there's no satisfaction in being right about the boat sinking when you are also on the boat, never mind below decks, with no hope of a rescue. I don't like smugly saying I Told You So because despite being ardent and vocal and pushing for strategies to mitigate climate change, my people are still dying. Black and Indigenous people in the United States and Canada are nearly always right when it comes to how we navigate disasters collectively, and they're never listened to except for after the fact (usually when its too late!! Huh! Wonder why that is!)
Folks want a quote from a Black or Indigenous person for their blog, but they don't wanna change their environments or GOD FORBID their consumer habits, even as the oceans rise to your door and the wildfires and logging bring down every old-growth forest.
(the history you cut out and paste into your cutesy little Revolutionary Scrapbook is still happening and still being made, btw. Your actions are part of it.)
anyway. I'm sitting here under a pungent yellow sky and aching for my people and the forests of Ontario. The Namaygoosisagagun First Nation (Collins First Nation, for the colonizers) fled on boats while the trees next to their houses burned. Thunder Bay is full of displaced Indigenous peoples trying to breathe with air full of ash. Gayaashki-zaagiing Anishinaabeg (Gull Bay First Nation, again, for You Folks) peoples were ordered to evacuate in the middle of the night and were just told there are no accommodations for them, now that they've escaped. Thousands of people scrambling for protection and safety, while a bunch of white colonizers complain about the smell of smoke.
None of this is new. It's all a very old song.
But, as my mother would say, the drums will get louder and louder until you listen.
