permaculture

[Kelda Lorax <kelda@riseup.net>]

I'm not sure I can address everything, and also had the unfortunate 
experience of almost finishing this email before my finger slipped and 
it all deleted, but:

Lawrence and Darrel, there could possibly be a non-racist white person 
who grows up in a diverse community in the woods and never encounters 
books, images, magazines, movies, or walks through any kind of public 
place. I see racism dripping from all of those things. As a white mother 
I desperately don't want my child to be racist, but she is, as I am. 
Knowing that we're swallowing culture with all its training is the only 
way to pick out and address how that training is deficient.

I also think you're confusing 'racist' with 'bigot'. Racism is also 
indifference, omission, assumptions about the frame of 'we' we're seeing 
in the moment, etc.

Cris, it sounds like you're doing a lot to address equity. Can you be 
doing more? Yes. The video for example, yeah, you did the best you could 
at the time, but do we have a need in the permaculture movement to 
address the gaping hole of cultural appropriation? Yes. What if your 
email wasn't about resistance, but about how we make it more possible to 
do less appropriation?

Jason, I believe in a prior email you talked about ollas and stated the 
impossibility of acknowledging all our permaculture techniques. Why? 
People want to research aspects of permaculture all the time. Could we 
garner the energy to have an addendum to each permaculture module that 
acknowledges and empowers the source communities to the best of our 
ability? Yes.

I'm just not impressed that Tobias article was so poorly received on 
this list, after all it was a second article with solutions! What if our 
response as a movement was eager for critique about our social justice 
lens? Instead what I see here is an example of white fragility. THAT is 
what we need to get over.

We have a lot of things to take heat over. And true, Tobias' article 
might be lacking in some info that it would make it more well informed. 
But,I think we need to welcome more critiques, not shun them. 
Self-regulate and accept feedback, right? Maybe Tobias' comments weren't 
taken well because he doesn't know as much about permaculture. Then take 
it from me. I also don't like permaculture as a means of colonizing the 
two-thirds world, or cultural appropriation, or inherent bias towards 
white males. And I know from personal experience droves of people of 
color who only see those things about us and can't see any good we might 
have.

Critique me anytime.
Too bad this link didn't work for you but it works fine for me 
http://www.divinearthgp.com/positionality (it's a fairly new website 
update, that might be the problem)

Kelda Lorax
(living in Oklahoma, though most of my work and trainings have been in 
the PNW)



