Uncle Bruce Shillingsworth spoke at Going Gone, a poetry reading and exhibition at Articulate Project Space, Sydney Australia, to mark Lost Species Day 2019. Bruce is a First Nations artist and rights activist who campaigns for just management of the river system.
The event was organised by Juliet Fowler Smith, Noelene Lucas and Gary Warner.
Transcript:
First Nations people are feeling the brunt of the devastation that’s happening – not just here, but right across the world. First Nation people have lived on this country’s land for thousands and thousands of years. I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation – the custodians of this land. I’d like to acknowledge our Aboriginal brothers and sisters of the past, the present and emerging.
I would like to acknowledge that we now stand on stolen land. First Nation people, like I say, bear the brunt of what’s happening with them – it is our environment, and now a situation that is happening right across the world.
Look, I’m from a liitle place called Brewarrina out in the northwest of New South Wales. Brewarrina is a place where they got the fish traps, the Ngunnhu. Fish traps, stone fish temps, are the oldest man-made structure in the world. It is the oldest – it’s older than the pyramids in Egypt. The pyramids weren’t even built 5000 years ago. So we have a history. We have evidence in this country of the survival of First Nation people.
How do we now survive with the, with the climate change and the changing of our environment, the land we live on? The destructions of the rivers, the extinctions of our animals, and what we relied on for thousands and thousands of years?
Like I said, First Nations people felt the brunt because we have lived with Mother Earth for thousands of years. Mother Earth that sustains us. You know we’re all living in the great circle of life – everything on this earth or on this planet relies on one another. Just like we as First Nations people rely now on non-indigenous people and non-indigenous people rely on First Nations people. I believe that we’re now on a journey. We’re on a journey. We’re on a journey to fix this planet. There is no Planet B – we can’t go anywhere else. We as humans need to live on this one planet together with Mother Nature. We cannot live without Mother Earth because it feeds us, it shelters us, it gives us everything we need.
So then why are we cutting down our trees that gives us oxygen? Why are we polluting the air, polluting our rivers, and putting toxics in our food that we eat? How long do you think we’re going to survive on this planet? They’re only giving us till 2050 – not very long. But we are here. It is our turn, it is our time. We are in a very important time in history. I believe that we are responsible to look after our Mother Earth and nature, the things we live with. If we don’t, we’re going to destroy our lives and our future generation.
Our elders have said to me the land we live on has only been borrowed from our children. How do we give that back to our children? Look at the extinction that’s happened. Australia’s got a record of the most extinct animals in the world. What are we going to do about it? Well I’ll tell you what we’re going to do about it. It’s now time for change. It is time that we’re going to stop the raping of the land, the mining in our countries, the destruction of our rivers and the land. First Nations people are going to now stand up and have their voices heard. First Nations Voice are going to have representatives in all areas of government and in the decisions of this future, of this Australia.
I believe there’s a message: that we’re gonna do it together. It is now time – it is time to change. We will now be the protectors of our lands and our environment. It is us that has the power. It is people power that’s going to change this world. The changes are not going to come from the top – it’s going to come from the bottom like people the likes of yous. From the grassroots level. Change has got to come from the bottom up.
Look, thank you for inviting me. I hope you get another look at some of the artwork, but think about all those living creatures out there – look at the bush fires that are ravaging the land now. Those living creatures are now being destroyed. Look at our rivers that have been dried up – how do you bring back those water creatures? How do you bring back the animals, the birds, to those, to the rivers anymore, when it’s completely gone? Extinct. There’s no life.
Water is life. Water feeds the land, feeds the animals, feeds the birds, feeds all the environment. But look who’s controlling our waters. Look who’s controlling our waters. This is a man-made disaster. This is why our animals are coming extinct. Man is not listening. It is time to change. It is time. Thank you.
by Persephone Pearl, Rachel Porter and Emily Laurens
Please note that we acknowledge the complex structural barriers to inclusion faced by people due to class, ableism, educational and financial privilege, prejudice related to gender and sexuality and so on, but in this article we have chosen to focus on and discuss racism and white privilege as a formative societal influence.
