CONTENTS OF THIS PAGE:
Cleaning House on Campus: Campus Ecology in 1995 (OCTOBER 1995)
By Christy Santoro
For the long haul: Building an organization that will stand the test of time (FEBRUARY 1995)
By Adam Berry
The People of Color Caucus
By Miya Yoshitani
Could you spare a little social change?: Adding a justice component to your environmental work (JANUARY 1995)
By Mike Trapp
Poems from Jan-Feb 1991
Report from high schools: Students fell frustrated, helpless, ready to act (MARCH 1995)
By Doug Cole
White Alternative Group forms to deal with race issues in SEAC (JANUARY 1995)
By Sarah Bantz
From the Threshold Editorial Team, In Solidarity; Threshold Special Edition: Indigenous Issues 1994
SEAC of New York Addresses Environmental Racism (JANUARY 1992)
by Craig Kaufman
Statement by Jason Fults, former NCC (APRIL 2002)
Cleaning House on Campus: Campus Ecology in 1995
(OCTOBER 1995)
By Christy Santoro
"By working with other groups, I found out that all around basically everybody is coming up with the same issues at the workplaces. Students and other people need to get out here and get involved because this (environmental racism and economic injustice) has got to be a change not only here, but all around. And I think the only way we can do it is by working with other groups in other areas…we all got eh same issues and it is basically racism. It also comes down to the rich and the poor. l If we don't come together to make a social change out here, I don't know what our world is going to become…I just think everybody should be responsible for getting out here to work to make a change."
-Barbara Prear, leader in the UNC Housekeepers Association"
This year SEAC has sharpened our focus on how we, as campus-based environmental groups, can work with our communities effectively on environmental justice issues. If you ever feel like your group is working in its own little box, in isolation from other campus and community groups, you are not alone. Participation in the 1995 SEAC National Conference may be able to help your group begin to break down the walls of the box you have been working in, and begin to build connections and long term relationships with other groups and your community.
By learning from the speakers' experiences and advice, interacting with SEACers and other youth who have built effective campus-community partnerships, and by participating in the rally and march at the conference, your group can take steps to adopt this broader analysis and put it into action through the types of issues you can choose to work on, i.e.: issues that link environmental and social justice issues in your community.
With Earth Day 1990, the "environment" was a key issue that the world's attention was focused on. Now, the environment is still a target; however, the analysis of "environment" has evolved into a more inclusive, holistic one. "Environment" in 1995 includes: low wage jobs, temporary work, loss of stability, drugs and violence, attacks on welfare, affirmative action and immigration, lack of health care, the right's control of media and morality, the Contract on America, AIDS, toxic waste dumps, the prison industry, the decline of the educational system, and the absence of corporate accountability. Because all of these factors disproportionately effect people of color and poor communities, one might say they are the Jim Crow laws of the 1990s.
SEAC groups across the country have had some success in working effectively toward environmental justice by working with their surrounding communities. While keeping in mind that there are many examples of SEACers doing good environmental justice work, there is still a lot of room for SEAC to improve into actually becoming an environmental justice network down to the local campus level.
Here at UNC Chapel Hill, SEACers have played a variety of roles in the UnC Housekeepers Association (HKA) struggle since 1991. African American workers formed the UNC Housekeepers Association in 1991 to organize for a living wage, fair treatment on the job, and equal access to university-run training programs.
SEAC alum Chris Baumann has been working with the HKA since 1991, functioning as their full time organizer for the last two years (see Feb./Mar '92 Threshold). The SEAC-UNC Committee for Equality and Environmental Justice (CEEJ) played a major role in the campus-based support for the HKA in 1992-3. This semester SEAC UNC has reaffirmed its commitment to working with the HKA and is in the process of helping to form a campus-wide coalition to support the workers.
Since 1991, the HKA has won a 30% increase in the minimum salary for all state workers, a clerical skills class, health and safety victories, and improved work conditions. Currently, there is a four year outstanding class action racial discrimination grievance (signed by over 1200 UNC housekeepers) against the university on the grounds of poverty level wages, poor treatment by supervisors, and lack of training and advancement opportunities. This grievance is finally scheduled to be heard in the late fall, and if the UNC HKA is victorious, it could set a national precedent documenting institutionalized racism in universities.
