Written by Sikowis (Christine Nobiss)
Earth Day celebrates the beginning of the modern environmental movement in the US. Environmentalism is a concept created by white settlers over the last century when they started to notice their corporate consumerist habits were beginning to affect their own communities and recreational areas. Earth day has never been inclusive to the Indigenous stewards of Amerikkka--and only as a token to represent “what was”.
Furthermore, Earth Day is a white-led, green-capitalistic celebration that raises an enormous amount of money for the nonprofit industrial-complex where organizations like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and 350 rake in millions. If this country and these environmentalists were serious about the climate and the environment they would’ve turned to Indigenous Peoples in the first place as nobody knows this land and the climate better than the Original Peoples.
In Amerikkka, about half of all climate funding each year is concentrated in just 20 organizations, with very little going to tribal nations and Indigenous-led initiatives. According to the First Nations Development Institute, the total share of all foundation funds awarded to Native American organizations and causes between 2006 and 2014 averaged a paltry 0.6%.
The Big Greens like to put our face and culture in their campaigns to show that they care about our opinion. And perhaps they do care, but they still do not fund our struggle to resist predatory corporations and governments that continue to invade our territories violating our sovereignty and our bodies. We are often props for their stages, websites, and grant proposals.
If you are serious about making change, support Indigenous-led environmental, climate, and social justice collectives and organizations who are walking in the footsteps of their ancestors and who have been fighting colonial-capitalist exploitation of their lands for centuries.
Earth Day is a whitewashed Tribute celebrating a whitewashed history.
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