The authors of this essay, the ‘we’ referred to here, are Persephone Pearl, Rachel Porter and Emily Laurens. We are white cisgender British women in our 40s, all educated to university level, all with children, all working in the arts. In 2011 we co-founded an environmental project called Lost Species Day and have dedicated a lot of time and love to the initiative over the years. In more recent years, this energy has become more reflective and critical of the movement and questioning of our work and its place in it. We have written this essay because, aware of the scale and rapidity of environmental degradation and its uneven impacts on people and places, we want to talk about white supremacy and how it plays out in the environmental movement. We hope that it will be useful to anyone concerned about climate and ecological breakdown, wanting to understand the history and drivers of this breakdown, and/or wanting to make links with social and racial justice movements. It is offered as a resource for people restless or dissatisfied with the language and practices of contemporary mainstream environmentalism. It is written in solidarity to frontline environmental and human rights defenders, with love for everyone working for bold action on fossil fuels and extractivism. It is inspired by and arises from ideas, actions, invitations and initiatives by people of colour and Black people.
Remembrance Day for Lost Species (RDLS or Lost Species Day), now in its ninth year, is coming up again on November 30th. It is an unfunded initiative, an invitation to people to hold events exploring biodiversity loss on or around this date each year. It started as a demonstration outside parliament – in May 2010, as part of an overnight climate vigil, a few friends created a pop-up installation of a graveyard for extinct species on a patch of grass opposite the Houses of Parliament. We were fed up with feeling helpless and excluded from environmental policy. We wanted to make work that spoke to the scale of the ecological problems we were witnessing.
After the climate vigil, we made a play, Funeral for Lost Species, in a real graveyard in Brighton. We imagined it was a graveyard for extinct species and that we were a team of celestial funeral directors, responsible for ensuring every species got a suitable send-off, thus ensuring the continuity of existence. It parodied the mainstream environmental movement and articulated Eurocentric culture’s de-sacralising drive, and the clash between science and spirituality in the Eurocentric paradigm. Mostly, though, we were glad to make a space for contemplation of biodiversity loss, and when the project ended we wanted to carry on doing this.
It turned out that some people were making a memorial to extinct species on a hill in Sussex at that time. It felt apt to work with them, to continue exploring how to make rituals for the Anthropocene. We held the first Remembrance Day for Lost Species in November 2011, with a lot of support and interest. A supporter designed us a logo inspired by the extinction symbol, which was based on the image of an hourglass inside the circle of the earth.
RDLS emerged as part of a wave of artist-led projects exploring the theme of mass extinction and collapse in the UK. Something important was being tapped into and explored, but the networks we were aware of consisted largely of white privileged people confronting the failings of capitalism and consumerism without including a proper analysis of the racialised underpinnings and workings of those power structures – an omission that could only come from a lack of awareness or care about how structural racism punishes some and privileges others.
After a few years, we saw that most Lost Species Day events were taking place in Europe and North America, and realised that an initiative like this, despite seeming imperative to us, unless examined, was largely irrelevant, particularly for people who are:
economically marginalised
struggling for survival
on the front lines of climate breakdown
affected by conflict and colonialism
queer and trans people facing hate crimes, and other people facing human rights violations
in prison or at risk of imprisonment
facing persecution by the state and corporations
living lives that are entwined with those of endangered species and places
The list went on. We realised that our purported inclusive approach was in fact exclusionary due to its lack of an analysis of structural racism and classism. All are welcome!, went the cry – but these words, predicated on privilege, were hollow. Rather late in life, we realised that our brand of environmentalism was a product of racial and class privilege – and worse, that its ‘colour blindness’ colluded in the ongoingness of white supremacy. Privilege had led us to assume it was acceptable to focus on biodiversity loss without building this work on a foundation of solidarity and anti-racist practice. But as environmental communicator Susuana Amoah puts it, “white supremacy and colonialism are fundamental causal factors in the climate emergency”.
