From the River to the Sea
On justice, freedom & the many landfills that plague our communities
What are these statues you cling to? Why calico, why Spanish moss, why the crickets scream. In a segregated graveyard, no stone reads private or public; the local jail is everywhere. from "Violence" by Zaina Alsous
I first began writing this post in anticipation of a brief autumn respite towards the end of October, and in celebration of six months of Heirloom being out in the world. I would like to briefly say thank you to all who have read, savored, cherished and challenged the work. I am because you all are.
But I am tasked with a more pressing topic, one that supersedes any sense of individuality, one that has been ongoing for nearly 100 years.
For many writers, once we have “made it” in some capacity, we are unwilling to confront uncomfortable truths, unwilling to “rock the boat,” for fear of retribution or retaliation. Simply put, a lot of us don’t want to lose our funding. This has been an ongoing theme of the past few days as people really have been showing their asses, and intuitions, publications and foundations attempt to maintain the empire. But the poets know. We are the canary in the coal mine, the birds that chirp and speak. We have a duty to stand our ground and speak truth to power: free Palestine.
Dr. Max Liboiron defines waste colonialism as a system through which waste and pollution are part of the domination of one group in their homeland by another group. If we are to understand waste and pollution as definers of status, buttressed by a system that is predicated on defining what is “valuable” and what is not, I think we better understand ourselves and our position in the world.
The mainstream environmental justice movement (as it is collectively understood today) began with a protest against pollution. Prior to the PCB landfill riots in Warren County, NC, Black Americans were already painfully aware of being in what Dr. Robert Bullard, the Father of the Environmental Justice, calls “sacrifice zones:” areas that are designated for neglect and reinforced by racial stereotypes of people of color. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? They inform each other.
Movements against empire have often been rooted in land sovereignty, the land being the only thing that ever really loved us, though we didn’t have much of a chance to love it in return. Thus, we are caught in a cycle of dispossession by contamination. You can’t take care of this land that has been historically neglected, bruised and exploited, so we’ll take it from you.
In Gaza, nearly 90% of water is untreated. More than half of the e-waste that comes from Israel is illegally dumped in Gaza. E-waste can cause brain, heart, liver and skeletal system damage. Illegal dump sites also attract pests that spread illnesses. Toxic waste from weapons and destroyed buildings pollute waterways, land and air. Settlements and checkpoints make it difficult for people to move away from waste, or for waste produced from these events to be transported. Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of waste, because to the Israeli government, they are considered members of the landfill.
I write as a Black American who lives in Oakland, CA, one of the most polluted cities in America, with environmental burdens etched into the landscape through redlining, with polluted air cycling through my lungs, an area that is burdened with neglect and physical waste. Make no mistake, we will keep fighting, loving our communities back into health, rallying against empire until the empire is no more. Our movements for self-determination and autonomy are intertwined. Our liberation sings the same lyric. From the river to the sea. From the river to the sea. From the river to the sea.