It is Black History Month and I am so grateful for all of the newsletters and social media posts uplifting and celebrating the Black folks who literally built our nation and contributed to this democracy. At the same time, I feel a deep sadness and a rumbling anger about the permeation of state-sanctioned violence in our times. Three more Black mothers are putting their murdered sons’ bodies to rest; rest in power Tyre Nichols, Keenan Anderson, and Manuel “Tortuguita’ Teron.
Our times are filled with so many complexities. On the heels of passing the IRA last August, Biden, the so-called environmental president, has just approved a project which will allow ConocoPhillips to pump more than 600 million barrels of oil out of the Alaskan tundra. This project would release about 280 million metric tons of climate pollution into our air, not to mention the ground level destruction of a fragile ecosystem.
We must acknowledge that race-based state and systemic violence are connected with the violence of extraction being committed against planet Earth.
Somebody is making money off of all of this violence; somebody is profiting off of the harm of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. We know that racial capitalism and the climate crisis are connected. Fossil fuel companies are netting record profits. ConocoPhillips posted full year 2022 earnings of $18.7 billion, compared to $8.1 Million in 2021. Fossil fuel companies and the financial institutions that bankroll them also contribute to the militarization of policing by financially supporting police foundations in purchasing equipment. Chevron, Shell, and Wells Fargo are all big funders of police unions, the bodies that resist reform and accountability.
The BIPOC individuals that are on the frontlines of police violence, of health inequities due to polluting chemicals, of the extreme heat and most devastating impacts of climate change, require their white neighbors and accomplices to hold the systems perpetuating this accountable. This means acknowledging the interconnectedness of planetary and racist violence. This means being educated about Black history and celebrating Black figures within and beyond Black History Month alone.
In a bizarre display, the US House of Representatives voted this week on a measure to condemn socialism. Here is a direct quote from the resolution: “Whereas the United States of America was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual…”
There it is my friends. It is this notion of the “sanctity of the individual,” this myth of individualism that allows us to “other” our brothers and sisters and our non-human relatives in such a way that profit is put before life. So we can extract and extract until all is dead.
There is another way, a way that Indigenous people around the world have offered for generations…one of the collective, one of mutuality. A path of community care and respect for life that will actually enable us to adapt to the crisis unfolding around us.
Let us celebrate Black History Month by committing to have conversations, show up, listen, uplift, and envision abundance. This is collective work, and we have each other.
Susan Phillips
Executive Director