Might remembrance for lost species contribute to cultural erasure? Arguably, focusing on the stories of extinct species without studying and discussing concomitant harms to people and cultures perpetuates white environmentalism’s huge history of cultural erasure and genocidal acts. Environmentalism is not exempt from racism. We finally recognised the all-subsuming power of whiteness, and the rule of white supremacy as a hegemonic ordering force globally and in our psyches. Canada-based scholar Audra Mitchell’s writing on white tears for extinct species made for reading that was hard but that we were instinctively drawn to. We made commitments to:
turn to Black, indigenous, decolonial and people of colour activists, organisations, artists and academics for wisdom
pay attention to and amplify the voices of the people living through entwined genocides and ecocides
make the links between, rather than separate, the stories of harms to people and non-humans
remember that hurt feelings are not actual injuries, that as the beneficiaries of white supremacy we have a duty to speak and act on racism from our position of safety
ask ourselves daily, as scholar Imani Robinson invites us to, What are we going to do today to create the world we want to live in?
On Extinction Rebellion
We have watched Extinction Rebellion grow without building a critique of white supremacy into its central environmental messaging or organising structure. As part of a strategy that uses the rhetoric of emergency to reach the mainstream, this has been amazingly successful, and XR have done what they set out to do in terms of shifting the Overton Window on the climate emergency, and creating a mass movement – a colossal and vital achievement at a time when the speed of environmental change is escalating dizzyingly. There are doubtless many committed people working hard within Extinction Rebellion to address structural racism in its language and tactics, and to articulate a language of solidarity with impacted communities. But their efforts are not reflected in the public demands or practices of the organisation, which adopts – or co-opts – the tactics of the Civil Rights movement whilst maintaining majority white leadership, pro-police politics, and no demands or strategy for dismantling structural racism. Its language of emergency trumps inclusivity of process and depth of listening.
Black Lives Matter UK (BLMUK) / Wretched of the Earth (WOTE) activist Joshua Virasami describes the historic and contemporary lack of connection between animal rights / environmental activism and human rights / social justice movements as “tragic”, and invites neighbourliness and the centring of solidarity and inclusion as core practices in environmental action. When white people turn up they can have a massive impact. White people in the UK are the demographic majority, with confidence born of freedom from exposure to micro-aggressions, fear of false accusations, arrest, overt violence, risk of death and countless disadvantages due to systemic racism. This and other aspects of privilege are very useful in service to justice. As of yet, too little support has been lent to the efforts of movements led by people on the front lines of environmental disaster, surviving multiple apocalypses over centuries of colonialism and exploitation. The ongoing disconnection from, and failure to honour, these movements is due to structural racism and internalised white supremacy, invisible to the beneficiaries, ruinous for the survivors and the victims.
The mass silence and large absence of white people from movements that integrate work for racial justice does everyone a disservice. Without the warping lens of racism, it is obvious that movements for social change must centre and be led by those who are most affected, like the Civil Rights movement, Black Lives Matter and countless campaigns by frontline environmental protectors. The people most vulnerable to harms are the people most knowledgeable about those harms, experientially as opposed to ideologically. The white-dominated environmental movement must learn from other parts of the movement. It must centre and amplify the voices and perspectives of people with direct lived experience of climate-related harms.
XR is an infant movement that has become powerful very quickly, with the help of a lot of funding and influential supporters. Its senior team needs to move quickly to incorporate a commitment to racial justice within its practice and core demands. A movement that ignores or minimises its responsibility to address white supremacy risks:
Alienating diverse cultural groups and struggling to make up this lost ground later
Overshadowing and potentially diverting funding and support from pre-existing work by other activist groups
Intensifying danger for minority groups, as the absence of non-white perspectives in organising spaces creates more space for negative projections. Messages about scarcity and lack can feed prejudice about Black people and people of colour as ‘foreigners’ and ‘others’, and increase abuse and violence.
Perhaps most significantly, actions by an environmental movement that does not address racism can generate a false sense of hope. Campaigns that do not incorporate social justice as foundational will not change the system in the likely event of inadequate governmental action on climate breakdown. Arguably, Extinction Rebellion’s politics and structures reproduce the racism on which capitalism depends. To quote Wretched of the Earth:
“Climate change has not happened by a sequence of small missteps; the economic structures that dominate us have been brought about by ongoing colonial projects whose sole purpose is the pursuit of domination and profit. For centuries, racism, sexism and classism have been necessary for this system to be upheld, and have shaped the conditions we find ourselves in.”
