“I am first of all grateful that you have survived to yet shout one more day in the face of all theft. I am in awe of how you look power right in the eye with the gall of what you know, need, and remember. I know our reparations will come from your leadership. Your wounds and their wisdom. Your knowledge of teeth. Your brave associations. Do you hear me screaming beside you? Stay close.” – Alexis Pauline Gumbs on dolphins in Undrowned, “be fierce” (p. 76)
Abstract(ish): I believe Black women will save the world because liberation for us requires liberation for all. Black and Indigenous women globally are on the frontlines of the environmental justice movement. Their activism is an additional set of labor that they do in addition to working, being mothers, and maintaining a personal life. Intersectional environmentalism and ecofeminism(s) establishes that this is one way that women of color environmental activists differ from ‘traditional’ or white ecofeminists. We know that women of color are strong; their efforts to protect their environments results in a 24/7 hour job dedicated to activism, and yet their work goes unnoticed. What happens when these women take off their capes at night? What are the consequences–good and bad, of this extensive labor? What are the consequences of Black women environmental activists always having to be strong and brave? How can Black feminist lessons from Undrowned be useful to Black women environmental activists who believe they cannot take a moment to breathe because they must fight for their community to have the ability to do so? I will explore these questions alongside Megan thee Stallion’s recent ELLE magazine article where she speaks for the first time about the public vitriol she experienced after revealing she was shot by a fellow male rapper. This article, when examined with an Ecofeminist lens, explains the plight of Black women environmental activists and the effects this activism may have on their mental health.
Women of color environmental activists are on the frontlines of the environmental justice movement fight for the right for their communities to live, however this fight comes with a heavy emotional, as well as physical, burden that is exacerbated by the fact that their work has real life consequences; we cannot ignore the weight they carry so that us and their communities can survive. Through analyzing Megan Thee Stallion’s ELLE interview with an ecofeminist lens alongside Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Undrowned we can learn to understand the magnitude of this work and also how activists can cope in these unbreathable circumstances.
Ecofeminism(s) "establishes that there is a clear connection between the treatment of the bodies of women, the enslaved, the disabled, and the racialized, and the treatment of lands, animals, and plants", all of which are subject to exploitation as “naturalized terrains of experimentation or conquest."1 We use the plural because ecofeminism (singular) was created for and by white middle-class women who did not understand the additional struggle and oppression women of color environmental activist experience as a result of being both a woman and, for example, Black. You see, Black women environmental activists do not solely work to eradicate the oppression they experience from men, they also seek to expel racialized oppression, which opens the door to numerous other social justice issues (for example education) that intersect with class as well. All these identity intersections–race, class, gender, ability, dictate what kind of environment we have access to. The environmental justice movement identifies that it is usually predominantly Black and brown low income communities that are disproportionately targeted by polluting industries. Black women, who are historically caretakers of their communities, noticed this and fought back to protect their children and their environments.
The reason I connect Megan Thee Stallion’s interview with ELLE to Black women environmental activists is because of the line presented by Dorceta Taylor in “Women of Color, Environmental Justice, and Ecofeminism”, that reads as follows, “Some womanists also associate the domination and destruction of nature with the abuse of black women’s bodies” (Taylor, 62). Megan Thee Stallion was shot by Tory Lanez, her one time friend, and after the incident he proceeded to mock and criticize Megan online–even though she didn’t initially come forward and say that he shot her. Megan experienced abuse from her attacker, from men and some women in the industry, and from ignorant people online who see nothing wrong with violence against Black women and aiding in said violence. Megan Thee Stallion experienced this because she is a woman and experienced this degree of dehumanization because she is Black. This does not differ from the violence women of color experience as a result of environmental injustice and fighting against that injustice. In Latin America, Indigenous women environmental defenders are murdered at the highest rates in the world for fighting against large mining or dam companies. According to Defending Tomorrow, a report on threats against environmental defenders globally, in 2019 two hundred and twelve environmental defenders were murdered in Latin America; 1 in 10 defenders killed were women.2 Additionally, Black & Indigenous women activists are threatened by larger entities–these entities use various forms of intimidation or attempt to discredit them. In comparison, Megan thee Stallion was told that she was lying about getting shot. She says,
“First, there were conspiracy theories that I was never shot. Then came the false narratives that my former best friend shot me. Even some of my peers in the music industry piled on with memes, jokes, and sneak disses, and completely ignored the fact that I could have lost my life. Instead of condemning any form of violence against a woman, these individuals tried to justify my attacker’s actions” (ELLE).
