E2. Front Line Community Green

In 2025 the Coalition of Communities of Color worked tirelessly to champion equity and opportunity for all communities of color, immigrants and low income people. From the Oregon State legislature to local government budget processes, we've faced considerable hurdles but also achieved important victories.

State Legislative Session: Facing Fiscal Headwinds

The 2025 Oregon Legislative Session was characterized by fiscal uncertainty, stemming from a state budget shortfall and concerns over potential federal cuts. This challenging environment led to substantial budget reductions, with communities of color and low-income individuals disproportionately affected. Key state agencies, including the Oregon Department of Education, Department of Early Learning and Care, and Oregon Housing and Community Services, experienced significant cuts to vital programs such as student success initiatives, childcare, and emergency rent assistance.

Despite these statewide challenges, we celebrate the passage and funding of critical initiatives like the Immigrant Justice Package, which includes Universal Representation and Farmworker Disaster Relief, and the Fair Housing for All initiative. These successes underscore the power of focused advocacy even in difficult times.

Learning Opportunity: Water Justice Legislative Recap and Celebration

How did this year’s Legislative Session impact water justice? Join Oregon Water Futures July 29th 12:00-1:00PM in a conversation with environmental justice advocates to celebrate water policy wins, get real about challenges and opportunities, and hear personal experiences about policy and advocacy work. This panel is for anyone interested in Oregon’s water justice future, frontline advocates, and community members. Our sessions are accessible to those new to policy and is a great time to connect with others!

When: Tuesday, July 29 at 12 pm

Reigster here: Bit.ly/456SdXY

Panel Includes: Verde, Crag Law Center, Oregon Just Transition Alliance, and the Joint Water Caucus.

City of Portland: Defending Essential Programs for Communities of Color

During the City of Portland budget process, CCC and its members' advocacy was crucial in defending the Civic Life Diversity and Civic Leadership program, which initially faced severe cuts exceeding $600,000. Through dedicated advocacy, CCC and culturally specific organizations successfully restored $179,000 in funds for the program. Additionally, our collective voice played a vital role in advocating for the protection of Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) and Parks funding, underscoring our unwavering commitment to equitable and well-resourced community programs

Multnomah County: Securing Vital Investments

The Coalition of Communities of Color and our dedicated members achieved significant wins during the recent Multnomah County budget process! Through strategic advocacy and successful amendments, we were able to defend crucial programs and secure vital funding for initiatives such as Voter Outreach and Education, School Based Mental Health, Homeless Employment Programs, Housing Immigration Legal Services, and Culturally-Specific Community Food Systems. We remain optimistic about continuing to engage with the county to ensure equitable investments that truly serve all communities.

Looking Ahead: Protecting Our Progress

CCC staff joined our member Unite Oregon on their 2025 Day of Action in.Salem.

Our community's commitment to equity, inclusion, and opportunity is currently at risk due to attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and potential federal funding cuts that could impact vital services provided by the City of Portland and Washington County like transportation and housing. We've seen this manifest in Washington County's struggle to uphold an Equity Resolution and sanctuary laws in conflict with federal executive orders, and there's an ongoing need to protect programs like Multnomah County Preschool for All that increase access for communities of color and low income people.

This situation demands action: we must fiercely defend DEI initiatives, advocate for the codification of sanctuary protections in local governments, and actively work to strengthen the Preschool for All program by ensuring continued funding and community involvement in its advisory processes.

Your continued participation is crucial to safeguard our progress and build a future where equity, opportunity, and safety are guaranteed for everyone. We urge you to attend public meetings, contact elected officials, share information, and engage with community organizations. Together, we can continue to make a difference. If you have any questions or would like to get in touch, reach out to our Advocacy Manager Alex Riedlinger at Alex@coalitioncommunitiescolor.org.

“Earth Day to May Day” Marcha Campesina, Skagit County, WA.  Photo credit: David Bacon

Happy Earth Day!

Started in 1970, the original Earth Day is often credited to Wisconsin Governor/Senator Gaylord Nelson, but there is actually a lot more grassroots action behind this story.  Spurred by the warnings of Silent Spring and 1969 catastrophes such as the Santa Barbara offshore oil spill and the Cuyahoga River catching fire, the young environmental movement organized a national day of campus teach-ins, mass demonstrations, and public school activities such as tree planting and beach cleanup.  An estimated 20 million people participated.  Given the tenor of the counterculture and anti-war movement at that time, a protest that focused on affirmative, solution-oriented actions was widely embraced by all – a little known fact is that the United Auto Workers (UAW) were the single largest financial supporter of the first Earth Day.

Earth Day actions led to the creation of the EPA, Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  Over 50 years the idea has spread to nearly every country in the world.  But now, it has mostly lost the fierce and urgent edge that it once had.  If you attended Earth Day events over the weekend, you likely saw a pavilion with Exxon plastered on it or a stage sponsored by Chevron.  Every channel shows ads implying that “BP” stands for “Beyond Petroleum” (to that we say: “BS”).  Corporate co-optation and disinformation have neutered and ruined Earth Day, to the point where many in the environmental justice movement ignore it.

But EJ needs to reclaim Earth Day, to make it once again a day of protest, to exceed its inoffensive image by engaging in direct action and demanding the necessary policy changes and redistribution of resources to the grassroots communities and local economies that are fighting to protect their lived environments while also building real solutions from the bottom up.

Next week we will celebrate another holiday that is very important to our movements.  May Day has a much longer history, and over the centuries it has become complex and multi-faceted.  Originally a fertility ritual rooted in pre-Christian European cultures, May Day was a signal of the beginning of the planting season, and therefore it is inherently “green.”  In the 1880’s it gained its “red” aspect after May 1st was declared an international day of demonstration for all workers to demand respect and dignity, and it became firmly entrenched in the early labor movement as a commemoration of the Haymarket martyrs.  Ironically, International Workers’ Day has been pretty effectively suppressed in the United States where it originated, but it is a cherished reprieve from work and a vibrant day of action in many other countries.  Beginning in 2006, May Day became also “brown” after immigrant workers, mostly Latino and many undocumented, organized marches all over the US declaring that they were unafraid and demanding the human rights they deserved. To this day, our comrades at Familias Unidas por la Justicia organize an annual Marcha Campesina to call attention to farmworkers’ rights.

This “green/red/brown” vision of May Day is so important to us at the Just Transition Alliance.  It vibes perfectly with our history and our perspective.  We seek to bring together Labor and EJ movements, to center the voices of those on the frontlines and fencelines of production, and to build grassroots power as we restore health to the workers and families who keep our economies running, repair relationships with our neighbors and comrades in struggle, and regenerate thriving ecosystems in the places we call home.

Let’s make “Earth Day to May Day” a continuous ten-day festival.  A festival of action and organizing to make a better world possible.  A festival of resistance where we raise our voices, not allowing anyone to go on complacently accepting business as usual, where we demonstrate our visions by celebrating our grassroots solutions, and where we recognize our strength by joining together from many perspectives to become unified in our shared need to transcend beyond colonization, extractivism, and oppression.

