permaculture

["Michael Burns" <burns@panix.com>]

"Harmon Seaver" <hseaver@gmail.com> said:

>    Racism is essentially irrelevant at this point. The major problems
> today are the dichotomies of class, economy, and environment. What color
> someone might be is almost moot.
>    And the whole subject is absolutely irrelevant to the subject of
> permaculture, although I guess you could make an argument that
> permaculture is inherently racist since it discriminates against various
> species in favor of other species. Or is that speciest?

Wow. This thread could turn into a busy and likely heated discussion. I hope
that anyone entering this discussion take a moment to consider the
ramifications of their statements, especially if it is a broad generalization.

May I cautiously suggest that racism "seems" irrelevant if you are not on the
losing end of the conflict. A person's social and economic class and the
quality of one's environment is often determined by one's race. My privileges,
opportunities and and ability to live in a healthy environment were initially
determined by being born into a white, North American middle-class family. No
corporation chose to build an incinerator near my home, dig a mine under my
land, or restrict my liberties or political voice because my family came from
a demographic that can exert power to protect its interests. My expectations
of what I could be fit within societies expectations for a well-educated white
man. My family's roots reach back into a history the gave them some advantages
based on race. The fact that in 2008 I call myself "white" rather than "Irish"
demonstrates the importance race played in the assimilation of an outsider
group into American society.

No African-American can easily claim the privilege that I took for granted for
most of my life. Every stinkin' day society's "others" encounter concrete
examples of how the invisible structures of racism limit their access to
resources, opportunity, clean air, water, food, etc.

Honestly, I don't know why someone would post on this subject if they don't
know the ethics of permaculture or the difference between racism and
"specieism(?)"

Yes of course the survival of our species is at stake. But the racist's
approach to resource depletion and toxic poisoning is to decide who gets
access to life's needs and who will be left out. It is the racists that assume
that the other is not of the same species.

Permaculture has ethics. It is not racist. It calls for design that meets the
needs of the earth, the expressed needs of humans, and use of surplus to
further meet the needs of both the earth and humanity.

We live in a mostly industrial society where those who engage in the
extraction of resources experience the most injustice. Often these people are
largely or somewhat determined by their race.

Unless one lives in an ethnically homogeneous society I don't see how one
could come to the conclusion that race does not matter. Look at any country
that has engaged in imperialism or has been conquered by imperialist and you
will likely find racial or ethnic divisions that are manifested in how much
access to resources and power each has. Class does not cancel out the racial
analysis, but rather is part of it.

Human society may be going to hell in a hand basket, but the human race will
continue to live, even if with much less of us and much less resources. If the
racists had their way it would be "their" population.

I would cautiously make the case that to argue that racism is moot means that
the proponent of the argument is white, privileged, and in an industrialized
nation without any other ethnic population in their daily life. They may also
be in deep denial about the experiences of two-thirds of the world.

The ice caps are melting, resources are disappearing, hunger, famine and war
are looming large. Is your solution (or lifeboat) big enough to allow all
races to participate (or jump on board?) To deny that race will affect how
some people will answer the question(s) may be ignorant enough to give room to
racial supremacists who have their answers.

I have plenty to say about this dismissive attitude towards racism, but I
don't have the time. In a few minutes I'll return to that hallways of the
school I teach in. I'll walk past the lunch room where black and white
teenagers sit at separate tables because the don't trust each other after
generations of racist violence has become steeped into their culture and still
young lives. I fill my cup of coffee in the faculty room. The invisible
structures of the society that exported the coffee (in this case Latin
America) means that indigenous people likely harvested the beans for pennies a
pound while mostly European owners reaped profits. I'll hear a teacher exclaim
their surprise that Johnny can read because he doesn't seem like the school
"type" (in other words, he is black). My class will begin and I'll look at a
student who has been kicked out of home because she is dating a black guy
(never mind whether he is an honor student or a future drop out.)

Permaculture should be exceptionally concerned about racism because like many
other laudable endeavors (like public education) race will enter the equation.
As we design solutions we must first assess the landscape and that includes
the social landscape and invisible social structures that create beneficial
connections and opportunities or limiting factors.

As soon as we say, as permaculturists, that "Racism is essentially irrelevant
at this point" we are delivering a clear message to those who suffer at the
hands of prejudice and racism. I refute that message and assert that the needs
of society must be met through both sustainable and just systems.

-Michael Burns


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Michael Burns
http://www.cayuta.org
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Earn your permaculture design certificate.
The Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute
offers affordable local classes.
http://www.fingerlakespermaculture.org
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>
>
> rafter@liberationecology.org wrote:
>> Thanks to Ben for calling that one.
>>
>> Briefly:
>>
>> Y'all know how there is a cutting edge, a sort of global best-
>> practices conversation, about ecological design? And we are all
>> pretty excited about it, and how it's called permaculture? And how
>> it's not homogenous at all, but how even with all the differences of
>> opinion that run though it, it's still identifiable and coherent and
>> more-or-less the best thing going in terms of ecological design?
>>
>> Well, that sort of conversation exists for issues besides ecological
>> design. There is also, for example, a conversation just like that,
>> but about racial and ethnic relationships. This one is called anti-
>> racism (though you might hear it called critical race theory, in
>> certain circles, or some other variant.)
>>
>> In this conversation, racism is defined as "power plus prejudice." So
>> it's not just about your attitudes, conscious or not, or even your
>> actions - it's also defined by social context of those attitudes and
>> actions.
>>
>> If this seems like an exciting, or confusing, or infuriating, idea, a
>> great entry point to understand it better is the short,
>> conversational, funny book by Tim Wise called "White Like Me."
>>
>> So, just a few short principles that come out of the anti-racism
>> conversation:
>>
>> * No one is "colorblind," even if that were an appropriate response
>> to a racially divided caste society - which it ain't.
>> * Unconscious prejudice affects our experience of the world, all of
>> us - and it is measurable:
>>              see for yourself at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
>> * Explaining one's racially charged remarks as reason, logic, or
>> common sense doesn't make you not racist.
>> * Having non-white genes in your heritage doesn't make you not racist
>> - particularly if you are "read" as white in your public life.
>> * Having non-white friends *definitely* doesn't make you not racist.
>> * If you think you are racist, you're almost certainly right.
>> * If you are white, and think you aren't racist, you are almost
>> certainly wrong.
>> * None of these things make white people not racist, or disprove the
>> existence of white supremacy:
>>      * Listening to music by non-white artists
>>      * Getting pulled over by a non-white cop
>>      * Making white-people jokes
>>          * Seeking out spiritual guidance from non-white people
>>      * Claiming  "logical self-interest" or variations on that theme
>>      * Being progressive, bohemian, radical, green, anti-authoritarian, 
>> etc.
>>      * Being poor, being a woman, being LGBTQ, being disabled, etc.
>>
>> Permaculture, as a movement, as a community that is trying hard to
>> help save this big complex world we live in, will grow more effective
>> and more powerful as we learn to learn from this other best-practices
>> community.
>>
>> rafter t. sass
>> The Liberation Ecology Project
>> liberationecology.org
>> 518-567-7407
>> skype: raughter
>>
> --
> Harmon Seaver
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