However, all of these victories could be nullified by the North Carolina State legislature's decision to conduct a study on the feasibility of contracting out all housekeeping and maintenance workers statewide. "Contracting out" means the government gives the jobs to a private company, which results in lower wages, loss of state employee benefits, and takes the jobs from a government service to a private for-profit venture.
Historically, the North Carolina state legislature and governments across the country have used the privatization (contracting out) strategy to stifle worker organizing. In 1969 African American cafeteria workers at UNC went on a month long strike which culminated in the National Guard being brought in to intimidate the students and workers. The workers prevailed by winning all of their demands, including a wage increase. Unfortunately, two years later, the University privatized the cafeteria staff by contracting out to a private company. Today that private company is Marriot, and workers make less than $5.00/hr, receiving no benefits. The upcoming study on contracting out represents a move toward history repeating itself in North Carolina. This time around students and workers united need to draw the line now, before the contracting out occurs.
THIS IS NOT ONLY HAPPENING IN NORTH CAROLINA! Chances are this has already happened at your school, or plans are being made for it to happen in the near future. Contracting out is part of Newt [Gingrich]'s Contract on America, downsizing government, and taking away what it means to have a job that you can support your family with. Contracting out is an economic problem, it is a labor problem, and yes, it is an environmental problem.
For the last five years, a primary focus within many SEAC groups and other campus-based environmental groups has been 'campus ecology and 'environmental audits.' For many of us these audits have not progressed much further than looking at energy efficiency, the use of recycled materials, recycling on campus, and open space policies. Others, such as SEAC at UC-Boulder, Tufts, and Stanford, have focused on the divestment practices of their college or university. We must begin to look into the campus environment for workers and the impact our university has on its surrounding community.
The housekeepers' environment is not a rainforest in Brazil or a wetland on the North Carolina coast; instead it is a brick building to clean at 3:00 A.M. at UNC or on your campus. In 1995, our campus environmental audits need to expand to include investigation and action on issues like contracting out, campus workers rights, discrimination on campus, environmental racism, living wages for workers, affordable housing in university areas, and equal access to health care and education, as well as other issues mentioned earlier.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? Before coming to the conference you could do a bit of investigating about what is happening on your campus and in your community.
- Find out what existing worker organizations are active in your community or region,
- Check if your school has already contracted out workers in areas like food service, housekeeping, and maintenance,
- If workers have already been contracted out on your campus, use your rights under the Freedom of Information Act to get copies of the contracts and find out how much money the university is saving, as well as how much money and benefits have been stripped from the workers,
- Contract the Affirmative Action office at your school and get a hold of their reports detailing job and pay distribution by race and ethnicity. Who is working in what jobs and what are the salaries and benefits? If your school does have contracted workers, compare the pay and benefits of contracted workers with those of state employees,
- Call your state legislators and ask what their position is on contracting out state workers. There may be labor and state employment subcommittees that would have more information on this,
- Find out where the lower pay scale workers for the University live. Is there affordable housing available in your town?, and
- Talk to housekeepers and other workers on your campus. Start to build relationships one-on-one and in small groups. It will take time, but in the long run any efforts you make will only be effective if these relationships are built and sustained. Find out what they think about their working conditions, and how students could help support them. Be sensitive to the fact that this is their livelihood and any work students do must be aligned with what the workers are ready to do.
WE NEED YOUR HELP: We would like to have a resource list available at the National Conference and in the next Threshold of organizations students can work with in their region on environmental, social justice, and labor issues. If your campus is already working with other groups in your area, please contact the National Office with the contact information for the groups. At the conference we will also have more information on concrete steps students can take to support workers on their campus. If your campus is currently working on university workers' issues please let us know so that you can participate in the rally by making a statement of support from your campus. We also welcome any advice on doing 'truth-telling' investigative research on our university. Bring banners from your school so that SEAC and the Housekeepers Association can send the message that students not only from UNC, not only from North Carolina and the Southeast, but from the whole country are supportive of workers on their campuses and in their communities.
Because of our privilege as students, we have a lot of power in issues that involve university decision-making. If SEAC is serious about developing campus-community partnership we must use the National Conference as a vehicle to send the message to schools and communities across the country.