Content Earth Day to May Day 2024 appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

JTA’s José Bravo with trainers Edgar Franks of Familias Unidas por la Justicia and Elizabeth Martinez of Comunidades Aliadas Tomando Acción.  Photo credit: José Bravo

We are so pleased to celebrate our first two trainings of 2024, using our newly updated and expanded program Tools for Systemic Change Toward a People’s Economy.  Our talented new cadre of popular education trainers are working together fabulously and raising the bar for engaging participant-driven education.

In February, Familias Unidas por la Justicia hosted a training in Mt. Vernon, WA.  And just last week Inland Communities for Immigrant Justice held one in San Bernadino, CA.  We have lots more trainings planned throughout the year, so stay tuned for updates!

Scenes from the training with Familias Unidas por la Justicia.  Photo credits: José Bravo

Scenes from the training with Inland Communities for Immigrant Justice.  Photo credits: José Bravo and Elizabeth Martinez

Content Successful Trainings with JTA Partners appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

Recently closed Covanta incinerator in Long Beach, CA.  Photo credit: East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice

EJ Communities force California’s last two waste incinerators to shut down

These are historic times. As the world wakes up to the intersectional nature of environmental racism, climate chaos, genocide and war, thousands of frontline communities continue to engage in pitched battle against those who are destroying people and planet. And while stepping up efforts to stop colonial genocide, we also need to take the time to acknowledge some of our hard-fought movement victories against common foes.

This year marks a couple of historic victories for environmental justice (EJ) communities in the US. After over three decades of struggle, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ) and Valley Improvement Projects (VIP), in collaboration with numerous allies, have forced the closure of California’s two remaining waste incinerators. This marks a turning point in an age-old battle with an industry that still operates scores of garbage burning facilities that dump high levels of dioxins, heavy metals, acid gasses and particulate matter in Black, Brown, migrant and poor communities around the US.

Since the 1980s, EJ communities have been hugely successful in thwarting the waste incinerator industry, stopping hundreds of proposals to build these dioxin factories. Still, over a 100 were built in the late 80s and early 90s, predominantly in racialized and poor communities. Despite the severe lack of philanthropic support for EJ groups over the years, our struggles persisted. Between 2000 and 2023, our movement has been able to shut down a number of these incinerators, leveraging a growing public awareness that zero waste alternatives creates far more jobs for a fraction of the cost of building and running a billion dollar incinerator.

Detroit EJ groups and Michigan Teamsters protest the Detroit Incinerator, which was shut down in 2019.  Photo credit: Brooke Anderson

In the early 2000s, in a desperate bid to survive such losses, the incinerator industry launched a clever campaign – rebranding their trash burners as “Waste to Energy” (WtE) facilities. This greenwashing ploy allowed the industry to access public subsidies by duping lawmakers into believing they produced renewable energy (RE). Despite the fact that these WtE incinerators are some of the most toxic, carbon intensive and costly energy facilities in the world, the industry has been able to keep over 66 incinerators burning, buoyed by RE subsidies from the federal government and a number of states.

Fifteen years ago, when I worked with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), I facilitated a workshop for EYCEJ who (at the time) were a relatively young collective of community organizers committed to EJ principles and serving their communities in East Los Angeles and the City of Commerce, CA. At this workshop we discussed the state and federal subsidies that had propped up the incinerator industry, and how Covanta, the largest incinerator company in the US, had been accessing energy and waste policy subsidies by targeting gullible lawmakers and even big green NGOs. East Yard organizers had long been inspired by campaigns led by veteran EJ groups, such as the Mothers of East Los Angeles, who had successfully stopped a number of incinerator proposals back in the day. Some East Yard organizer’s mothers and grandmothers had led these campaigns, so they were inspired to carry on the struggle against polluting corporations like Covanta. A similar story was playing out in Stanislaus County, where a decades-long fight against a Covanta waste incinerator had been taken up in recent years by a young EJ formation – VIP.

The intergenerational leadership of our EJ movement: Juana Beatriz Gutiérrez of the Mothers of East Los Angeles and grandson mark! Lopez, organizing to protect their communities for over 4 decades.  Photo credit: mark! Lopez

In 2018, EYCEJ, GAIA and other allies were able to stop the State of California from providing RE credits to incinerators, which forced the closure of the Commerce incinerator. Then, in 2022, EYCEJ, VIP, EarthJustice and other allies, successfully passed a state bill (AB 1857) that removed waste diversion credits from the last two incinerators in Long Beach and Stanislaus County. This removal of state subsidies has forced Covanta to announce the closure of these final two facilities this year. This is a huge win for EJ communities everywhere, and a highly instructive victory, especially since 26 of the 42 state Renewable Portfolio Standards continue to incentivize waste burning.

If EJ groups and their allies in these states were to go after those perverse subsidies, we could see this dinosaur fleet of toxic smoke stacks finally toppled in the coming years! And along with reducing these pollution burdens, this direction could see communities working with local governments and waste and recycling workers to build reuse, recycling and composting infrastructure that could provide millions of well-paying jobs through local, regenerative, zero waste economies. EYCEJ and VIP and other EJ communities are presently leading the way, by working with allies to develop zero waste plans to move away from burning precious resources and move towards long-term community solutions. Now, elected officials and government agencies need to stop giving public dollars to such polluting corporations, and start following the lead of communities and workers on the frontlines of such transformative change!

Content From Burning to Building Our Future appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

In 2022, JTA joined a toxic tour of the Adelanto immigrant detention facility organized by the Shut Down Adelanto (SDA) coalition where we learned about the use of a toxic pesticide called HDQ neutral inside the facility and the myriad chronic health conditions afflicting those exposed. According to SDA’s quarterly report from May 2022, “Advocates, the California Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General have documented the long list of human rights abuses at Adelanto, including inadequate health care, sexual assault, use of solitary confinement, and mistreatment.”

As of January 17th, 2024, ICE decided to extend their decision on the Adelanto facility contract to June 19th, 2024. At that point, they can either decide to close the facility or file for another extension through the end of this year. The move to extend the decision comes as a result of a court injunction (Roman v. Wolf) against GEO Group (which operates the Adelanto ICE facility) led by Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ICIJ) and others: GEO hopes to buy more time for the court to potentially lift this court order. The injunction has prevented GEO from transferring people in or out of Adelanto and facilitated the release of 60,000 people around the country. Because of the injunction, the number of immigrants detained at the Adelanto ICE facility has dwindled to six according to Eddie Torres, Policy Coordinator for ICIJ.