Social justice must be the backbone of the environmental movement
With a focus on quality of process rather than the default white activist mode of urgency and panic comes curiosity, and a stepping-back from righteous anger into more reflective modalities that unpick assumptions about how to make change. Adrienne maree brown’s work on Emergent Strategy is inspiring here.
Having explored some of the ways in which white people use structural power consciously and unconsciously to ignore, undermine and erase initiatives led by Black people and people of colour, let’s explore how white people can consciously and strategically utilise racial privilege to serve and give power to frontliners. A few questions for campaigns and projects:
Are there already existing Black, indigenous and people of colour-led initiatives doing similar work to the project you are undertaking? Could you be putting your energy, time, platforms, money and other resources into their cause? Or at least listening to their advice? If not, why not? Suzanne Dhaliwal has written extensively about this.
Are your strategies adding to threats to the safety of people of colour? Do they support migrant solidarity? Are they inclusive? Who do they exclude, and how?
Who is on the front lines of your efforts? Where are they in your movement? Are their voices audible? Are they part of the leading team? If not, how might you work to change this?
Making space for lost species: remembering extinct species, cultures and places
These questions bring us back to Lost Species Day, and how and whether to move forward with it. Can this project be decolonised, or do its roots in white privilege mean that it’s conceptually too flawed to ever be truly anti-racist? We don’t know yet, but we pledge to:
Research our ancestors’ relationships with the places where we live, and use RDLS as a way to reconnect with our local ecosystem
Use RDLS as an educational opportunity for people who want to learn more about the reality of accelerating global biodiversity collapse through an anti-racist lens
Promote RDLS as a space for emotional engagement with the devastating effects of colonialism and the extinction and climate crises
Offer resources and service to Black and people of colour-led activist groups born from a drive for justice, doing explicitly decolonial and anti-racist work. For example, Black Lives Matter UK , Wretched Of The Earth.
We hope – and we would welcome others’ views on this – that a recurring day of ecological and bio-cultural remembrance can be of service and of social relevance at this time of multitudinous apocalypses and structural harms. It can:
Make spaces for remembering histories that are at continual risk of erasure and being forgotten
Offer a way for nature lovers into conversation about racism and its links with environmental harms
Offer space for exploring the concept of DIY rituals, and encouragement for people attempting the work of connection whilst being conscious of colonialism and cultural appropriation
Articulate the importance of the work of facing the grief of ecological severance, and make links between this and the grief of inhabiting inherited structures of white supremacy
Point towards possibilities for personal, interpersonal and cultural healing
Articulate the fact that all people and beings constitute a living connected system – there is no ‘other’.
We have removed the original Lost Species Day logo from the RDLS platforms because of its visual connection with the extinction symbol which is now synonymous with Extinction Rebellion. We are grateful to N.Puttapipat and Matt Stanfield for allowing us to use their logo while we explore possibilities for a new logo that better articulates our aspiration that Lost Species Day emphasises the interconnectedness of extinct and critically endangered species, cultures and ecological communities, and promotes the message that whilst these losses are rooted in violent and discriminatory governing practices, the day provides an opportunity for participants to make or renew commitments to all who remain.
Persephone Pearl
Rachel Porter
Emily Laurens
October 20th 2019
With many thanks to colleagues and Lost Species Day project supporters who have advised on and helped edit this essay
This article and image are reproduced with the author’s permission from Terra Incognita Media. The piece was published there in March 2019.
It’s Actually Not Complicated At All
“Separate the art from the artist.” “Everybody is complicated.” “They were a product of their time.” “He was a complicated guy.” “It’s complicated.”