The justification of violence is common in environmental racism. Communities that are targets of environmental racism are deemed as sacrifice zones; the pollution, contaminated water, and hazardous industries are justified because the people of color in these communities are considered disposable. Megan Thee Stallion’s shooting is yet another example of how society justifies violence–physical and emotional, towards Black women and Black populations. Violence against the women of color who fight against toxic corporations is completely ignored and justified.
Continuing, Megan expresses sympathy for all Black women who are told they are lying when they come out about abuse. She says,
“But my heart hurts for all the women around the world who are suffering in silence, especially if you’re a Black woman who doesn’t appear as if she needs help. So many times, people looked at me and thought, “You look strong. You’re outspoken. You’re tall. You don’t look like somebody who needs to be saved.” They assumed that, per preconceived stigmas, “I didn’t fit the profile of a victim,” and that I didn’t need support or protection.
I’d like to focus on the last few lines of that quote because it demonstrates a possible problem I see with Black women and women of color being the ones on the frontline of the environmental justice movement. Black women and women of color are on the frontlines of the environmental justice movement because they have to be, if they don’t fight for their communities no one else will. Their fight is out of survival, not out of choice. However, because of how they look, whether they are “strong”, “outspoken” or “tall”, they are expected to bear this load with no help. How do we spotlight women who carry the weight of the world on their backs, without dehumanizing them in a way where we view them as superheroes and not as everyday people who need our help. Yes, we should follow the lead of Black and Indigenous women environmental activists because they possess knowledge and lived experience that those who do not fit within these identities will never have, but I worry about the women who are “suffering in silence” because the world thinks they are strong and are leaving all the problem solving up to them.
“Who will carry around the corpse of her [the orca’s] child until her grief has reached another stage? Who will not pretend that her heart is not broken when it is? Do we know how to love a love that huge and unapologetic? Could we learn that?” (Gumbs, 75)
Women of color environmental activists defend their communities and homes out of love. An unconditional, world-changing, never-ending love. Do we know how to love a love that huge and unapologetic? Could we learn that? Will we not ignore the weight of the problem the world has left in their hands?
There is so much pressure that undoubtedly comes with leading a movement and the choices you make having real-life consequences for your community. This differs from white ecofeminists who do not have to fight for the same levels of liberation that ecofeminists of color have to. Dorceta Taylor writes, “one reality that ecofeminists continue to miss is that women of color cannot simply aim their criticisms at patriarchy or at men and cannot seek liberation only for themselves” (Taylor, 63). Additionally, “Women-of color environmental justice activists have to focus on theory and practice with a heavy emphasis on practice. Time is not on their side; they cannot afford to theorize in splendid isolation while the death and devastation continue. The devastation they face is real” (Taylor, 69). When I read this line the first word that came to mind was pressure. That is a lot of pressure to know that these women are working against time, that while yes progress is made everyday that is one more second an incinerator continues to pollute your home, one more second a chemical plant threatens to contaminate your water, one more second mining digs away at your ancestral land.
There is a mental fight that our activists have to tackle alongside the fight for a clean environment. In her ELLE interview, Megan talks about the toll the abuse took on her mental health. She says, “There would be times that I’d literally be backstage or in my hotel, crying my eyes out, and then I’d have to pull Megan Pete together and be Megan Thee Stallion.” I think about the activists I’m familiar with and I wonder if the person they are when they’re in activist mode (if it’s even a mode) aligns with the person their family and friends see. I understand that to lead a movement, or be a public figure like in Megan’s case, that you have to be the face of that movement. People need a story to be moved by, or a face to put to a cause. It’s difficult being both an activist and an ordinary person who has to go to work, deal with family drama, be an aunt, be a mom, be someone outside of the movement. This is what Celene Krauss talks about in “Mothering at the Crossroads”, women of color have to be both mothers, employees, and activists–their activism is what she coined, “the third shift”. Krauss repeats that women of color’s activism is labor, she describes it as environmental labor. However, how can activists grapple with the emotional toll of this labor–or at least supplement it with something grounding.
In her introduction to Undrowned, Alexis Pauline Gumbs dedicates this book to “everyone who knows that a world where queer Black feminine folks are living their most abundant, expressed, and loving lives is a world where everyone is free” (Gumbs, 13). Undrowned is a book of Black feminist lessons from marine mammals. Gumbs combines her love for marine mammals and connects it to guiding meditations of a Black feminist through discussing specific marine mammals, their traits, and how that connects to lessons like rest and setting boundaries. She defines Undrowned as breathing in unbreathable circumstances. She says that,
“Those who survived in the underbellies of boats, under each other under unbreathable circumstances, are the undrowned. Their breathing did not make them individual survivors. It made a context of undrowning. Breathing in unbreathable circumstances is what we still do every day in the chokehold of racial gendered ableist capitalism. We are still undrowning. And this ‘we’ doesn’t only mean people whose ancestors survived the middle passage, because the scale of our breathing is planetary. These meditations inspired by encounters with marine mammals are an offering towards the possibility that instead of continuing the trajectory of slavery, entrapment, separation and domination, and making our atmosphere unbreathable, we might instead practise another way to breathe. And because our marine mammal kindred are amazing at not drowning, they are called on as teachers, mentors, guides."