Following the article we published last year detailing their work to close the Adelanto ICE facility, ICIJ and other members of SDA have seized upon the opportunity that the injunction presents. SDA found an ally in congresswoman Judy Chu, who is leading a sign on letter which 24 congressional members have endorsed. In June of 2023, the Dignity Not Detention (DND) coalition (which includes ICIJ) passed HEAL, a California budget initiative which “dedicates 5 million dollars to incentivize California localities to divest from immigration detention by providing them funding to invest in new industries and jobs.” What started as a bright idea in a San Diego retreat space blossomed into a just transition incentivization program to support the local workforce through the facility’s closure. In addition, ICIJ continues to advance its Participatory Action Research project, led by Movement Strategy Associate Esmeralda Santos, to document the community’s vision for a just transition. The community group also intends to strengthen collaborations with local officials aimed around backing alternative solutions to the private prison economy.

We can achieve a just transition for Adelanto by pushing for the closure of its ICE facility and supporting SDA’s efforts to cultivate a vibrant, regenerative local economy. If you’d like to support, ICIJ will host virtual Power Hours in March, April, and May to provide education on this issue and walk through 4 actions:

1) Call Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas at 202-456-1111

2) Email Secretary Mayorkas at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

3) Call representatives who haven’t signed on to Judy Chu’s letter. Find your local representative here.

4) Post about the issue on social media. Stay up to date by following @shutdownadelanto on Instagram.

Join Faith Power Hour–a collaboration between ICIJ and Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity–to advocate for closure and halt the incarceration of those seeking protection and the right to remain with their families.

Event Details:

• Date: March 22, 2024
• Time: 12 Noon – Pacific Time (US and Canada)
• Platform: Zoom Meeting
• REGISTER HERE

Please join us in calling on President Biden to release the last six men inside the center and the Secretary of Homeland Security and California Congressmembers to shut down the center. ACT TODAY and stay involved with ICIJ to learn more about how you can help.

Power Hour at 12pm, March 22 on Zoom; Register at bit.ly/PowerHourRSVP

Content Exciting Developments in Building a Just Transition for Adelanto appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

Our comrade Jacqui Patterson, of the Chisholm Legacy Project, was recently recognized by Time Magazine for her role as an outstanding Environmental Justice and Climate Justice champion. Jacqui has certainly been one of the most tireless and dedicated changemakers I have witnessed serving our movements over the years

It’s worth noting that Time Magazine recognized the “revolutionary” nature of her intersectional practice, an approach our EJ movement has always espoused as essential to serving communities on the frontlines of multiple and intertwined forms of harm. Honoring the quiet, selfless way that Jacqui has served impacted communities over the years, I thought I’d share some pivotal moments when she helped lift up the hundreds of organizations that make up our community-rooted movement:

Nearly two decades ago, when she discovered that a climate funders group was hosting a national strategy summit on coal power without inviting any of the communities most impacted by coal mining and power plants, Jacqui convinced these funders to host their first ever panel of EJ leaders from the Navajo Nation, Chicago, New York and Appalachia, whose groups had been effectively organizing and taking direct action against these dirty energy and mining industries.

Then in 2013, Jacqui, drew the attention of environmental funders to the massive, racialized funding disparity between the $billions given to a handful of big green policy NGOs versus the pittance scattered across tens of thousands of grassroots groups working on a myriad of environmental struggles across the US. This exploration helped pave the way for the launch of Building Equity & Alignment for EJ, one of the few participatory grant-making initiatives that continues to bridge the funding gap today.

Following the People’s Climate March in NYC, when a large, new funder emerged to engage big greens in a market-based model for regulating climate pollution, Jacqui (once again) helped open doors for EJ groups to get involved and prevent another “cap and trade” debacle. Working quietly in the background, she helped us push this climate funder to support a wide array of grassroots alliances and networks to carry on our core work, while allowing us to draw some of the big greens into alignment with our fights against various climate false solutions.

Working quietly and diligently in these ways to serve the broader landscape of those first and most harmed, Jacqui has embodied the principles of environmental justice in all aspects of her practice. Thanks Jacqui – for being such an inspiration!

Content Serving Frontline Communities with Humility and Grace appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

JTA congratulates our comrade Chris Furino on their promotion to Co-Executive Director of Central Florida Jobs with Justice (CFJWJ)!

CFJWJ coalesces the power of labor unions, community based organizations, faith based and student groups to organize for worker rights. Our work with CFJWJ began through collaborative strategies to bring the Just Transition framework to climate organizing in Florida and then through delegations around the United Nations climate conference. Since then, Chris has joined our all-star team of Just Transition trainers. Chris and their Co-Director Jonathan Alingu have huge plans in the works, and we’re excited to deepen our collaboration to support workers and communities on the frontlines and fencelines of toxic production.

Even before becoming staff with the organization in 2018, Chris had found their organizing home in CFJWJ. They flourished under the mentorship of Jonathan and Denise Diaz (CFJWJ’s founder) and grew through election work and campaigns focused on building grassroots leadership capacity, earning them the role of CFJWJ’s lead organizer. When Chris joined us in Egypt as part of the just transition delegation to COP27, this constituted a major step in the progression of their training for co-executive directorship. After gaining a variety of politicizing experience through their organizing over the years, Chris became Co-Executive Director in January of 2024.

According to Chris, CFJWJ’s trajectory for the coming years supports a massive strengthening in labor and just transition organizing in Florida. The organization started the year with a momentous win: Orange County allocated 4.5 million to CFJWJ’s medical debt forgiveness project, and CFJWJ continues to push their initial request for 8.7 million. Over the coming years, CFJWJ will prioritize coalition building across Florida, primarily in the state’s south. The organization plans to build with labor around key program areas–including climate, health care, and education–and continue to develop grassroots leaders through their campaigns. Moreover, CFJWJ recently hired a Just Transition Organizer to cultivate allied rank-and-file leadership within the building trades, and the organization also plans to build community-labor, co-led energy and utility campaigns.

Chris’ intentions for their new role inspire our radical imaginations around just transition: “I believe a lot in Florida. I don’t want to give up on it. We can shift the trajectory of our state and power and how power is wielded in it to create a world where everyone’s needs are met and people are able to thrive. This position is a way to make that vision a reality,” they shared. Their visionary thinking aligns perfectly with our conception of just transition as a body of principles and practices which supports collective thriving in safe living and working environments. Chris is excited for JTA’s new training curriculum (which they improved through revisions), and they’re gearing up to host a just transition training in Florida, possibly later this year.

Given the strong alignment between our missions, JTA and CFJWJ have many opportunities to collaboratively sharpen our assessments of the labor and environmental justice movements, share our experiences around organizing at the intersection of labor and EJ, and strategize against petrochemical production in the Florida panhandle. We congratulate our friend Chris on this invigorating new chapter in their organizing and look forward to engaging together in the work ahead.

Content Meet Chris Furino, Central Florida Jobs with Justice’s Newest Co-Executive Director! appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

Signs warning of contaminated water and fish, Houston Ship Channel.  Photo credit: Lauren Murphy, Amnesty International

Last month, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch released reports about human rights abuses perpetrated by the petrochemical industry in the Gulf Coast.  The AI report is titled The Cost of Doing Business? and addresses the impacts on urban communities around the Houston Ship Channel. The HRW report “We’re Dying Here” looks at rural communities in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley.

