Deep Roots Jessica

By Jessica Garraway - Common Dreams, September 22, 2019

Land and Water Defender Beginnings

In 2011, as a 20 year old activist new to the environmental movement I joined up with other like-minded people for a retreat in rural Wisconsin to plan and strategize our next steps. As a Black woman, it was painfully obvious that amongst the scores of people in attendance that there were very few people of color present. However, what was even more jarring than the racial disproportionality of the retreat was the attitudes of the white activists.

We were hanging out late at night in the living room of a retreat after a long day of workshops and trainings.

The overwhelming number of white activists and their views on race and the environment came to a head for me when I was asked,

“Damn, how do we get black people to care about the environment?”

This is what a white environmentalist (with dreads no less) asked me years ago. Being new to environmental spaces, I was dumbfounded by this comment. I took a long deep sigh, and thought, aren't I Black? Didn't I spend countless hours turning people out for direct actions? It was at this moment I began to realize that I was scoring points for the organization with frontline folks while within the organization I was in a sea of white people who saw me as a token.

Yet I knew that Black people care about the environment - about lead paint in housing, parks in the neighborhood, clean water and clean air. We have to care because we are disproportionately affected by the processes of capitalist environmental degradation.

Historically “environmentalism” was not the modality through which Black people explicitly addressed these issues. It was only later that I realized the lack of orientation that white-dominated environmental groups had toward people of color, and Black people in particular, helped to reinforce the alienation of marginalized communities from the wider environmental movement.

It is no wonder that so many of our people see environmental issues as largely the concern of privileged white people. Far too often we hear more about the protection of wild places we have little access to and not about the incinerators, refineries and mines that pollute our air and water. Anti police brutality movements such as Black Lives Matter struggles have focused attention on deaths of Black people through police terror, however, it is only recently that cases like Flint, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey, majority Black cities with no access to clean water, have gotten notice.

Because of racist housing practices like redlining, Black people have been forced to live near refineries and incinerators at higher rates compared to white people. According to a recent study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, white people bear the burden of 17 percent less air pollution than is generated by their own consumption. Meanwhile, Blacks and Latinos experience 56 percent and 63 percent more exposure, respectively, than is caused by their consumption. Even still, it is not the consumption habits of workers that is causing this crisis. It is a political and economic system based on the accumulation of profits and ever expanding markets that is pushing the earth over the edge. Individual actions such as taking shorter showers or passing on plastic straws is not going to change that.

By Ahmed Tharwat - YouTube, October 17, 2016

By Aaron Murphy, Ruby Montoya, and Jim Arenz - Mississippi Stand Camp, October 10, 2016

Keokuk, IA - For the second time today concerned citizens stopped construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline. Jessica Garraway of Minneapolis, Minn., locked down to a construction vehicle blocking access to the Dakota Access boring site under the Mississippi River.

At approximately 7:30pm, citizens who had gathered around the entrance advised the truck driver that a human being was underneath the truck. It took several minutes for the truck driver to shut the vehicle off. Approximately 15 minutes passed until the truck was secure from rolling over her body.

During this time, pipeline security officers did not provide chocks for the truck’s wheels. Citizens at the construction site entrance placed rocks behind the wheels, securing the vehicle.

After police arrived, roads were blocked and views were obstructed. Witnesses sang and chanted in support of Garraway’s actions. Pipeline construction workers dismantled the truck’s axle and Garraway was arrested 45 minutes later.

Earlier today, several people locked arms and blocked construction access for at least one hour. One woman remained seated and the police appeared to use stress positions in an attempt to force compliance.

For weeks citizens have held an encampment on Mississippi River road in Keokuk, Iowa, called “Mississippi Stand” (http://www.mississippistand.com). Hundreds of people from the tri-state area have come to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience against the pipeline. Supporters continue to mobilize from across the country and more arrive each day.

Footage of this evening’s occurrence was livestreamed on Mississippi Stand’s Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/MississippiStandCamp/