Get excited for the Sunday rally and march! Help reserve the integrity of having a job that is not relegated to the level of a temporary position that a contractor can plug anyone into. Remember, you will be on the quad that in 1969 the UNC Administration had to call in the National Guard to quell the student/worker movement. Students can and will make a difference. We need to elevate the level of student activism on most of our campuses. Now is the time for SEAC as a national network to take action and make our vision of being an environmental justice organization a reality.
For the long haul: Building an organization that will stand the test of time
(FEBRUARY 1995)
By Adam Berry
During the first Earth Day, 1970, student environmental activism made a momentary blip on the country's social radar. But despite the hundreds of protests, actions, and educational events, the vast majority of the student environmental organizations died. Although a handful of groups managed to stay alive for the two decades following that first Earth Day, over 90 percent of the groups in SEAC began since 1988!
These facts beg a question: how do we make our organizations sustainable over the long haul? Sustainability is extremely difficult, especially given the transitory nature of students, student life and student politics. On most campuses "the long haul" is until the end of the semester. But there are a number of steps which groups can take towards sustainability.
It goes without saying that the suggestions below would create only the hollow shell of an organization if there were no principles, struggles, strategies or actions. Writers in Threshold have already written a good deal about starting groups, organizing campaigns, long-term planning and fighting for material change. Instead of rehashing those issues, here are a few additional details that shouldn't be overlooked.
Office space
A permanent physical space creates a sense of purpose and identity which is vital to long term sustainability. All of the groups that have lasted over the decades have secured a permanent space. The space provides a place for materials and equipment, a common area to gather and most importantly, a physical reminder of your existence.
In addition, you'll need the modern appointments of an office, which include a permanent voice mail number, a post office box and an e-mail account. All of these can usually be acquired form the school, or if you have $30 a month you can get them from vendors, who conveniently advertise in the Yellow Pages. If worst comes to worst you can temporarily substitute the post office box, voice mail and so on for a real office.
Leadership
Bottom line is that the people make the organization. "Put people first" in the words of , I believe, our fearless leader. In general the strongest student organizations are the ones whose activists/leaders stick with the organization for years. In Nepal the main student organization was able to mobilize 400,000 students in a national demonstration. (There are19 million people living in Nepal).; Many of the leaders in the organization had been with the group for as long as 15 years! Granted, unless you're studying at Humboldt, you're probably planning to graduate within 15 years-but fear not, there are options.
One is to stagger the leadership transition. For example, SEAC at the University of North Carolina elects tri-hairs. They elect one or two new chairs in the winter and in the spring. At any given time at least one chair has served for a semester. You should stagger the elections of all the positions in your organization.
Another is to incorporate a regular training program into your work. Have some experienced members (or get help from a SEAC staff member) design some workshops. Take the time to write out a complete script for each different workshop and then incorporate regular trainings into your agenda each semester of quarter.
Finally, try to hire some of the people in your group. There is nothing like hard cash to garner commitment and accountability. Most schools are part of the federal work-study program, which means that…they are now required to spend 10 percent of their federal work-study grants on "community service." That means us! Usually you only have to pay about $1.12 an hour, or less, and the school picks up the rest. California SEAC has six work-study students employed at Stanford alone. Some schools have gone even further and created environmental centers, fully funded by the university, which serve as a clearinghouse for all of the environmental work on campus…
History
History should speak for itself. If you don't know where you came from and the struggles which forged the group to date, you're going to have a hard time figuring out just who you are as an organization now, and you probably will have a lot of trouble figuring out where to go. A history can be as simple as a three-ring binder which has copies of all the flyers, materials and propaganda your group has produced, or as complicated as the SEAC National Office Archival System (known to many as "those 23 unmarked boxes of shit in the corner"). No group should be without a one-page list of accomplishments, which should be handed out to all members and prominently displayed when tabling.
Consistent fundraising and annual events
You knew it had to be in here somewhere. Without cash your organization is simply a group of committed activists talking about change.