The USA is the world’s largest oil and gas producer and accounts for more than a third of global oil and gas expansions planned through 2050. Much of these fossil feedstocks will go to the rapidly growing plastics and petrochemical industries in the region between Houston and New Orleans, the “sacrifice zone” that already contains the highest concentration of petrochem plants in the country.

Texas – Houston Ship Channel

Amnesty International researchers detail the negative effects of over 600 petrochemical manufacturing sites concentrated around the Houston Ship Channel, a dredged waterway cut through the former Buffalo Bayou to connect East Houston industries to the Gulf of Mexico.  It is one of the busiest waterways in the world, and the surrounding metropolitan cities hold 44% of the USA’s petrochem production capacity.  Port Houston exports 59% of all US plastic resins, 73% of polyethylene (which is made into PET bottles).  Pollutants present in alarming rates throughout the area include volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as benzene, 1,3-butadiene, dioxane, ethylene, toluene, styrene and xylene; greenhouse gasses such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide; and particulate matter (PM). Ozone, a secondary pollutant formed from the reaction between VOCs, oxides of nitrogen and sunlight, creates persistent toxic smog.  Formaldehyde, another secondary pollutant created by reactions from mixed chemicals, is also present at dangerous levels.

From the Amnesty International report

Negative effects on the health of workers and residents range from headaches, dizziness, and vomiting as well as acute eye and lung irritation immediately after these chemicals are released, to asthma and other chronic respiratory illnesses, miscarriages and premature births, and numerous forms of cancer from repeated exposure.  Benzene is particularly noxious – the WHO has said that exposure to benzene is “a major health concern” with no safe level of exposure.  When accidents lead to large fires, high levels of benzene may be present in the air for over two weeks.  Residents are rarely informed of chemical releases and they often struggle to access real-time information, with only unpleasant smells in the environment to tip them off to the danger.

Chemical disasters happen so frequently that they have become normalized for some residents.  The AI report states that since 2021 there have been at least 15 chemical explosions, fires and toxic releases reported along the Houston Ship Channel, resulting in at least 28 workers being injured and one death.  In 2023 alone, residents along the Houston Ship Channel experienced at least seven petrochemical disasters, including six fires.  These figures only capture high-profile chemical disasters that receive media coverage and not the many less visible chemical releases that can still have devastating impacts.

The CAPECO disaster, 2009 in Puerto Rico, another region overburdened by environmental racism.  Photo credit: US Chemical Safety Board

Hurricanes and heavy rains can also lead to catastrophic chemical spills.  Even in ordinary conditions, the industry is careless about containing leaks and discharges.  Between 2019 and 2021, nationwide 83% of refineries report violating their permitted limits on water pollutants.  Communities closest to facility fencelines face the greatest harm and have the least time to react in the event of a catastrophic release.  Those lower-income and racialized people can have up to 20 years shorter life expectancy compared to averages in the disproportionately affluent and white neighborhoods in western Houston, and much higher rates of all types of cancer.

The Houston metro area, rapidly expanding due to the burgeoning petroleum industry, is incredibly diverse but also extremely racially segregated.  A lack of zoning regulations means that industrial facilities are sited right next to residential areas, almost always communities of color.  The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has clearly shown that they prioritize industry profits over these communities.  State records show that TCEQ imposed penalties in less than 3% of cases of unpermitted pollution releases in recent years. A recent review called TCEQ commissioners “reluctant regulators” that encourage industry to “self-police.”  Companies routinely avoid penalties for pollution releases by invoking the “affirmative defense,” a loophole in Texas laws that waives enforcement for air pollution that the company reports as “unplanned and unavoidable.”

AI reports that a former air pollution investigator for the City of Houston said, “These fines, they’re hardly a drop in the bucket… They mean nothing when the companies are pulling in billions of dollars a year.”  A professor at Rice University explained, “The fines that companies pay are so small compared to the value of the petrochemical products they sell that they can be seen as a routine cost of doing business.”  Frustration over underenforcement of already weak regulations was echoed by community members: “TCEQ is so ineffectual. Their fines are so limited. If you do the math for the violations… a company gets fined less than one person who’s affected by it would spend on medical bills. So, it’s very unfair.”

Making their disregard for residents’ health insultingly clear, in June 2023 the Texas legislature passed SB 471, stipulating that TCEQ does not need to investigate or even respond to certain complaints, especially from residents who have filed multiple complaints in the past.

Smoke and flares from petrochemical plants restarting after Hurricane Ida, 2021.  Photo credit: Julie Dermansky

Louisiana – Cancer Alley

As if these stories about Houston were not appalling enough, the Human Rights Watch report about “Cancer Alley” exposes even more egregious environmental racism.

Between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the banks of the Mississippi River are clustered with over 150 industrial facilities, nearly all of which process fossil fuels.  This industry has become a defining feature of Louisiana’s identity.  The state’s first oil well was drilled in 1901, and offshore oil extraction was innovated there in 1947.  Production boomed and imports arrived as well.  Today, Louisiana oil refineries account for one-sixth of the nation’s total capacity, with refined petroleum shipped abroad or pumped through pipelines to the various petrochem plants in Cancer Alley.  The story is similar for methane gas.  The most active methane gas market center in North America, the Henry Hub in Erath, interconnects nine interstate and three intrastate pipelines.

Louisiana has the highest per-capita energy consumption in the USA, mostly because of these industries (only 7% of total energy goes to homes).  It has the worst pollution – according to an analysis of 2021 EPA data, the average Louisiana resident was exposed to four times more industrial pollutants than the average American.  The majority of air pollution is occurring in Cancer Alley, as well as the majority of non-nitrate water pollution (nitrates come from fertilizers and are by far the highest source of water pollution).  Huge amounts of toxic petrochem byproducts are leached or even dumped directly into the Mississippi River.  The EPA found in 2016 and again in 2020 that residents of Cancer Alley were exposed to more than 10 times the health risks experienced by residents living elsewhere in the state.  The most polluting operations are disproportionately concentrated within Black communities, and even more facilities are currently being built in those areas.  Most residents in Cancer Alley are descendants of formerly enslaved people who had bought small parcels of old plantations.  The industry moved in later, and many folks feel like the state prefers to let them move out or die off rather than protect their health and humanity.

Petrochemical plants right next to communities in “Cancer Alley.”  Photo credit: Julie Dermansky

The HRW research indicates that many of the plants in Cancer Alley are constantly in “significant violation” of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  One site that they studied had faced six enforcement actions in the last three years, but was fined a mere $300 total.  Since 2018, the EPA has required oil refineries to install air monitors that measure benzene at the fencelines of their facilities.  Data from these monitors indicate that actual emissions can be as much as 28 times the amounts reported by companies.  So far only 13 petrochem facilities nationwide have been compelled to install these monitors, and only a few have collected enough data to be useful.  Those in Cancer Alley are routinely emitting benzene well above legal limits.

