What is a Black Ecological Citizen?

Photo Credit: James Tyler

Black Hiker with Blair Underwood http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/2 4b56caf3e/black-hiker-with-blairunderwood

Theory: Biophilia[Biophilia is the] innate tendency to focus on life and life-like processes. E. O. Wilson, Biophilia (1984)

Biophilic Assertions* Inherent (that is, biologically based)

* Part of our species evolutionary heritage* Associated with human competitive advantage and genetic fitness * Likely to increase the possibility for achieving individual meaning and personal fulfillment

* The self-interested basis for a human ethic of care and conservation of nature, most especially the diversity of life.Kellert and Wilson, p. 21

Social EcologyOne of natures very unique species, homo sapiens, has slowly and painstakingly developed from the natural world into a unique social world of its own. As both worlds interact with each other through highly complex phases of evolution, it has become as important to speak of a social ecology as to speak of a natural ecology. Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy (1982)

Both natural and social worlds mediate our ecological experience simultaneously

What is this?Social World human being negatively stigmatized by perceptions of blackness/Africanity; near human being/ missing link member of a human group(s) with a great cultural legacy which includes ecological worldview and tradition

What is this?Natural World A member of the species homo sapiens a biophilic actor

Creating a Black Eco-Citizens Remix1. Acknowledge Ecological Paradox 2. Recover/Imagine Early Biophilic Actors, Ancestors, Elders 3. Reflect on Contemporary Eco-Art

4. Reconsider Africanity5. Put Theory and Cultural Legacy to Practice

Acknowledge Ecological ParadoxBurden & Beauty Paradox Burden: the social barriers to ecological affinity can be so challenging that biophilia is endangered, resulting in ecological alienation Beauty: even those marginalized socially can express their biophilia and act as biophilic agents

Recover Ecological Ancestors

Recover Ecological AncestorsWhite folks, you can have your automobiles and paved streets an electric lights. You can have de busses an street cars an hot pavements an high buildin caze I aint got no use for em no way. But Ill tell you what I does want. I wants my ole cotton bed an de moonlight nights a shinin through de willow trees an de cool grass under my feets as I runned roun ketchin lightin bugs. I wants to hear de sound of de hounds in de woods atter de possum, an de smell of fresh mowed hay. I wants to feel de sway of de ol wagon a-goin down de red, dusty road . . . I wants to see de dawn break over de black ridge an de twilight settle . . . spreadin a sort of orange hue over de place. I wants to walk de paths thew de woods an see de rabbits an watch de birds an listen to frogs at night.Clara Davis, enslaved in Alabama, U.S.A. Recorded as part of WPA Ex-Slave Oral History project

Imagining Ecological Ancestors

Scientist Spiritualist

Navigator Community Builder

Pathbreaker Representative

Jayne Cortez May 10, 1934 December 28, 2012

I got the fishing in raw sewage blue-ooze I got the toxic waste dump in my backyard blue-ooze Poem excerpts from I got the man-made famine blue-ooze Jayne Cortez I got the dead house dead earth blue-ooze. I Got the Blue-Ooze 93 Reactors breed plutonium blood cells pay their dues Radiation keeps leaking & seeping And Ive got the Chernobyl Three Mile Island Blues Deadly Radiation Blues The river turtle does not breathe like a slithering boa constrictor The slash of a barracuda is not like the gulp of a leaping whale The speech of a tiger shark is not like the bark of an eagle-fish Find your own voice and use it use your own voice and find it. Find Your Own Voice The person who OKs biological weapons should not cry about the stench of new diseases The one who cuts off the trees so the orangutans cant hang should not wonder about ecological devastation. Endangered Species List Blues

Reflect on Contemporary Eco-Art

Reconsider AfricanityThe complex relationships of plants and people that were sundered by the Middle Passage were quietly recast by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the food fields and kitchens of plantation societies. What distinguishes the foodways of the African diaspora are their humble beginnings and the discrete ways they infiltrated the plantation palate. What makes them remarkable is the story they tell of exile, survival, endurance, and memory.

Reconsider AfricanityEnvironmental conservation must gohand in hand with poverty eradication [P]eople must be helped to understand

their status and that of theirsurroundings, and then empowered to take responsibility for their own destiny rather than wait for others to do the determination.

Reconsider AfricanityMy experience has been that African

governments can ignore writersTherefore, the writer must be the intellectual man of action. He must

establish direct contact with the peopleand resort to the strength of African literature oratory in the tongue. For the word is power and more powerful is it when expressed in common currency.

La Toma documents the struggle of an Afro-Colombian gold-mining community in southwestern Colombia to remain on its territory. Home to 1,052 families, La Toma was founded by runaway slaves in

1636. Over the centuries, they havedeveloped a culture and history that is tied to this land, carving out environmentally sustainable livelihoods through artisanal gold mining and basic agricultural projects, and grounding their traditions in this ancestral place.

Put Theory and Cultural Legacy to PracticeEcological Citizenship For over two centuries, citizenship has been fixated upon rights and entitlements, glossing over duties and obligations. Marc Smith and Piya Pangsapa, Environment and Citizenship People need value-based channels of understanding, such as story, personal experience, metaphor and song [along with other channels such as] allegory, anecdote, image, community, ceremony, theater, [and] faith. Carl Safina, Let Every Tongue Speak People must have images through which they can honor and question themselves and any forces (e.g. hierarchies of nation, race, class, sexuality, or gender) that complicate their attempts to express their ecological citizenship. Kimberly Ruffin

People and Plants Visual Art Workshop

People and Plants Parade

People and Plants Parade and Ritual Planting