One of the best ways to do fundraising is through events, like benefit concerts. Events dedicated to raising awareness outside of the context of a campaign with concrete goals can sometimes come off looking a little questionable. But it's important to have at least one event per semester where you attempt to bring everyone who cares about the work you're doing together.
See past issues of Threshold for exhaustive fundraising ideas and tips.
Connection to the community
It is an impoverished brand of student activism that lacks roots in the broader community. In this crime-conscious age students too often relate to the surrounding community as either the paternalistic bearer of knowledge or something more like a police state. The University of Chicago, for example, has one of the largest per capita police forces in the country.
But campus environmental groups have to fight these tendencies that can be distracting and divisive-and are generally much better off working closely with community groups.
Pretending you can isolate the campus from the community is no different from Dow pretending it can isolate a toxic release from the environment.
Another way to remain connected to off-campus community groups is to stay well connected to SEAC. Does everyone in your group understand SEAC? How many people have subscriptions to Threshold? When was the last time people from your group attended a SEAC event? Or even better, organized an event in your area?
One of the few student environmental groups to last since the 1970s is the Survival Center in Eugene, Oregon. The Survival Center does all of the things above, but more importantly, it has deep roots in Eugene. Community groups use the space and facilities, many of the events are organized jointly with non-university residents, and student activists are regularly graduating out of the university into community groups.
As organizers who claim to have a vision for the future, we are responsible not simply for fighting the fight today, but also for reproducing the fighters for tomorrow. As our universities reproduce mindless workers for the economic machine, our campus environmental groups have to cling together and prepare activists who can bring that machine to its knees!
The People of Color Caucus
By Miya Yoshitani
"We are here. We are strong. We are united, and we are committed. Asian, Latino, African, and Native American we are. The People of Color Caucus has come together to expose the problem of institutional racism. The manifestation of racism in SEAC cannot go unchallenged; we see this issue as primarily the responsibility of the white students of SEAC. Therefore, we pose this challenge to this assembled body-that the resources, both intellectual and material, towards path-breaking methods of combating racism…"
This is an excerpt from the statement of the People of Color Caucus at last October's Catalyst conference. Well, one year later we are still here and we are only getting stronger. Across the country people of color are reclaiming ownership of the term "environmentalist". We are uniting within and outside of SEAC, within and outside of the U.S., to make our voices strong and to make them heard. Telling people of color to join the environmental movement will not work; we have always been in it, and we have always known what's at stake.
SEAC has come a long way in its commitment to cultural diversity. We have moved beyond the expected rhetoric and have begun to actually integrate the philosophy into SEAC programs: Toxic Summer, A SEED, the Organizing Guide, the Environmental Audit, and Field Organizing. We have hired a Cultural Diversity Coordinator, Todd Thomas, in the National Office. It is becoming less of an afterthought and more of a criterion. However, we are at a crucial point in SEAC history, and now is not the time to sit back and be content. Change of this magnitude does not occur overnight, and the reality of the situation is that we in SEAC have a long road ahead of us. SEAC cannot expect the People of Color Caucus to be responsible for diversifying SEAC. The POCC is not a crutch; it is a guide. If cultural diversity is SEAC's commitment, SEAC must reprioritize, must redefine itself.
We in the People of Color Caucus must continue to reach out to our communities. As Kristi Shastri said in the March 1991 issue of Threshold, "To be a body that truly represents issues affecting the disenfranchised and disempowered, we must have representation from all regions all socio-economic/ethnic backgrounds. In light of our commitment to a true 'diversity' of underrepresented people, we call on members of these communities to join the POCC. Add your strength and perspective to the voice of the Caucus as we empower ourselves and learn from each other's struggles."
We have faith in the strength of a diverse movement, and we have faith in the ability of SEAC to achieve it. However, we must continue to strive, and for SEAC, the challenge still stands.
POEMS FROM JAN-FEB 1991
Looking Abroad for Monsters
Is there nothing we can do?
Simple insanity tells us so,
Tells us yes, tells us no.
Imperialism, acquisition,
Partitioning by another.
Racism, sexism,
Worker exploitation.
Homelessness, hunger,
Healthcare for the elite.
Irradiated food, heterosexism,
A wasteful, oil addicted society.
By whose creation does this exist?
By whose efforts do they continue?