But state regulators do nothing to change this situation.  Interviewees told HRW that the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) was actively “hostile” to their interests, acting as a “rubber stamp” and a “revolving door” for the industry.  A 2021 audit found that LDEQ failed to adequately track facilities’ emissions reports, including facilities that failed to submit reports entirely. Penalties were not tracked, and frequently were not paid.  It takes an average of 20 months for LDEQ to issue enforcement actions after known violations.

Meanwhile, residents continue to be exposed daily to the same chemicals described above, and feel the same effects.  The planned expansions of petrochem plants and pipelines promise to worsen these conditions.  Pipelines (including carbon pipelines) are much less visible yet insidious, since they receive little attention from regulators, but have high incidences of leaks and spills caused by hurricanes as well as normal wear and tear, and their construction cuts apart and destroys sensitive bayou ecosystems, thereby amplifying all the other negative effects of the industry.

The petrochemical industry has no right to treat our community as a sacrifice zone. It is high time for regulators, legislators, NGOs, and the public to fight for the urgent needs of environmental justice communities.

– Juan Parras, TEJAS

Jeff Landry, a fossil fuel industry lawyer and now the state’s governor, has been an outspoken defender of the status quo.  It was his lawsuits that negated Obama’s Clean Power Plan and Biden’s fossil fuel leasing ban.  In early 2023, the EPA had been negotiating improvements to LDEQ’s permitting process, such as assessments of cumulative impacts from existing health hazards and racial discrimination.  But Landry sued the federal government again, making a sort of “reverse racism” argument that unless a law explicitly says that its intended purpose is to harm people of color, any claims that discrimination is occurring are politically-motivated attacks by partisan regulators “moonlight[ing] as social justice warriors.”  One month after the dispute was filed, the EPA abandoned its Title VI investigation, presumably in fear of a judge agreeing with Landry and setting a precedent which would limit their ability to use the Civil Rights Act in the future.  Recently, Landry made a highly unusual move by initiating a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit against the EPA, collecting the names and contact information of activists and journalists who have been trying for years to hold LDEQ accountable.  This is widely viewed as an aggressive intimidation tactic aimed at silencing environmental justice communities.

Members of Inclusive Louisiana, RISE St. James, and Mount Triumph Baptist Church announcing a 2023 lawsuit requesting a moratorium on new oil and gas industry in St. James Parish.  Photo credit: Antonia Juhasz, Human Rights Watch

Why These Reports Matter

Framing the daily activities of the petrochem industry as human rights abuses is an important step in holding polluters accountable, as it brings various UN resolutions into the conversation, as detailed in both reports.  The communities of the Houston Ship Channel and Cancer Alley, and other overburdened communities in the USA, can be seen as the “Global South within the North” because the non-white, non-affluent residents often bear little responsibility for these harms yet struggle to live amidst the impacts.

Juan Parras of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Service (TEJAS), a close ally of JTA, responded to these reports by speaking about the experience in his neighborhood: “Manchester is the most polluted and most densely industrialized community in Houston. We are overwhelmed with the excessive burdens of environmental racism – health problems, poisoned air and water, and constant stress. We have tried numerous times to bring this to the attention of regulators, but they seem to view the situation as unfortunate yet irreversible. Although we often feel hopeless, this invocation of international human rights treaties may finally put enough pressure on government to hold companies accountable. The petrochemical industry has no right to treat our community as a sacrifice zone. It is high time for regulators, legislators, NGOs, and the public to fight for the urgent needs of environmental justice communities.”

In fact, these human rights abuses extend far beyond frontline workers and fenceline communities.  Without major reductions in the manufacturing of plastics and other petrochemicals, even 100% renewable energy cannot keep us within global emissions targets.  But this industry continues to grow exponentially.  The big oil and gas companies are counting on it to keep their profit margins high even as vehicle and power plant technologies change.  Climate chaos will have at least some effect on every part of the planet, but the Gulf Coast is one of the very most vulnerable areas, with rising sea levels, increasingly strong storms, and sweltering heat.  It is ironic that the industries located in that region are some of those chiefly responsible for the impending catastrophe.  Yet the executives and stockholders of the corporations that own these facilities live far away.  They no doubt intend to wring out as much money as possible right now, then shutter the plants when forced to make safety improvements for health or disaster readiness reasons.  The communities that have been condemned as sacrifice zones will be left behind.

Houston playground adjacent to refinery.  Photo credit: Lauren Murphy, Amnesty International

In addition to the worldwide human rights abuses which are perpetrated by those responsible for global warming, the presence of petrochem byproducts – and even those products themselves – constitute an unjust toxic trespass.  A recent report by Defend Our Health studies the numerous negative impacts of polyethylene terephthalate (PET, the substance used to make clear plastic drink bottles) from extraction, manufacturing, and waste.  The entire PET supply chain spans not only the Gulf Coast region but also many other locations around the USA.  The majority of those facilities are located in low-income communities of color.

The plastics industry has consistently lied to the public about the safety and recyclability of their products.  Another recent report by Center for Climate Integrity shows that well over 90% of plastics have been landfilled, incinerated, or leaked into waterways, ecosystems and communities.  Despite industry claims that recycling can solve the problem, evidence collected from the industry itself shows that this unacceptable trashing of our health and environments will never change.  Very few plastic products are actually recyclable, and manufacturers have a powerful profit incentive to ensure that everything they sell is single-use, driving endless demand for more production.  All their talk about new recycling technologies is deceptive nonsense – so-called “advanced recycling” means melting plastic back into oil and burning it as fuel, and the majority of the facilities designed to do this have not been profitable and have closed a few years after swindling public money out of lucrative municipal contracts.  Despite decades of PR campaigns fooling people into thinking that they just need to “do their part” by placing plastic containers into curbside recycling bins, plastics pollution has become one of our most serious crises, with microplastics found even in clouds.

Small-scale plastic recycling in Indonesia, one of the countries to which Global North waste management companies send plastic trash when it cannot be recycled at a profit.  The man in the foreground is cooling melted plastic into bricks which can be sold to manufacturers, inhaling toxic fumes in the process.  Photo credit: Focusfeel [wikimedia commons]

EJ Communities Need a Just Transition

We must stop making all this plastic junk designed expressly to become garbage as quickly as possible.  While there may be some limited defensible uses of plastics in the fields of medicine and electronics, nearly all of the products being made today are completely unnecessary.  Plastics cause so much more harm than good.

We need to uplift the voices of those fighting for their lives in the face of environmental racism and toxic trespass, supporting them to come together, frontline workers and fenceline communities united in creative problem-solving, finding real solutions that can build regenerative solidarity economies that move them toward a healthy and dignified future.  These frontliners are already advocating numerous policy solutions.  First, subsidies that currently prop up fossil fuel extraction and petrochemical production must be reallocated to research and new facilities for benign, sustainable chemistry.  And then, an option that would be easy to achieve immediately would be to expand and replicate existing “orphaned well programs” in which governments and companies collaborate to pay local workers to safely clean up abandoned wellsites and restore ecosystems (the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included $4.7 billion to do just this, a tiny baby step toward plugging the estimated 300,000-800,000 unidentified orphaned wells across the USA).  State legislators should provide funds for additional just transition initiatives similar to California’s HEAL initiative.  Federal funding from the Inflation Reduction Act should grow community resilience by building locally-controlled small-scale renewable energy and public transportation.  A union-led initiative called the Texas Climate Jobs Project is organizing efforts to do exactly that as the basis for a truly transformative just transition.  Their study shows that this transition can create 1.1 million jobs in Texas alone (and cites other researchers’ estimate of 25 million jobs nationwide).