These comments come up frequently when we talk about the truth of those who our society have lauded and held in high esteem as heroes or geniuses. These are all white-centring sentiments that are triggered by white fragility. We see this trend of protecting men like John Muir, Louis C.K., or Harvey Weinstein, or Edward Abbey, or Charles Bukowski, to name only a few, yet I could go on — forever — because the list of white men who abuse their power is exhaustive and exhausting. To know that these men write our history, decide what is included in a “canon” of literature, is deeply, painfully, exhausting because it skews the past to plow a narrative fit for ongoing colonization, and allows white men to keep hoarding power. Uplifting these men as “heroes” and exclusively shelving their stories, excludes and discounts the myriad lived experiences and perspectives of womxn, femmes, trans, non-binary folx, Black, Indigenous, People of Color who were contemporaries of these men, and who would tell you a very different story.
“Rethink the Wild” is IWH’s t-shirt and awareness campaign. The t-shirt illustration is a classic image of Muir sitting, one leg crossed over the other, leaning over his walking stick, but this time with bloody hands, and a quote that reads, “A strangely dirty and irregular life these dark-eyed, dark-haired, half-happy savages lead in this clean wilderness.”
When preparing to go public with this illustration, Jolie Varela, the founder of Indigenous Women Hike, dealt with a lot of anxiety and stress, due to the inevitable backlash from those who prefer to keep things hushed when it comes to the impacts of ongoing colonization, and the way in which our environmental “heroes” play a huge role. Varela shared the illustration with this caption:
“The Wilderness Act of 1964 defines wilderness as ‘an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is absent.’ The American idea of wilderness did not exist, it had to be created.
Indigenous people have always been a part of the land. We’ve always existed in spaces that American history has written us out of. National Parks were created on Treaty Lands. ‘Great’ American conservationists fought to preserve their idea of wilderness— which meant Indian Removal by any means. This meant dishonoring treaties.
This art is meant to start a conversation. Profits from this shirt design will go toward our efforts to travel with our Indigenous relatives in Peru. In the midst of the government shutdown, National Parks are being desecrated. Indigenous homelands are being desecrated. But is it any wonder when we consider how these lands came to be known as public lands in the first place? To move forward we must acknowledge this sad and violent history. We need to take a deeper look at ‘Great American Heroes’ like John Muir. We must no longer be complicit in the erasure of Native peoples from these spaces. We must Rethink the Wild.”
John Muir visited Ahwahnee (Yosemite) for the first time in 1868, ten years before the Bannock War, which took place in 1878. But when Muir arrived to the Sierras, forced Indigenous removals were already under way and John Muir was aiding and abetting it with his writing. John Muir very much knew that indigenous people were fighting for their lives and being forced into internment camps — what we now call reservations. In John Muir’s case his contemporaries included Sarah Winnemucca, a Northern Paiute author, activist and educator. A couple decades after his first time in the Sierras, “The Soft-Hearted Sioux” written by Zitkala-Sa [aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin] (1876-1938) was published. This story details how indigenous youth were forced to assimilate to white culture and worship Christianity. Zitkala-Sa was very much against the eradication of indigenous culture and language. Harriet Jacobs who wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. In 1868, the same year John Muir first arrived in Ahwahnee (Yosemite Valley), Elizabeth Keckley published her memoir Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. A few years earlier in 1855, Josephine Brown published Biography of an American Bondman, by His Daughter. As an assistant to her father’s extensive anti-slavery activities, Brown’s writing was no doubt crucial in Black liberation and exposing the machinery of white supremacy.
Many like to excuse John Muir as just a “product of his times,” but this comes up short, not only because it’s never acceptable to aid and abet structures of oppression, but also because there were ample people bringing to light the violence of slavery and colonization. John Muir knew what was going on and he didn’t care. This is hard for us white people to accept because it means that we have to not only “Rethink the Wild,” but rethink everything that we believe in and have built our identities around, and maybe even rethink some tattoos we got, or Instagram handles we created. There’s no gentle way around it. Worshipping Muir needs to stop. It’s time to rip the band-aid off.
Who Defines What is “Natural”? Who “Naturally” Belongs?
In Black Faces, White Spaces, Carolyn Finney shares that,
“…we have collectively come to understand/see/envision the environmental debate as shaped and inhabited primarily by white people. And our ability to imagine others is colored by the narratives, images, and meanings we’ve come to hold as truths in relation to the environment….