It's not my choice,
It is my fight.
It's not a simple world out there.
Nor is it at home
-Emily A. Wunsch
SEAC member
The River's Overflow
I eat sand for breakfast, blood for lunch in the afternoons.
A tank is in my home, a tent if I am lucky.
The pictures of family, friends smile-dim bulbs losing energy in desert heat.
Bullets, chemical warfare have become my best friends-worst enemies.
I cannot hold the hand of those learning out for love here,
Someday I might hold that hand without a pulse, with no life's blood flowing.
I look in the mirror and sometimes only my skeleton is reflected,
Death floats in the air everywhere I breathe
It fills my lungs, nostrils choking my existence.
They sent me here to kill and enemy whose fear and hands and eyes are just like my own.
I have to spill blood to save lives, only rivers run red already and still the bureaucrats
who sit in living rooms with remote control TVs, cool drinks with clinking ice,
Demand the blood-demand the river to rise.
-Stephanie Tarnoff
Antioch College
Nocturne
Doric solidity, branches weave cobwebs,
formed not from the disuse, for I worship.
The stripes crisscrossing my path
frame me, cloak me in camouflage,
and I slink about in a way unlike the day.
Sturdily they orient;
Ancient sages, silent.
To my unvoiced questions
a chorus of leaves replies-
Shhhh
-David Ball
UNC Chapel Hill
Report from high schools:
Students fell frustrated, helpless, ready to act
(MARCH 1995)
By Doug Cole
While many high school students are only thinking about what they will do next weekend, there is one group of students that is thinking generations and generations ahead: the Ellensburg High School Environmental Club. This growing group of activists achieved many goals last school year. Each classroom received a three-part recycling bin; trees were planted during the two most recent summers; networks were established with other environmental organizations in Washington; and tips for environmental awareness were broadcast on the local radio. As a final rounding up of the year's activities, we conducted a survey. Its purpose was to study the environmental perspectives of students at Ellensburg High School and to chronicle their views about the future. A 79 percent response of Ellensburg High School students made up the statistics for this survey.
Respondents revealed an overwhelming sense of helplessness concerning their ability to make a difference in the environmental movement. Almost 40 percent of the students who participated in the survey believe the environment needs help, but they don't feel they can make a difference. This powerless attitude conflicts with normal "teenage optimism" revealed in some other answers. Why do the students predict a better life than their parents' while believing that their parents are creating a future that is much worse and that the environment is getting worse?
Who is Responsible?
According to our results there are two categories of people responsible for these feelings: Parents and peers. Most students blame their parents who, they say, are "creating a future worse than that in which we are living today." The responses to the survey show that most students' parents lean toward being concerned with the environment, but even so, only five percent of the students say their parents are very concerned. A total of 22 percent say their parents are uninterested and uninvolved in the environmental movement. These two reactions show that the parents of many students don't set a good example for the children and are not supportive of environmental efforts.
Peers are an influence many people don't consider as a cause of environmental unawareness. One student writes "My peers do not care; it is very disturbing:.
The following is an overview of other responses students gave for not being involved in the environmental movement:
- 36.7% or 216.53 individuals responded: "I believe the environment needs help but I don't feel I can make a difference." The highest percentage of these were seniors.
- 13.2% or 77.88 individuals responded: "It is too late to save the environment and we might as well have a good time." The highest percentage of these were sophomores.
- 11.8% or 69.62 individuals responded: "The environment does not need our help and the people who are trying to save the environment are costing people jobs." The highest percentage of these were sophomores.
- 9.5% or 56.15 individuals responded: "It is too painful to think about the environmental problems that face us."
- 8.6% or 50.74 individuals responded "Someone else will take care of the environmental problems." The highest percentage of these were sophomores.
- 4.5%, or 26.5 individuals responded: The environment does not need our help." The highest percentage of these were seniors.
[. . . ]
Solutions
The goal of the survey was to pinpoint the problem spots in our "cast" of potential environmental aids. It was discovered that our largest problem is that people do not believe they can make a difference. We, together as a community, need to convince them that every single pop can recycled, every person reminded to reuse a shopping bag, and every car-pool to school counts. The main concept to remember is that the environmental movement has to be communal: everybody helps out to create a better environment…
"Organizer's toolbox" was a monthly column dedicated to conveying strategies that could help readers and their local groups become more effective organizers. The following article, reprinted from the January 1995 issue of Threshold, tackles the tricky issue of how to incorporate environmental justice goals into the activities of local campus environmental groups. This reprinting has been edited for space and grammar.