The great potential of a just transition is true not only in Texas, but everywhere, and it goes far beyond job creation.  An illuminating report by the Tellus Institute, now over a decade old but more relevant than ever, demonstrates how transitioning our waste management systems to keep materials out of landfills and incinerators by reusing and repurposing as much as possible could create 2.3 million jobs nationwide, as well as reduce emissions and, crucially, slash production of toxic plastics, leading to health improvements in countless communities.  California’s Recology is at the leading edge of this increasingly popular transition toward “zero waste.”

Workers sort recyclables at Recology facility, Davis CA.  Photo credit: Recology

At every level of public discourse and governance we must debunk the industry lies about “plastics circularity” and demonstrate real circular economies, based on principles of zero waste, localized production, traditional ecological knowledge, and grassroots democracy.  One way that JTA is trying to do so is by engaging with the ongoing negotiations to create a UN Treaty on Plastics Pollution, fighting to maintain the integrity of the “just transition” vision in the face of mounting corporate cooptation.  Another is working with the Environmental Justice Communities Against Plastics (EJCAP) coalition to push California lawmakers and regulators to close loopholes and improve effectiveness in recent plastic waste reduction law SB 54.

Other groups are beginning to find success with tactics that apply pressure upstream from the manufacturers, pushing pension funds, universities and banks to divest from polluters, demanding that insurance companies revoke policies for facilities that endanger the planet, and organizing the labor sector within predatory private equity firms that own many of the worst offenders.

An additional path that surely will be pursued by states, municipalities and advocacy groups is litigation demanding payments from the offending corporations, both in terms of damages to victims and compensation for the mounting costs of disposal.  The fossil fuel companies should be legally restricted and financially reprimanded the same way that big tobacco companies were handled.  In tandem with this top-down approach, concerned citizens can advocate for the bottom-up demand to change our laws to roll back the suite of unfair court rulings collectively known as “corporate rights” and to ensure rights for communities and environments (the movement to establish “legal rights for rivers” is succeeding around the world).

The Mississippi River.  Photo credit: Ken Lund [wikimedia commons]

Fossil fuel companies have seen record profits in the years since the pandemic began.  These profits belie the excuse that inflation is caused by supply chain disruptions.  It has become increasingly clear that this lying, cheating, psychopathic industry is at the climax of its abusive behavior of hoovering up heaps of cash by extracting the wealth of the earth while externalizing all the costs onto EJ communities and ecosystems.

We must not let oil and gas corporations continue their human rights abuses by allowing them to sidestep into equally harmful plastics and petrochemicals.  We must work together to change our economic systems into something life-giving and holistic, respecting our neighbors and environments, repairing our past harms, and regenerating our relations.  We must build the best alternatives by cultivating community power and grassroots democracy.  Please take the terrible findings of these reports and transform them, not into passive hopes and prayers for the unfortunate folks on the frontlines and fencelines, but a strong motivation and vigilant commitment to struggle with the workers and communities organizing for a just transition.  Remember, “Transitions are inevitable. Justice is not.”

Content Petrochemical Industry Impunity Must Be Stopped appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

The Just Transition Alliance is hiring!

We’re looking for a half-time Policy Organizer (remote) and a half-time Administrative Assistant (San Diego)

If you’re interested, please email Nona Chai: nona@jtalliance.org.

Please help us spread the word

Content Job Opening at JTA! Administrative Assistant appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

The Just Transition Alliance is hiring!

We’re looking for a half-time Policy Organizer (remote) and a half-time Administrative Assistant (San Diego)

If you’re interested, please email Nona Chai: nona@jtalliance.org.

Please help us spread the word

Content Job Opening at JTA! Policy Organizer appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

Our ED José Bravo is a force to be reckoned with–from participating in the drafting team for the Principles of Environmental Justice to helping to organize the shut down of dangerous waste incinerators in Tijuana, Kettleman City, and East LA and so much more.

To celebrate his steadfast service to Indigenous, people of color, and low income communities for over 27 years, would you please consider making a donation to the Just Transition Alliance for his birthday?  

Content Happy Birthday, José! appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

We are pleased to announce a collection of essays titled Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement, co-edited by our dear friend Jeff Ordower and published just a few days ago by The New Press.

Shantell Bingham of Climate Justice Alliance says, “Power Lines presents critical case studies on advancing all communities towards a just transition. The book provides key insights directly from the frontlines on how we can organize our communities towards collective power, navigate tensions, and truly advance change. This book makes it more apparent the critical role that labor plays, and needs to play, in advancing a just transition.”

It features an interview with José Bravo describing the origins of the just transition movement.

Excerpt:

Just transition is not a cookie-cutter approach. It’s not one thing for everyone. But I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that if a just transition doesn’t have workers and there’s only communities at the table, then it’s not a just transition, and vice versa.  If it only has workers and the community’s not at the table, then it’s not a just transition. A just transition is literally a cradle-to-grave approach that removes the exploitation out of the whole process of production.

Content Get Your Copy of “Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement” appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

On February 5th, the Just Transition Alliance will join our comrades at the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS) to celebrate the birthday of Rosa Parks with a Transit Equity Day of Action!

The COVID pandemic and recovery forever changed how communities function, work, socialize, and commute.  It also showed very clearly how public transit is critical to the lives of millions across the country.  Essential workers depend on and operate transit, small local businesses depend on transit, and historically marginalized communities depend on transit.  Transit is a key component of economic recovery and environmental sustainability, and it is a path to equity for isolated and under-invested urban, suburban, and rural communities.

But for far too long, policymakers in Washington have prioritized highways and cars over public transit.  This has devastating impacts not only for the climate crisis but for municipal budgets as well.  New legislation introduced in January by Congressman Hank Johnson from the Atlanta area would change that. The bill, “Stronger Communities through Better Transit Act,” will boost high-quality transit across the country by creating a new federal grant program available to all transit agencies to increase service frequency and dependability, thereby reducing wait times, expanding hours, and adding new lines to underserved communities.

For decades, the federal government has subsidized the cost of shipping and aviation.  Today, public transit is essential to workers and businesses – it is high time for Washington to treat it as such!  While Congress has taken some limited steps forward in recent years, including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, this bill would provide crucial funding that would fill budget shortfalls currently experienced by numerous transit agencies.  These agencies, valuable public resources that are often among the largest employers in their areas, are powerful drivers of economic growth, jobs, and opportunity for tens of millions of people in the US, from small rural towns to major urban centers.  Every dollar invested in transit offers a 5-to-1 return, and every $1 billion invested in public transit produces 50,000 jobs.  As we have previously stated, investment in transit infrastructure presents opportunities for huge expansions in good union jobs, reduced dependence on personal vehicles dramatically improves quality of life in many neighborhoods, and fare-free transit services can increase equity for marginalized communities while actually reducing overall costs.