On 2017-04-29 11:15, Jason Gerhardt wrote:
> I wish to say this also. It's a very confusing and difficult world.
> Considering the state of it, it should be, as I think Kelda was saying,
> otherwise we'd be complacent and therefore complicit. I think most
> permaculturists want to respect each other and want all our sisters and
> brothers to be free, as well as be free ourselves, whoever we are. 
> We're
> just not so sure how to get there all the time. I don't feel like I 
> have
> all the answers to that, but I do feel capable of recognizing what the
> answers aren't sometimes. This was a big part of my objection to 
> Tobias'
> article. The other parts of my objection were that I didn't find the
> accusations fit the work I do under the permaculture moniker or the 
> great
> majority of my permaculture friends work, so I felt the need to stand 
> firm.
> The last part of my objection is his choosing to go after permaculture
> itself. Most of my work these days is in worlds that are not familiar 
> with
> permaculture. I don't think it's fair to have someone so uninformed 
> about
> permaculture putting a cast on the term on a popular website without
> research or even specific examples that pass any kind of muster. I 
> think
> permaculturists have done better than this article paints them, put 
> simply.
>
> I wish to have some compassion in my response as I know where this 
> author
> is at. It's hard to know what to do, and he's just choosing a 
> particularly
> popular response and I can't blame him for that as I've found myself 
> there
> at times too. There are better tools and lenses than he is using though 
> and
> we have to be willing to dig deeper to find them, not just flip to an
> opposite polarity out of angst.
>
> Jason
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 6:23 PM, Kelda Lorax <kelda@riseup.net> wrote:
> >
> > > I love that he wrote this article, and the last one. I put a link to 
> > > it
> > > on my (permaculture design) website along with the positionality
> > > perspectives I wish other permaculture practitioners can articulate.
> > > http://divinearthgp.com/positionality.
> > >
> > > Getting called out on our stuff sucks, but feels good, because we 
> > > become
> > > better people and it makes our movement better. Both Jason and Chris 
> > > sound
> > > like you're listing to us all the reasons you're not that kind of 
> > > gringo.
> > > Okay, but I'm happy to say I AM the kind of gringo that thought all 
> > > of his
> > > complaints were okay until I was called out for not having a better 
> > > social
> > > justice lens, and now I think they're not okay. (One of the first 
> > > steps in
> > > anti-racism trainings is to realize that all white people are racist
> > > because we've been trained to be that way. To deny our training is 
> > > just to
> > > delay our inner work that could actually help to fix the problem).
> > >
> > > About cultural appropriation specifically, I think PDCs (which do
> > > admittedly work well for certain parts of the world and people) need 
> > > very
> > > much an acknowledgement of where our techniques come from. 
> > > Additionally we
> > > need a fundraising 'pass the hat' with each module (or as a 
> > > percentage of
> > > the course) to help those communities that developed awesome 
> > > techniques
> > > self-actualize with whatever negative impacts they're currently 
> > > facing
> > > under colonization. I want my students to be just as well-versed with 
> > > the
> > > struggles of those communities now as they are with how the technique 
> > > can
> > > work in their garden. And because I'm white, I go through every 
> > > module
> > > thinking of who in my community, that has experience of being a 
> > > person of
> > > color, could teach the module better than me, and I 'step back' as 
> > > much as
> > > possible.
> > >
> > > We white permies need to be okay getting called out, and I daresay, 
> > > like
> > > it, if we want other white communities/regions/political parties to 
> > > be able
> > > to do it too. Otherwise it's just an irrelevant garden and another 
> > > white
> > > person causing trauma to brown people.
> > >
> > > Kelda Lorax
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 2017-04-27 13:57, Jason Gerhardt wrote:
> > >
> > > > Christopher, thank you for responding to this. I thought of your 
> > > > work
> > > > immediately, though I was unaware of your history with the author. 
> > > > He has
> > > > done zero research, as you point out, other than surface scans of 
> > > > things.
> > > > He seems more trying to act out the popular social justice angst of 
> > > > the
> > > > times so he could get whatever little fee Huff Po paid him for this
> > > > article. His title is also extremely broad and his article extremely
> > > > limited, and the whole thing does damage to permaculture, which does 
> > > > an
> > > > incredible amount of good on the earth.
> > > >
> > > > Things I question from this article:
> > > >
> > > > On Cultural Appropriation. Where do we draw the line between 
> > > > cultural
> > > > appropriation and cultural exchange? I was once criticized by a 
> > > > white
> > > > woman
> > > > for using clay ollas in my university greenhouse as cultural
> > > > appropriation.
> > > > She said it was an indigenous  technique and I shouldn't use them 
> > > > without
> > > > crediting the Hopi with a sign (why she settled on Hopi people I 
> > > > don't
> > > > know). When I asked her if I shouldn't also credit North African's 
> > > > and
> > > > the
> > > > Spanish, who brought the technique to the US Southwest, she had no
> > > > answer.
> > > > People live on the surface, especially nowadays with social media 
> > > > and
> > > > character limits/attention span limits. It's disappointing.
> > > > Permaculturists
> > > > probably haven't given enough credit to traditional peoples for some 
> > > > of
> > > > the
> > > > techniques we recommend, or for the paradigm, but even that credit 
> > > > seems
> > > > like a general form at best. This is a tricky subject when applied 
> > > > with a
> > > > deep look.
> > > >
> > > > Permaculture Demographics. Are we sure it's predominately white 
> > > > male?
> > > > Permaculture authors, it seems that's true, and surely it's true for
> > > > youtube permaculture, but that's not the claim he made, nor
> > > > representative
> > > > of the global demographic of practitioners. Personally speaking, 
> > > > I've had
> > > > the same amount of female permaculture mentors, teachers, and 
> > > > co-teachers
> > > > in my nearly 15 years in the field as I've had male, and while that 
> > > > may
> > > > not
> > > > be representative, it's my experience nonetheless. I can also say 
> > > > I've
> > > > had
> > > > far more female students than men. The white part of this claim is
> > > > probably
> > > > true, but globally I'd be curious to see data before making that 
> > > > claim,
> > > > and
> > > > regardless, his article does absolutely nothing to address the real
> > > > injustices that exist.
> > > >
> > > > On making a living as a teacher. Well, I'm glad I don't, but not for 
> > > > the
> > > > reasons he suggests. I don't see how I could be a teacher only 
> > > > without
> > > > also
> > > > being a designer and agriculturist, and for that matter a social
> > > > activist.
> > > > However, his claim is that courses cost too much, the PDC should be
> > > > abandoned (I'm not even gonna address this), and only white people 
> > > > take
> > > > them. The last claim is just rubbish, and demeaning to many of my
> > > > students
> > > > of color. That said, I took exception to the cost issue because 
> > > > judging
> > > > by
> > > > the date of the article a course I taught in Costa Rica was probably 
> > > > in
> > > > his
> > > > sample size. I think he should go to the campesino refugee camp of
> > > > Salvadorans and Nicaraguans this course was taught in, at their 
> > > > request,
> > > > and tell them that the nearly $15k we left in the community 
> > > > shouldn't
> > > > have
> > > > happened, and that the international students who brought in that 
> > > > money
> > > > should feel bad about their privilege.
> > > >
> > > > On pedagogy. He claims traditional people can't learn from power 
> > > > point
> > > > and
> > > > lecture. LMFAO. He should keep telling people what they can and 
> > > > can't do,
> > > > it looks excellent.
> > > >
> > > > In short, popular culture is lost. Don't trust everything you read 
> > > > and
> > > > hear. Dig deeper than the surface.
> > > >
> > > > Two recommendations for decolonizing your mind (which is actually 
> > > > the
> > > > culprit here, not permaculture): Raoul Peck's film I Am Not Your 
> > > > Negro
> > > > based upon James Baldwin's work, and Wendell Berry's book The Art of 
> > > > the
> > > > Commonplace.
> > > >
> > > > Please, please, please dig deep in this life,
> > > > Jason
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