Organizer's toolbox
Could you spare a little social change?
Adding a justice component to your environmental work
(JANUARY 1995)
By Mike Trapp
The ability to protect one's home from environmental degradation can be a matter of racial privilege. Access to information, political influence, money and other resources is unfairly distributed, largely along racial lines in this country. Environmental justice is an integral part of a sustainable society, and the grassroots environmental community, especially youth, need to focus on issues of justice while creating space for people of all colors in the struggle to save the planet.
Obstacles
SEACers have identified environmental justice as an area of prime concern for several years so why isn't more work being done in this area? There are several obstacles to doing effective justice work, the largest of them being racism. Racism prevents white activists from seeing the contributions people of color can make. Racially insensitive language and actions are the quickest way to insure that your group will be working in isolation.
Another problem is issue selection. The issues groups choose to address obviously contributes to who joins or works in coalition with the group.
Having an exclusively student constituency can also be an obstacle. While high schools are close to reflecting the national ethnic makeup, schools with environmental clubs are more likely to be in white suburban areas. This problem is even more apparent at a college level, where the student body is much more skewed toward the white middle class. An organizational structure based on elected officers and led by majority rule can also be an obstacle. Designation of a few people as leaders can limit the number of people who feel empowered to get involved. Majority rule doesn't necessarily insure that the minorities have their voices heard.
There are also problems with the dynamics of mixed groups. Sometimes it's more convenient to work with people who are like us, while people who are different can make us feel uncomfortable. While this is true for the majority group, the feeling of being different can be immense for a member of the minority group. Bringing someone different into a homogenous group puts a lot of pressure on that person. I remember attending a meeting at Haskell Indian Nations University. I was the only white person on campus; I felt intimidated and a little uncomfortable.
All of these obstacles have contributed to an environmental movement that is disproportionately white. Historical patterns tend to go on unless changes in behavior take place. While we have taken a few tentative steps toward diversifying the movement and tackling justice issues, it will take a concentrated effort to break the historical patterns which have become institutionalized.
Getting started
The obstacles we face are daunting, but the rewards of success make the struggle worth it. A friend once told me that what most folks call a problem is really "an opportunity for development." Imagine an organization that is both multi-racial and democratic.
There are no easy answers or step-by-step approaches that will work for all groups. Every group's situation is different, and each will have to work out their own solutions. I do think we can learn some things from the history of other people's struggles, so I will offer some suggestions based on history that I've read and history that I've seen.
I think that the first step to environmental justice is recognizing your own racial privileges, and the racism prevalent in society, while working to end the systems that perpetuate all oppression. It is a lifelong struggle, and beyond the scope of this article to address. Anti-oppression trainings, group discussions, reading, introspection, having friends who expect a high level of introspection, challenging my own assumptions, and learning from my experiences have all helped me to work on my own racism.
To really engage in environmental justice work we need to work with the people most harmed by environmental degradation. As a group, one of the keys to obtaining diversity is an atmosphere of openness and tolerance. People are most committed to actions and policies that they have helped develop. Discussions need to be maximized, with an emphasis on full participation. Structurally, groups based on a consensus (a decision-making process where the entire group comes to agreement) are the surest way to allow everyone to participate in the decisions. Leadership roles should be rotated often to avoid a few people dominating the group.
Beyond structure, the membership must be open and accepting to everyone who walks through the door. Keeping new members is usually more of a struggle than bringing them in. People leave because their needs are not being met. If people feel their ideas and feelings are being listened to, and they're having the chance to help shape the group's policies, they will feel a part of the group, and come back. If your meetings interfere with people's lives then you have to help meet their needs. Think about childcare, or kid friendly meetings-along with transportation, dinner and lost fun time.