I am on the leadership team for an environmental justice organization on Swarthmore’s campus called Campus Coalition Concerning Chester, better known as C4. Chester, PA is home to the largest trash incinerator in the United States and is uncoincidentally a predominantly Black and brown community. Sometimes, doing the work of organizing has felt unbreathable. It feels like I’m drowning under the weight of pressure–pressure I’m putting on myself to live up to expectation, but also pressure of worry. Worrying whether enough people will show up to an action or event we planned, worry if people will be receptive to us while canvassing, worry about balancing schoolwork and C4, worry about bringing students into Chester as C4 and making sure we’re all maintaining a non-harmful relationship. While simultaneously not knowing what the polluting industries attacking Chester are going to pull next at any moment. At times it has felt like I am drowning, but the feeling of being under water is never going to stop in a society like this. So, thanks to Alexis Pauline Gumbs, I’ve started to look at the lessons from those who can breathe underwater. I look to them for lessons to save myself, or rather, undrown myself. Because of the way Undrowned has reminded me to listen, breathe, refuse, stay black, and rest (.), I hope that it can aid the women of color environmental activists who fight to stay afloat everyday, and hopefully they can add additional lessons they’ve learned along the way.
“The baby Wedell seal has not yet grown into her flippers. She is awkward. She does not want to swim. She does not know she can breathe underwater.” – Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned, “breathe” (p. 22)
I see the emotional toll of this fight because I feel it myself, and I’ve only been involved in environmental justice work for less than two years. That is why I wrote this essay, because I see the harm in being told that you’re strong while also not being given grace to not be strong (not weak, but just not strong) for a moment. Alexis Pauline Gumbs titled one chapter, “be fierce”. I appreciate the use of “be fierce” in place of “be strong”. Being fierce allows you to be a powerhouse, but three dimensional. Gumbs writes, “[Orcas] are not afraid to express their grief for months and years in public. Yes, I would say the orcas are powerful, influential, necessary. Nuanced and majestic, brave and committed. These are the words I would use.” (Gumbs, 74)
The women on the frontlines are three-dimensional beings with fears, hopes, dreams, etc. The activists I see are deeply feeling beings; they cry while speaking to a crowd, they furry their brows and express great anger and disappointment, they also rally and inspire a crowd and make every person they’re speaking to feel loved and seen. They are nuanced because they are human, but they are powerful, and their nuance gives them power. Like Orcas, these activists grieve for the communities in public for months and years, but that does not make them weak. Their commitment to the cause despite–or rather, in addition to, this grief (or anger, sadness, drowning), makes them fierce.
Gumbs talks about exhaustion that I know women of color environmental activists deal with. Gumbs has “seen people praised over and over again as “tireless,” right through their exhaustion and their death” (Gumbs, 148). The work of women of color environmental activists is 24/7, they never get a break because their assailants never take a break. Their work is necessary, but exhausting–emotionally and physically. Their work is also invisible to many and as a result, thankless3.
“You deserve to rest long enough to let whatever go. I put my skin right next to yours to let you know that even when you seem alone, I’m with you. And I’ll wait to see the silver next of you, before you dive again.” – Gumbs, “rest” (p. 150)
I know that Black women and women of color activists will never stop doing the work that they do. I know that they will dive again, and again and again. They will never slow down, because they think they cannot afford to, and they’re probably right.
“Slow down enough to deepen into trust. How can I learn the skill to tell my heart to slow down? The pressure is coming. Slow down and we will have the air we need. Slow down and trust the ocean underneath you.” – Gumbs, “slow down” (p. 142)
But, I know that we will create a world where they can finally rest.
It's important that despite this hardship we don’t forget what it is women of color environmental activists are fighting for–they are fighting for our future. Women of color environmental activists envision a future where their communities can flourish. For a final project I did for my Ecofeminism(s) course at Swarthmore College, my group members and I held an art showcase highlighting eight ecofeminists of color who were women or non-male. During the showcase we had a writing activity where we asked our audience to write a letter envisioning what an environmentally just future would look like. Here is a letter a student wrote anonymously:
Our Future!
The water is clear and abundant with life. The trash can at the end of our driveway hasn’t been used in years. We have no need for it. I see bees and hummingbirds everywhere. Sneezing all the time is definitely worth the existence of pollinators. Life is good!