We also know that the climate crisis is here now, impacting our economy and nearly every aspect of our daily lives.  Investing in public transit is a powerful way to help address the climate crisis on the scale required.  It is a crucial part of the systemic changes that we need to build a new paradigm that improves the lives of workers and the environment.  Everyone fighting for real solutions for climate justice agrees on the need for widely-available, clean, free public transit.  Ambitious investment in transit by policymakers would be a win-win, for the economy and for the climate crisis.

We encourage all of our followers and allies to organize local events on February 5th.  See the LNS website for organizing tools and register your action or view other actions on the campaign page.

O conteúdo Transit Equity Day of Action! aparece primeiro em Just Transition Alliance.

The fight to end the era of fossil fuels is ramping up, along with efforts to build towards more democratic, just, non-extractive energy sources and systems. Feminist climate justice advocates have a vital role to play – especially as policymakers seek answers to the question “what comes next?” after fossil fuels.

We need to build energy systems that are renewable, democratic and better serve the needs of communities, in the US and worldwide. We must offer repair for energy injustices that have harmed communities of color, low income communities, and communities of the Global South – as people have been denied equitable access to energy while also facing harms from the pollution, environmental degradation, and the wars and occupations of fossil fuel extraction and destructive energy sourcing. We know we must transition off of fossil fuels, and we must build our set of resources to guide and shape what comes after.

An end to fossil fuel development and use is a feminist priority, with serious implications for sexual and reproductive health and rights. From extraction to worsening climate change impacts, fossil fuel pollution is linked with infertility, fibroids and other reproductive diseases, serious illnesses in pregnancy, mental health harms and preterm birth, stillbirth and other adverse health outcomes. Communities of color and other marginalized communities that already face unjust inequities in health outcomes are hit the hardest. 

In the energy infrastructure conversation in the US, a gendered and global justice framing is often missing. This leaves us open to the danger of reproducing and entrenching the harms of our current energy systems in an energy renewable era, especially as the threats rise of new resource wars and rights violations over lithium and other elements used in green technologies. We must not miss the opportunity to strengthen and accelerate more globally just, feminist approaches to the energy transition.

We must build on the existing frameworks and expertise that have been offered by Indigenous, Black, and disability justice movements globally, interlinking those and bridging their recommendations into US policy spaces. 

As the global mobilization to end the era of fossil fuels accelerates, the Feminist Green New Deal Coalition will create space for feminist climate justice advocates to gather their core, actionable principles for just and feminist energy transitions – and to channel those recommendations into US climate policymaking.

Join us in winter 2023 and early 2024 for virtual exchange sessions to discuss and gather principles and recommendations on a just, feminist energy transition. In these sessions, we will weave together our analysis and experience responding to questions like:

• Why should feminists be committed to ending the fossil fuel era? Why is a just energy transition a feminist issue? 
• Why is an intersectional analysis of race, gender, class and global justice critical for building a more just energy system? (production & use)
• What are the core tenets of a feminist, just and equitable energy system in the US? What are we building?
• How must our transition address repair for past harms and injustices in the current energy system?

The Feminist Green New Deal Coalition will gather the outputs of these discussions to inform a written report, campaign, briefing – to be determined – for distribution to US policymakers and movement partners.

To indicate your interest in this exploration and/or recommendations for additional folks to reach out to who may be interested in these conversations, please share here and stay tuned for more updates.

Justicia Energética Feminista: invitación y declaración de intenciones de la Coalición del FemGND y una invitación

La lucha para terminar con la era de los combustibles fósiles está cobrando más fuerza al igual que los esfuerzos dedicados a construir fuentes de energía y sistemas no extractivos justos y más democráticos. Las personas activistas de la justicia climática feminista juegan un papel vital, principalmente ocupando el rol de desarrolladores de políticas que buscan responder a la pregunta “¿qué sigue?” luego de los combustibles fósiles.

Necesitamos construir un sistema de energía que sea renovable, democrático y supla las necesidades de las comunidades, tanto en Estados Unidos como a nivel mundial. Debemos ofrecer reparaciones por las injusticias energéticas que sufren las comunidades de color, las de bajos ingresos y las del sur global. Entre estas injusticias a las que se enfrentan, además de que se les niega el acceso igualitario a la energía, se encuentran los daños a causa de la contaminación, la degradación ambiental y las guerras y ocupaciones por la extracción de los combustibles fósiles y las fuentes destructivas de energía. Debemos transicionar y dejar atrás los combustibles fósiles y construir un conjunto propio de recursos para guiar y darle forma a lo que viene después.

Es una prioridad feminista terminar con el desarrollo y el uso de los combustibles fósiles y, a su vez, evaluar las implicancias sustanciales que éstos tienen sobre los derechos sexuales y de salud reproductiva. Desde la extracción hasta el empeoramiento de los impactos del cambio climático, la contaminación de los combustibles fósiles se vincula con la infertilidad, fibromas y enfermedades de reproducción, graves enfermedades durante el embarazo, afecciones de salud mental, nacimientos prematuros, fetos muertos y otros efectos perjudiciales para la salud. Las comunidades de color y otras comunidades marginadas que ya enfrentan desigualdades injustas relacionadas con la salud son las más afectadas.

En la conversación en relación a la infraestructura energética en EE. UU., por lo general falta un marco de justicia global y con perspectiva de género. Esto nos deja expuestas al peligro de reproducir y fortificar los daños de los sistemas energéticos actuales en una era de energía renovable, especialmente en la medida en que aumentan las amenazas sobre nuevas guerras por los recursos y violaciones de derechos por el uso de litio y otros elementos que se utilizan para las tecnologías verdes. No podemos perder la oportunidad de fortalecer y acelerar el desarrollo de enfoques más justos y feministas a nivel mundial para lograr la transición energética.

Tenemos que construir sobre los marcos y las experiencias ya existentes brindadas por movimientos globales de justicia indígena, negra, y de discapacidad. Debemos vincularlos y acercar sus recomendaciones en los espacios de desarrollo de políticas de EE. UU.

A medida que la movilización global acelera el fin de la era de los combustibles fósiles, la Coalición Feminista del Green New Deal crea un espacio para las personas activistas de la justicia climática feminista con el objetivo de unificar los principios esenciales y de acción para que las transiciones energéticas sean feministas y justas, asi como también para comunicar esas recomendaciones en los espacios de desarrollo de políticas climáticas en EE. UU.