After beginning to work on racism and creating an atmosphere of acceptance, it's time to think about recruiting. The literature shows the two most effective methods are "block recruiting," where you contact existing networks, and inviting people you know. These recruiting patterns reinforce the existing racial makeup of your group, though, I think one way to counteract that is to always keep diversity in mind, both racial and cultural. If everyone in the group wears polo shirts or tie dyes or whatever it will be daunting for anyone outside of that culture or get involved. Try doing a benefit concert with bands outside your cultural norm or declaring your meetings a queer safe space.
The issues you choose to work on are a large part of working for environmental justice. It's unfair to protect your own back yard when the means of defense are not distributed equally in society. The best struggles are local struggles, but many environmental problems can be turned into a justice issue.
While the path to diversity is a slow one, groups can achieve some of the same benefits through working in coalitions. Each coalition is so unique, it's hard to give advice beyond "be nice to people".
Here's an example of an environmental justice project that I've worked on in a coalition. In the fall of 1992, University of Toledo SEAC began a campaign to keep a small neighborhood from being turned into a parking lot. The campaign began as a straightforward environmental issue; we didn't want to see more paved spaces and room for cars. We did research and developed an alternative plan with increased mass transit and cooperative student housing in the neighborhood. We then began a media campaign and began to negotiate with the University.
We felt we needed more strength than what we could get on campus, so we visited everyone who lived in the neighborhood. The University claimed repeatedly that the neighborhood was mostly student rental properties, but we documented that the neighborhood was mostly low-income senior citizen and black homeowners. We learned that the University was using threats of eminent domain to get folks to sell their homes for way below market value.
Our canvassing got folks talking and SEAC was invited to the first meeting of the Hodge Addition Housing Association, which formed not to save the houses but to make the University pay fair market value for them. SEAC worked with the housing association, provided technical assistance and training on planning their first protest, and gave them access to University resources and information.
Eventually 17 homeowners decided to take the University to court, delaying the parking lot for years. After a few months of organizing on the wrong track, we were able to reframe the issue and not only delay the unneeded parking lot, but also keep some poor folks from getting ripped off.
Adding a justice component to your organizing doesn't have to take away from your present organizing. Not only will you be strengthening your existing campaigns, you will be making them more humane.
White Alternative Group forms to deal with race issues in SEAC
(JANUARY 1995)
By Sarah Bantz
…[O]ne of the major projects voted on by the National Council at the August meeting was a plan of action for the White Alternative Group, WAG. Alternative groups to caucuses (POCC [People of Color Caucus], women's and queer)[EDITOR'S NOTE: WHEN THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN, THE WORKING CLASS CAUCUS DID NOT YET EXIST, ALTHOUGH IT WAS BEING VIGOROUSLY PROPOSED BY SEACER RANDY VISCIO] have met at every council meeting and many conferences for the past several years. Until now, the men's white, and straight groups have met mostly only as a safe space to discuss and learn about their roles in promoting aspects of this society we so desperately want to change…But now, many white SEACers and POCC members are seeing this is not enough….The need for white SEACers to deal with racism is obvious. The people of color in SEAC know it. We all experience it. Just a while ago I was explaining a popular SEAC game (the scarf game?) which originated "in some third world country," as if they were all the same. While the People of Color Caucus is busy putting their Environmental Justice Initiative into action in order to bring youth of color into social justice and environmental work, we need to do what we can to make SEAC a comfortable and fun place for youth of color.
The plan
The plan…was three parts. First, the National Office is compiling some lists and resources for SEACers on racism-things to read, things to talk about, who we can get help from. A list of groups that do anti-racism trainings has been put together hoping that at some point SEAC can make its own training-relevant to young activists. The resource guide should be available this spring.
Second, SEAC will hold a WAG meeting in the days preceding the next National Council Meeting, running concurrent with the POCC meeting, to discuss these issues and make more plans.
Third, we're developing a set of informal workshops which groups can participate in, as well as reading and discussing different aspects of racism relevant to our work. So far, plans consist of eight or ten workshops with reading materials and discussion points on issues like language, race and the criminal justice system, and issues of class. Some schools have already become a part of this project.