We all imagine a better future, Megan concludes her interview with what she hopes for the future. She says, “we must create safer environments for women to come forward about violent behavior without fear of retaliation. We must provide stronger resources for women to recover from these tragedies physically and emotionally, without fear of judgment. We must do more than say her name. We must protect all women who have survived the unimaginable.” Megan uses that key word “environment”; our environment is more than the plants and the trees, its our social media ecosystem, it's our neighborhood, it's our air, it's our community centers, it's our schools, it's our homes and family relationships. It's the way we treat other members in our ecosystem that are the most marginalized. Megan envisions an ecofeminist future. Megan says that we “must do more than say her name” and I agree, we must do more than give flowers to women who are murdered well after abuse, we must do more than showcase women of color doing the work of protecting our environment, we must do more in practice than in theory. There are women of color trying to protect us from the unimaginable and who by doing so have suffered the unimaginable. Activism is not a job these women aspired to do as children, but because their communities are targets of violence, they have to sacrifice their lives so that their community stands a chance. Jaylin Ward, an Black environmentalist answered this when asked when they knew environmental justice activism was their calling: “Organizing and activism shouldn’t be anyone’s calling. I’m still working on understanding my calling outside of digesting all of this. Fighting to live is a reality of living on Earth that I struggle with everyday. This is not a cry for help. Buddha said, “life is suffering.” Finding peace is most definitely my calling.”4 Black and Indigenous women and femmes want peace, but instead they must fight to live.
“I see you. And I celebrate your animal investments. Your keen adaptation. Your offerings of faith. Your mothering in moments, months, and over lifetimes. You don’t know how it is coming back to you. You know much better than all that.” – Gumbs, “take care of your blessings (p. 163)
To close, thank you to all the women risking their lives–(their physical and mental well-being) in protection of our lungs, our bodies as a whole, and the land. The flowers we give you will never be enough for the sacrifice you make daily. I am screaming beside you.
I wanted to create our art showcase, “The Third Shift: Giving Ecofeminists of Color Their Flowers”, alongside members of my Ecofeminism(s) project group, to highlight the women and gender expansive humans of color doing the thankless, unpaid, never-ending work of fighting for their communities. In my very very very limited time doing/witnessing environmental justice work during my time in college, the work is indeed thankless, never-ending, unpaid, and sometimes overwhelming–but it is so important.
There is a violence that continues to pollute, harm, and kill those in Black and brown and/or low income communities, as well as continuing to harm and kill Indigenous people; that violence is environmental racism. Black and Indigenous women across the Americas have always been on the front lines of environmental movements fighting against the pollution of their communities and for the right for their children to live full and healthy lives. The Black and brown faces I see all around me are not disposable, and the Black and Indigenous women on the frontlines, the “community mothers”, give and fight to show us all that we are not disposable.
I’ve learned from stories about the women in my family and watching the ones I’ve alluded to in this essay how to build community, how family exceeds blood, and how the block becomes kin.
Environmental justice is a vast field with so many connections to other movements, and if anything environmental movements are inherently Indigenous and Black; question the plant near your house, the incinerator down the road, the mine a car ride over, and look at the faces that populate those communities. Most importantly, take away the fact that we can fight against entities that perpetuate environmental racism and win. There are small wins everyday and being a part of one community’s journey has shown me that we are not as helpless as we seem. There is something we can do, everyday.
We cannot fight alone and we cannot fight ourselves into exhaustion. Our fight is for clean air, it's for reproductive justice, it’s for kinship, it’s for the land, it’s for spirituality, it’s for choice, it’s for protection, it’s for safety, it’s for reciprocity, it’s for freedom.
If a pdf is desired:
Works Cited
Megan Thee Stallion and Evette Dionne. “‘Nobody Can Take Your Power’: Megan Thee Stallion in Her Own Words”. ELLE Magazine elle.com, 18 April 2023. https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a43567508/megan-thee-stallion-tory-lanez-case-interview-2023/
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2020)
1Eleanor Cummins, “Is Ecofeminism Due for a Comeback?,” The New Republic, March 2022)
Dorceta Taylor, “Women of Color, Environmental Justice, and Ecofeminism, In, Karen Warren (ed), Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).
2“Defending Tomorrow”, Global Witness, 2020, p. 10.
3Celene Krauss, “Mothering at the Crossroads: African American Women and the Emergence of the Movement Against Environmental Racism.” (2009)
4 Clarke, S. “The Black Eco List: Black women making environmental history now, Meet The Black Women Making Environmental History.” refinery.com, 22 April 2021 https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/04/10403951/black-eco-list-women-environmentalists-earth-da
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