The topic of this column — the death of the divestment movement — may appear strange, given that it is coming on the heels of The Campus’ editorial endorsement of fossil fuel divestment a few weeks ago, and moreover, because I am, as avid readers of my column know, an active leader in the Middlebury divestment campaign.
Nevertheless, it is true. On Nov. 9, as 1,000 millennials marched through the streets of Washington D.C., it became clear that the divestment movement can no longer go on in its current form. The event, entitled “Our Generation, Our Choice,” brought together a coalition of activists, including those from the climate justice movement, black lives matter, prison and fossil fuel divestment and immigrant justice to demand — exactly one year before the 2016 Presidential elections — political action to support the formation of a more just socioeconomic system.
The movement itself was organized for the purpose of building a broad, cross-sectional movement. But simply claiming that we are a united race-immigration-climate justice alliance does not make us a truly unified movement, a fact revealed by a series of events that broke out at the “Our Generation, Our Choice,” conference the day before the event.
Frustration grew throughout the day as the event, billed as an equal effort by groups working for immigration, racial and climate justice, was noticeably dominated by white college students organizing around divestment. Furthermore, a substantive forum for discussion on what it means to advocate for immigration, climate and racial justice as a unified whole was not scheduled to occur until the evening.
By the afternoon, one of the events’ organizers mocked the overwhelming whiteness of the crowd and said hello to his, “fellow white people.” A few women of color stood up and demanded the topic of race be acknowledged and discussed on a deeper level. The organizer largely shut down the women’s request, noting the topic could be addressed at a later point. It was not until a white women stood up and insisted we discuss race that the organizers responded seriously to the need for an intense discussion on racial injustice.
A People of Color Caucus formed and later presented strategies for how to confront racism both within our group and within the broader racial-climate-immigration justice alliance. Chief among the Caucus’ demands was the need for people of color to stand at the forefront of the movement, a step which, as the silencing of the women of color’s questions revealed, proves necessary to combat the long practiced marginalization of black and brown voices.
There are moments when a movement is forced to broaden its scope, to die and be reborn as a new and more powerful movement. And while it is difficult to acknowledge the historical gravity of an event when it occurs, the interruption at the “Our Generation, Our Choice,” conference which demanded the inclusion of racial and immigration injustices as central to our collective mission undoubtedly signaled a radical transformation in the divestment campaign.
The need for a radical change in the divestment movement is necessary perhaps not because the campaign has intentionally sought to exclude other races and marginalized groups, but because it has been continuously perceived as a cause solely concerned with traditionally “environmental” issues. And given environmentalism’s largely racist past and perception as a single-issue campaign, DivestMidd’s message of broad-based social justice has been lost, at times, in translation.
On a larger scale, the Democratic party and the political left more generally have long struggled to articulate a unified cross-sectional set of values and so, needless to say, the dream of a successful climate-race-immigration alliance is easier said than done. Sometimes movements must die and be reborn in order to create effective coalitions and, as I wish to emphasize, come closer to the realization that our battles are born from the same systems of oppression.
The new movement about which I speak is not divided into single-issue silos, but rather acknowledges the need to rein in the excesses of capitalism to prevent the exploitation of land, labor and constructed racial differences. In the vastly unequal plutocratic society we live in today the wealthy one percent has been given the power and social license to treat our land and atmosphere like a garbage dump without concern for the externalities of extraction, build prisons and incarcerate people of color for profit and benefit from low-wage immigrant labor while refusing to acknowledge immigrant’s humanity.
Divestment is certainly a part of this movement. Oil companies are making more money than anyone in the history of money. Exxon’s profits alone rose 35 percent to $41.1 billion in 2011 and recently it was revealed that, in the words of Bill McKibben, Exxon “knew everything there was to know about climate change by the mid-1980s, and then spent the next few decades systematically funding climate denial and lying about the state of the science.”
The fossil fuel industry’s power to manipulate our political system through flawless lobbying — Koch Industries has spent $79 million on federal lobbying since 1998, is undoubtedly a manifestation of the vast inequity of wealth and power that pervades our country and allows for the exploitation of both land and community. And that is why we need Divestment AND so much more.
Upon reflection in the week since the “Our Generation, Our Choice” action I have often asked myself whether we can hold all of these demands — racial, immigration and climate justice, in one movement. I have feared that somehow standing up against all injustice we somehow risk becoming less, lost in our newfound vastness.
Looking historically, however, I find that when movements become more inclusive, they become stronger. For the simple reason that a united people can create a revolution, which can then change the whole of society — achieve justice on all fronts.
Just look to the feminist movement. Onetime leader of the feminist movement Betty Friedan long stood hostile to the inclusion of lesbians in the movement for fear that feminism would become less powerful if it expanded its reach beyond the demands of white, upper class, married women. But once the previously disenfranchised arms of the feminist movement, lesbians and women of color, were included it became more powerful, because it sought not to join society as it existed but to transform it, and they did. Women hold a radically different place in society, though the fight is still not over, thanks to the feminist movement.
Revolutions are possible. And fortuitously, they can begin in every community. Here on campus DivestMidd hopes to build coalition with JustTalks, Feminist Action at Middlbury (FAM), GlobeMed, the Black Student Union (BSU) and all cultural, religious, political, community service and artistic organizations. Let us be in on this fight for justice and become stronger through collective action.
Let us work together not to claim divestment and environmentalism more broadly as an umbrella that can hold all issue, but rather to create a new structure all together. But in order to do so we must all engage and educate one another about the issues we care about, and stand in solidarity with one another as occurred at the beautiful BSU blackout event last Thursday.
President Patton is on board. In fact she’s been formative in our rethinking of the movement. We’ve found a partner equally willing to engage with us and take seriously the injustices at hand. With her we hope to divest, reinvest to support the growth of communities of opportunity and deepen our conception of “global literacy” to enhance our collective understanding of the ways inequality and the excesses of capitalism not only threatens the land and people of our own country, but breeds injustice throughout the world. We have much work to do. Let us go forth, united!
