I hold no brief for the Sierra Club, the largest of the corporate environmentalist
groups. But the 40% vote for the anti-immigrant rule is not completely reflective of
their membership. From what I understand there was a massive last minute purchase
of memberships by right wing groups to push for this initiative. (Anyone can join
the Sierra Club.) As David Browder proved, your fundamental point is correct --
there is massive racism within mainstream environmentalism.
Nathan Newman wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> >The business about
> >identifying with the African-Americans in the jazz club who implicitly view
> >Earth Day as a "white thing" is really key to the book, since he regards
> >any environmental struggle _outside_ of the framework of racial minorities
> >and the like as a diversion and a trap.
>
> I will have to read Harvey's book, but this commentary is hardly from some
> abstract free-floating theoretical position, but is the bread-and-butter view of
> the growing environmental justice movement. Early in the 1990s, the national
> network of toxic waste advocates broke apart largely over the fact that
> environmentalism was being discussed outside the framework of race dynamics.
> The result of those race-free approaches was that environmental regulations give
> white elite communities plenty of power to kick toxics out of their community -
> NIMBYism - without regard to the fact that the toxics then inevitably get
> concentrated in poor, usually non-white communities. The new environmental
> justice networks, like the Southwest Network for Environmental Justice, created
> new approaches that tied the concerns of working class non-white communities to
> environmental advocacy.
>
> The Sierra Club with its recent vote around immigration illustrated the
> intertwining of environmental and race issues quite dramatically. The
> anti-immigrant proposition was classic NIMBYism: keep the US population down so
> our trees and our rivers can avoid straining their "carrying capacity" without
> regard to how poverty and misery in the third world will be effected by such
> anti-immigrant environmentalism. I was happy that 60% of Sierra Club members
> voted against the proposition, but the fact that 40% voted for it shows an
> incredible level of racism and NIMBYism in the mainstream environmental
> movement.
>
> It's funny; a professor I know here at Berkeley who studied under Harvey made
> fun of him for that fact that Harvey was too political, that Harvey spent many
> weekends with a staple gun in hand putting up posters for rallies. This
> professor, who loved radical Marxist geographic theory, was somewhat embarassed
> that his mentor actually got his hands dirty doing plebian political work,
> rather than just being a sophisticated talking head commentator.
>
> Just on that "recommendation", I've always harbored a certain admiration for
> Harvey without having met him. Anyone with tenure who still handles a staple
> gun is alright in my book :)
>
> --Nathan Newman