Acompáñanos en el invierno 2023 y principios de 2024 en sesiones virtuales de intercambio para debatir y unificar principios y recomendaciones sobre una transición energética justa y feminista. Durante estas sesiones, debatiremos con el objetivo de dilucidar en conjunto nuestro análisis y experiencia en respuesta a preguntas tales como:

• ¿Por qué las personas feministas deben comprometerse a terminar con la era de combustibles fósiles? ¿Por qué es una problemática feminista una transición energética justa?
• ¿Por qué un análisis interseccional de raza, género, clase, y justicia global es fundamental para construir un sistema energético más justo? (producción y uso)
• ¿Cuál es el dogma principal de un sistema energético igualitario, justo y feminista en EE. UU.? ¿Qué estamos construyendo?
• ¿De qué manera nuestra transición debe abordar las reparaciones por los daños e injusticias en el sistema de energía actual?

La Coalición Feminista del Green New Deal reunirá las contribuciones sobre estos debates para redactar un informe escrito, una campaña, un documento (a determinar) para su difusión entre las personas encargadas de desarrollar las políticas en EE. UU. y los movimientos asociados.

Para indicar su interés en esta elaboración o para recomendar la participación  de colegas que puedan tener interés de participar y deseen comunicarse, haga clic aquí para compartir y manténgase al tanto de actualizaciones.

This past spring I was part of a two person delegation of GGJ members to the first ever International English Language Course on Political Training for Political Educators outside of Sao Paolo, Brazil. The 6-week course was coordinated by the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra [the MST]) at their national school for political education, Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes (ENFF). I came as a representative of the Vermont Workers’ Center, and was among 60 participants from 47 organizations and 17 countries. Most organizations were members of La Via Campesina, an international organization primarily dedicated to the issues of peasant movements around the world and food sovereignty (GGJ is a member).  Organizations ranges from small farmer movements in Zimbabwe to organizations that work with adavasi (indigenous) movements in India to South African trade unionists to members of the Kurdish liberation struggle to a leftwing Mexican youth organization.

ENFF is the flagship school of the MST. Since their founding 31 years ago, the MST has been committed to political education (or formação in Portuguese). They have schools dedicated to political education in all 23 Brazilian states where they have a presence. ENFF was built 11 years with the volunteer labor of over 1,000 MST members and many other supporters of the movement. It is a gorgeous campus, populated with vibrant flowers, inspiring revolutionary murals made by each class that had passed through there, beautiful architecture, small plots of food productions, and a design that emphasized communal space (a small plaza in the middle of a cluster of dormitories, with benches and a gazebo; the courtyard where we held our daily misticas; the open verandas where we had cultural nights, celebrations, etc., on both stories of the building that held the kitchen, cafeteria, and a small store with MST products). There was also an incredible library that held thousands of books on various subjects, from the history of revolutionary struggles around the world to social theory to agroecology (mostly in Portuguese and Spanish). The MST leaders at the school described ENFF as the “patrimony of the international working class.”

The school was coordinated and “staffed” by a brigade of 40 MST members who took 4 month shifts to help run the logistics and programming of the school. Like all groupings in the MST, they had a name and slogan: “Apolônio de Carvalho,” named after an important Brazilian socialist. To facilitate the functioning of the school, all students were expected to do “militant work,” volunteer labor to support the day-to-day needs of the school community. I was on the coffee team that set up and cleaned up for the multiple coffee breaks through the “school day.” Other militant work ranged from the production team that helped produce and harvest the food grown on campus; a childcare team; a cultural team that helped plan the “cultural nights,” helped with the programming for the campus radio station; collective laundry; cleaning up after meals. Militant work is a central part of the pedagogy of the MST, partly around wanting to put intellectual labor alongside other forms of labor and also as part of creating new social relations, where labor is about meeting collective needs and is not performed because of coercion.

We had classes 6 days per week. Every day began with a 10-20 minute long “mistica,” planned by each of us in our small groups (“nucleos do base” [NB’s]) and by other NB. Mistica both describes a particular activity and a broader concept. The activity is usually a short “performance” that tells a particular story about a particular struggle, while projecting a vision of the future. I put “performance” in quotes because the MST is emphatic that it is not “theater,” but rather an expression of reality as we experience it. Mistica incorporates symbols, music, art, movement, “acting,” participation by “spectators.” One of the misticas my NB planned conveyed the intersection of patriarchy, dispossession, and capitalism. One of the ones that Daryl (the other GGJ representative) and his group prepared conveyed the patterns of state violence around the world and their link to imperialism.

Many MST movement elders attribute mistica as the primary reason they’re still in the movement. It’s spiritual and intellectual sustenance, and stretches minds and hearts in preparation for the activity of the day, Mistica also described the overall “spirit” or “expression” of a group of people, the outward expression of collective revolutionary spirit.

An MST member riding with me and another classmate to the airport at the end of the program commented that our class seemed to have a very beautiful mistica. There were songs that were our songs (some people brought from their movements, others that were brand new and composed spontaneously); chants that were ours; countless manifestations of a profound camaraderie formed through intense, emotional learning together, sharing and hearing each other’s stories, working together, traveling together during the intensive “field week,” celebrating together during various cultural nights and late night festivities.

The coursework itself was incredible. The MST sees left theory as a living body of theory, and draws heavily from the Marxist Leninist tradition. Some of the more interesting courses were on the history and development of imperialism, the reproduction of capital in agriculture, a great session on gender, political organization, and popular education. There was quite a lot of healthy debate on organizational form, the role of the state, the legacy of colonialism and the persistence of racism, the dynamics between the old hegemonic imperial nations and the newly industrializing “BRICS” countries that increasingly play out imperial relations on a more regional level.

I learned an incredible amount about social movements in Brazil and around the world. From the MST, we learned about their incredible dynamic relationship between organizational form, strategy, and tactics. Their process of land takeovers entailed setting up an incredibly cooperative mini-society of several hundred families, a “movement baptism” that created the conditions for embodying radical new forms of human relations. The MST doesn’t actually legally exist in Brazil, and many of the movements represented there were very suspicious of the growth of World Bank and foundation-funded Non-Governmental Organizations and Non Profit Organization (seeing with incredibly clarity the ways in which they coopt movements and movement leaders).

One of the profound lessons for me was on the meaning of true internationalism and solidarity. The MST is in a very challenging moment in Brazil’s political and economic history: the ruling Workers Party has betrayed many of its original principles to the whims of international finance capital; the right wing is mobilizing larger crowds than have been seen in decades. Yet, instead of turning inwards, they continue to launch programs like this training, have helped started countless other movements around the Brazil, and remain committed to the development of an international revolutionary social force. In fact, I believe that’s exactly what see as necessary in this context, rather than turning inwards.

It’s hard to some up any one main takeaway from that 6 weeks. I’m incredibly inspired to be personally connected 60 people fighting in inspiration liberation struggles around the world. I’m inspired by the deep and broad commitment to political education and leadership development. I’m deeply moved by the way in which the MST both fights for total social transformation while building the new social right now. And I’m so impressed with the many examples of the ways in which strategy flows from a profound and sharp assessment of the objective and subjective conditions during this phase of advanced capitalism.