: Hey Jimmy, I'll go get some kids for ya to rape.

The BBC just wants to rape and kill kids instead of reporting news.
 
Hasn't the last 5 - 8 years shown what a disaster intersectionality is?

From Occupy Wall Street to the LGBTQXYZWTF (and still growing like pi) movement, when you try to grow your movement by tacking on bits that only have a 3% overlap with the original goals of the core, you don't build a stronger movement, you build a more fractious movement that spends more time fighting with itself than pursing it's mission, which has become so watered-down it can't make policy (AOC's New Green Deal, anyone?) and the lack of success inevitably leads to a desire to either militantly FORCE things to happen or, militantly witch-hunt the traitors in their midst who "aren't REAL allies" as you can certainly make yourself FEEL like something is progressing if you can hound out a few mid-level members for wrongthink Tweets.

It turns everything in touches into a crab bucket. If you're not familiar with the metaphor it's the idea of piling a group of live crabs into a bucket. Even though many of the crabs could easily get out of their situation, the other crabs will constantly reach out and grab them should they try to escape the bucket.

It's no surprise that it's starting to be weaponized. Although the interference of Russia in the U.S. election was vastly overblown, one thing that they did find good evidence for was that Russia was spending money to stoke the fires in groups like BLM or within smaller communities on the right that could be goaded into action against those groups.
 
Sure thing, let's make this shit more inclusive, I vote this lady to be the head of the whole fucking shebang.

 
THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE REPRESENTATION OF MINORITIES IN THE RANKS OF THOSE WHO ARE GOING TO GET PUT AGAINST THE WALL,



Godfucking DAMN THIS SHIT. Fuck This Inclusivity Bullshit, Feedme Some Nanomachines and Just nuke the Entire Freaking Islamic Western Europe and Fuck USA and Chinks for God Measure. I EAGERLY AWAIT CLIMATE ACTIVIST TEARING ITSELF APART IN BLOODY CONFLICT WORTH OF KHORNE.
Now this is what I call having a heated gaming moment
 
The mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah - the nine-year-old girl whose fatal asthma attack may have been linked to illegal levels of pollution - has said there is a lack of representation in climate activism.

Asthma doesn't work that way and this isn't the industrial era. Air pollution from a factory 100% did not kill your kid.
She had a fatal asthma attack. Tragic, but why wasn't she on the correct medication? And don't give me that black shit about "we dun have enuff money" coz the NHS takes care of your grifting asses well.

Edit :
Ella Kissi-Debrah, who lived near the South Circular Road in Lewisham, south east London, died in 2013 after having seizures for three years.

She had more going on than just asthma.
 
"being left out"
Nah, those who care about any form of activism have the whole race hustle going on, you can't be everywhere at once.
 
If I were a conspiracy theorist, which I'm not, I would think that this is orchestrated effort to sideline the climate change activism. I would also suspect that these groups REEEing about this "lack of inclusion" might have recently gotten some kind of donations from Big Oil corporations. Of course, I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
 
This really is peak Beeboid.

Also, if you want to fix the environment, time to go nuclear. But the greenies won't have it because they don't understand physics and that you are absorbing more ionising radiation from eating a banana than from any amount of high- or medium- level nuclear waste.
 
Back
Top Bottom