This is the plan so far. If you have ideas, questions or comments or would like to help make these plans reality, then let somebody in the WAG working group know…
From the Threshold Editorial Team, In Solidarity; Threshold Special Edition: Indigenous Issues 1994
Columbus' legacy persists, as industry and our government continue to team up and threaten the livelihood of native peoples who wish to hold on to their culture. International corporations like Peabody Coal, Hydro Quebec, the Vatican, and our own universities have government support in practicing earth and culture-decimating development, as they mine for coal and gold, and build factories, roads, dams, and telescopes- still striving to reach new "frontiers."
Fortunately, SEAC is engaged in the restoration of common sense. SEACers across the country are working to gain a historical context, different from the mass media's corporate-sponsored propaganda. We are also connecting with native peoples and the land, supporting efforts toward sustainability and participating in today's struggles for social justice.
The special edition of Threshold is a key part of that effort. It is an attempt to gather together a few of the most compelling stories of today's native struggles. We hope that the people, places and issues presented here will inspire you, the reader, to help make this Decade of Indigenous Peoples a decade of real accomplishments, and not token gestures. Together we can negate what Gabriel Hernandez of the National Chicao Human Rights Council calls the "Policy of Non-Entity." That is, while our educators and politicians ascribe to the peoples of Europe, Africa and Asia language, religions, and nations, they ascribe to native peoples of this continent dialects, superstitions and tribes. This absent-minded marginalizing plays right into the dominant corporate agenda, perpetuated by the United States and the United Nations refusal to recognize the sovereign rights of Native Americans and grant them full nation status.
Many non-Natives are reluctant to work on native struggles out of concern for further imposing outsiders' ways. Lou Gold, defender of Ancient Forests, addressed this issue when he brought his slide show to Tucson not long ago. He shared a story of his own initial hesitation as a white man working with indigenous peoples. When he asked a Native American friend if some help would be acceptable, the man replied that the threat to the land and its inhabitants today is so great, that "we are all Indians now."
For too long, indigenous peoples and mainstream environmentalists have been pursuing separate but parallel courses in defense of the planet. As well as serving to inform, we hope that this newsletter will help strengthen the alliance between these movements. We humbly look to one another and especially to the people who come from the land to speak for the land, and to guide us so that we can go as far as possible along this path protecting Mother Earth.
SEAC of New York Addresses Environmental Racism
(JANUARY 1992)
By Craig Kaufman
On December 10 (1991) two Cornell students, Tiffany Henrard and I, spoke at nearby Ithaca High School on the topic of environmental racism. The most notable thing in our minds when we left was how few students and teachers at each of the four talks seemed aware of this dilemma before hearing from us, the SEAC members. For clarification here, this term refers to the exploitation of communities of color by corporations or governments in ways that pollute and ruin their lives…
The city of Ithaca has a great number of African American people, and thus it was critical to have the speakers be able to speak from experience and represent the communities that are affected by environmental racism. While this is not always feasible in SEAC, as people of color are underrepresented in SEAC, it is still important to have people speak from the same perspective as those who have had to suffer because of it all their lives. This will build far more trust than merely sending unaffected middle-class white environmentalists into an inner-city black community to tell people what they should do.
We the speakers were female and male, one black and one white, one from New York and the other from Detroit…
We discussed the importance of organizing in the communities, because they are the focus of environmental racism-industry sees these areas as places where the people are not empowered, will not be well defended by the government, and will not be able to organize effectively to stop the approaching corporation…
The problem is that corporations understand the harm they may bring to a town or city and so disguise what they are doing-along with frequent complicity by local government…
Perhaps most important for SEAC groups is to show yourselves to be an active part of the community, and to gain the trust of the people there.
Statement by Jason Fults, former NCC
(APRIL 2002)
A wise old SEACer recently told me that "SEAC is what we make it, so let's make it strong." It really got me thinking about the awesome history of SEAC and of all the great work that individual SEAC groups are doing across the U.S. It was also from my involvement as a student activist that I came to realize what a difference a group of committed individuals can make in their own lives and the lives of others. And this potentially is why I remain so in love with the idea of SEAC-that is a community of young people who are working to address environmental injustices by directing their energies into changing the underlying political, economic, and social institutions that are at the root of these problems. Through embracing this larger assessment of what the environment is, and through working together, we are able to accomplish what no one group could alone.
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