In the case of race and the environment, it’s not just who we imagine has something valuable to say. These assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions are at the very foundation of our environmental thinking, how we define the ‘environment,’ and how we think of ourselves in relationship with the environment. Who do we see? What do we see?”
White people have always decided what is “natural,” as well as who “naturally” belongs and who doesn’t. John Muir did not do “some powerful work for conservation and parks.” He co-founded the Sierra Club and worked to ensure that Ahwahnee became Yosemite National Park — these structures are tools that maintain power for a few (white people, particularly white men), as well as perpetuate gatekeeping (the practice of limiting and controlling resources). National Parks are active tools in ongoing indigenous genocide.
“For my Indigenous folx, this was an emotional read. I was brought to tears more than a few times. This is obviously a heavy subject but as a Native woman wanting to learn more about ‘American Conservation’ this is a good place to start.
The book is pretty dense, but interesting. Anyone who recreates and visits National Parks needs to read this book. Dispossessing the Wilderness highlights the removal of Natives from Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Parks.”
In Dispossessing the Wilderness, David Spence goes into detail about how the National Parks were marketed and sold to white audiences as vacation spots to “get away from it all.” To get away from, you know, the buzzing, mundane, chaotic, stressful, anxiety-inducing, apocalyptic, capitalist hellhole we created for ourselves — we all need a break sometimes. In order to selfishly save our mental health we created “wilderness” a construct entirely concocted out of the white imagination to rationalize our greed, industrial growth and expansion. “Wilderness” functions as an important tool that was pushed forward by the poster-boys of the romantic period like Thomas Cole, George Catlin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Herman Melville — John Muir loved these guys. They were the architects of what white America salivates over today: idealized uninhabited landscapes.
A Non-Consensual Fantasy
Why this obsession with uninhabited, when uninhabited spaces have never even been a thing? This isn’t the first time we projected this anti-indigenous falsehood. This fantasy extends back to our fantasies of exploration and manifest destiny, when settlers first came to the shores of Turtle Island (what we now call the United States). Because we were feeling the detrimental physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects of capitalism, the gender binary, and our self-imposed oppressive hierarchies, we sought an invention of untouched land that was never actually untouched. But in our twisted white minds we get off on non-consensual fantasies. Intergenerational trauma lives in our bodies because we are the descendants of colonizers and slave-holders — those who imposed the violence of non-consent, or in other words, rape culture. We have inherited the position of the oppressor, which means that we need to seek healing for ourselves and our minds. All white people need to heal from our internalized white supremacy. We are only causing harm to ourselves and others if we are not actively working on this daily.
The Earth doesn’t need “saving” – it needs to be left alone. We need to stop projecting our colonizer narratives onto the Earth and its people. What drives white environmentalism is also what drives the non-profit industrial complex. White people have generational wealth, resources, power, and money, and therefore, the ability to create non-profits under the guise of helping and working towards “sustainability.” But the only thing sustaining is that those who need the resources the most remain in poverty, and those who have the money remain in power. Really, really rich men thrive on the reliance of the poor.
The answer to all of this is not complicated, but quite simple: white people, we need to start giving up our power, doing away with hierarchy in our organizations, and focusing on equitable outcomes for all. This may be a scary idea because it means changing everything about our lives, but it doesn’t have to be scary. Giving up power means being in community with each other, building relationships instead of power dynamics, and ultimately, everyone benefits. The systems as they are now are not healthy for anyone, not even those who benefit from them.
Racism and colonization is an issue that is very much still of our time. Jolie Varela expressed on social media that she wishes more people would “…acknowledge Indigenous people/organizations who are already doing this work, who have been doing this work…As an indigenous woman who still feels the effects of removal brought on by JM and his brand of American Conservation I do not view this as ‘complicated.’ It’s obvious because I see the impacts of this brand of removal every day. It’s not ‘complicated’ it’s messed up. I think addressing this issue as complicated allows people to make excuses for just how uncomplicated it really is. Because then people would have to address their own behavior and their own privilege. And it’s a way to excuse violent behavior.”
