This Has Been a Brutal Week
Rev. Fletcher Harper
June 2020
To the GreenFaith Community:
This has been a brutal week in the United States with the full power of White supremacy in force, and anti-Blackness on display at every turn.
GreenFaith stands in solidarity with Black Americans among us protesting systemic brutalization.
The struggle for racial and economic justice is the same struggle for climate justice.The oppressive and extractive plutocracies that colonize and kill Black and Brown people are the same that colonize and kill our planet.
The harm done by disasters--whether it is COVID-19 or extreme weather related to climate change--disproportionately impacts communities of color and the global south.
For too long, the environmental movement has not been concerned enough about the destruction that climate change wreaks on Black and Brown communities around the world. For too long, we haven’t been concerned enough about Black and Brown people who can't breathe because they are carrying the weight of climate change and White supremacy.
There is no climate justice without racial justice.
GreenFaith’s vision is very clear.
- We envision a world where we have transformed the era of conquest, extraction, and exploitation to one of cooperation and community.
- Where we have created a good life, where we are connected to each other, and with all of nature.
- Where we have created a world of flourishing life; where we have replaced despair with joy; scarcity with shared abundance; and privilege with justly distributed power.
To our Black colleagues and members: We love you. We see you. Know that GreenFaith is committed to creating a world in which everyone can breathe, find joy, and be free.
To our White colleagues and members: Reach out to your people, engage in difficult conversations. Engage in active, non-optical allyship. Do everything you can to interrupt and dismantle White supremacy.
To our Latinx, Indigenous, Asian and other POC colleagues and members: Stand with our Black community members.
To us all: We are people of faith, spirit, and conscience who draw on spiritual wisdom and commit every day to being a force for love, justice, and compassion.
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said “If you are neutral in times of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” This is neither the time to stay neutral nor stay on the sidelines. This is the time to stand up.
If you are a White person, consider these Ten Steps to Non-Optical Allyship, written by Mireille Harper: