The work of Green 2.0 illustrates the low baseline for environmental organizations in terms of the staff and leadership reflecting the diversity of society. But, as some of the voices in the previous lesson highlighted, equity and inclusion are about more than the numbers. The BEETLES Project at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley recently undertook a workshop series in partnership with Youth Outside to support more equitable EE organizations. This project began with a study by the evaluation team at BEETLES that sought to better understand how environmental education organizations think about and operationalize equity and inclusion in the work environment by gathering perspectives of environmental education organization leaders and educators of color.
The resulting publication – Examining Equitable and Inclusive Work Environments in Environmental Education: Perspectives from the Field and Implications for Organizations – identifies a disconnect between the intentions of organizational leadership and the experiences of environmental educators of color. A few of the quotes from focus group participants illustrate why inclusion and equity matter to the success of the field and how this goes beyond simply having a more diverse team:
- “[I want organizations to] straight-up acknowledge that environmentalism was created by [people of color] first. I had a huge disconnect that my ancestors were a part of the environmental movement and honored the earth, and then the colonizers came in and took that away from them and converted them, and now I’m in 2018 trying to say, I’ve been connected to this my whole life. This isn’t something that you’re teaching me and awakening me to.”
- “[Diversity, equity, and inclusion is] this white-savior complex that is... really creating a separatist movement where there is still a form of 'other'... [People of color] are still an 'other' and [white leaders] still have dominance...[Diversity, equity, and inclusion] always come from the top down... They are never from the grassroots... or from the community.”
- “I feel like, for me, I’ve only been doing environmental education for two years and I’m over it, I don’t want to do it anymore... I feel like my job would have been ideal if I didn’t feel so marginalized in the space. I feel like I have two jobs: I feel like I have to go do my job and also exist in a really really white space... I’m the only black male on staff... I’ve been a professional for a long time, [and then] I started working in environmental education and it is the most racist space I’ve ever been in my life. Oh my gosh, it’s just like so much work to be done. Racist burnout is real.”
In the video below, report authors Valeria Romero and Jedda Foreman discuss the study with Anne Umali (NAAEE) and Bill Finnegan (Tamarack Media Cooperative).