Often, White People Wonder, “What Can I do?” So, Here Is What I Do:
As a white woman who wants to end the legacy of harm and violence that I inherited from my ancestors (intentionally or not), I try to constantly confront white supremacy and how it shows up in myself and in my life. I frequently refer to Tema Okun’s list of White Supremacy Culture characteristics to help me locate where and how white supremacy is at play throughout my day and in my thinking, behavior, and actions. I support Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) -led initiatives, organizations, and businesses. When opportunities come my way, I either give it up to a BIPOC, or I look for ways to include, spotlight, or recommend BIPOC to be included if they are not already. I follow, read, and pay for anti-racist education. I understand that anti-racism is a practice, not an identity. This means that I never deny my inherent racism for being raised in a society that conditions me to believe myself superior for my skin color, but I can practice anti-racism to try to prevent myself from causing harm as much as possible.
I don’t write off my friends and family who are resistant to talking about whiteness. I find ways to engage them in conversation about white supremacy and our complicity in it. I step out of my comfort zone and take risks at work in having these conversations because I know, ultimately, the risks are probably in my head, or rather, in my white fragility. I facilitate a series called “Detaching from Whiteness.” I don’t shy away from having these conversations with kids. Not only will they most likely be the most receptive, but it is a moral failing if we don’t talk candidly with children about systems of oppression because this is the world they are inheriting. Often, the kids end up teaching me. I value relationships over profit or social capital, which is the opposite of white supremacy culture. I give my money to people doing the work on the ground. I give my money to those who stand on street corners looking for change because I know it’s going to someone who needs it, not a third-party. I actively work to see myself in others, while honoring, respecting, and acknowledging our difference.
All of this is where I begin.
Erin Monahan is the founder of Terra Incognita Media. She’s a writer, facilitator, and rock climber based in Portland, Oregon. Her writing focuses on detaching from the commitment to the construct of Whiteness. You can follow her on Instagram @erin.k.monahan
Rather than focusing on a particular species story, Remembrance Day for Lost Species (also called Lost Species Day, or RDLS) 2019 invites people to celebrate the ways that humans have named, loved and lived with their human and non-human kin. An aim of Lost Species Day 2019 is to highlight the histories and current importance of indigenous people and traditional cultures as ecological stewards.
The recorded names of now-extinct and endangered species were often given to them as part of the extractive colonial processes that are responsible for ecological crises worldwide. Many of these animals and plants would have had local names already, but what are they? Lost Species Day 2019 may offer participants paths to restorative knowledge and place-based practice through exploration of the local names, stories and knowledge of extinct and endangered species.
There are many different ways to participate – here are a few examples:
Find out about and share stories that are local or relevant to you (eg local names of lost or endangered species)
Make art
Host a ceremony or event
Research your indigenous language/s
Learn about the languages of animals and plants
Additionally, on days before or after RDLS, organise or participate in personally and collectively restorative activities (e.g. beach and waterway cleans, tree planting, gardening with pollinators and soil in mind).
Or do whatever you prefer. Please contact us to let us know your plans, and we will add them to the map of events.
Let us know if you hold an event, and we can help promote it
Document your event and share any images, text etc with us via Twitter or Instagram @lostspeciesday, or email us. Use the hashtags #lostspeciesday, #lostspeciesday2019 and #originalnames
We also welcome blog posts for this website.
About Remembrance Day for Lost Species
Remembrance Day for Lost Species, November 30th, is a chance each year to explore the stories of extinct species. These stories lead to the stories of critically endangered species, ways of life, and ecological communities. Set up in 2011 in response to species extinctions resulting from human activity, Lost Species Day is an opportunity to make or renew commitments to all who remain and to collaborate on creative and practical solutions. The primary intention of the day is to create spaces for grieving and reflection. Previous activities have included art, processions, tree planting, building Life Cairns, bell casting and ringing, Regenerative Memorials and more. Explore this website for examples of past events.
Lost Species Day is a voluntary initiative supported by a loose collective of artists, activists and charitable organisations.
