Climate Change and Health Seminar Series: "Climate Justice: Frontline Solutions in the Midst of Disruption”

January 23, 2024

Information

Elizabeth Yeampierre joined YCCCH for a conversation on frontline solutions for addressing impacts of climate change. Elizabeth is an internationally recognized Puerto Rican environmental/climate justice leader of Black and Indigenous ancestry, born and raised in New York City. She is co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance, a national frontline led organization and Executive Director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community-based organization.

Speaker: Elizabeth Yeampierre, Executive Director, UPROSE

January 19, 2024

ID11206

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00:01<v ->Don't have slides today.</v>
00:02So thank you everyone
00:04for being in person,
00:05thanks for those people online.
00:08Today, this is my break period.
00:10I'll turn to Elizabeth Yeampierre
00:15as our first speaker this semester.
00:19Elizabeth is an internationally recognized
00:21Puerto Rican environmental and climate justice leader
00:25of African and Indigenous ancestry,
00:28born and raised in New York City.
00:29So Elizabeth is a co-chair
00:32of the Climate Justice Alliance,
00:34a national frontline led organization
00:37and executive director of UPROSE,
00:40Brooklyn's oldest Latino community based organization.
00:44And Elizabeth was the first Latina chair of the US EPA,
00:49National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
00:53And opening speaker for the first White House council
00:56on the Environment Quality Forum,
00:57Environment Justice in the Obama administration.
01:02And she has been in pictured in many of the news,
01:04and received awards.
01:05For example, the New York Times pictured her
01:08as originally paving the path to climate justice.
01:11She was also named by Politico
01:14as the 100 most influential people in climate policy.
01:19Also featured, involved
01:21as one of the certain climate warriors
01:23in the world.
01:24Now all across list of the features of rising,
01:28so many others.
01:31So it's our great to welcome Elizabeth
01:36to give the talk on climate justice.
01:38Online solutions in a midst of disruptions.
01:41So without further me,
01:43Elizabeth, present.
01:44<v ->Thank you.</v>
01:47My God, those bios are always so uncomfortable,
01:51because then it's like so much pressure.
01:53Because everything that we do comes out
01:55of the work of the collective.
01:56You know, we're a movement group.
01:58And so every accomplishment,
02:00everything from transforming the landscape
02:02to tapping legislation comes from being in deep consultation
02:06with each other in community and across the country.
02:09So everybody, thank you so much for having me here today.
02:13I was asked to talk about public health
02:15and to talk about frontline responses
02:18to where we are right now.
02:19And when I was getting ready for this conversation,
02:24it was really hard to determine how to approach this.
02:27And so really, that's why I put on my glasses,
02:30so I can see your faces, so I can feel your energy,
02:33so I can understand your vibe
02:35in terms of where you are
02:36in your political orientation of understanding.
02:39Where we are in this moment
02:41when it comes to climate change and racial justice,
02:43or the lack there of this country.
02:46And we are in a very, very bad place,
02:48because today, the Supreme Court in the United States
02:50overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine
02:53in a six to three ruling.
02:56It is again demonstrating its allegiance to big business,
02:59polluters, rather than the frontline.
03:02The ruling reverses one of the most
03:04important judicial precedents
03:05that have guided federal regulation
03:07for the past 40 years,
03:09that enabled government agencies'
03:11interpretation of a law and statute
03:13to stand when reasonable.
03:14This ruling will make it even easier
03:16for polluting industries to use the courts
03:19to block new pollution regulations from going into effect.
03:22It also opens up thousands of judicial decisions,
03:26sustaining government agencies' rulemaking,
03:29like the EPA, for example,
03:31or adjudication as reasonable to now be challenged.
03:34For me, these are incremental acts
03:36of violence against our survival.
03:38That's how I feel.
03:39And people think that that's rhetoric.
03:42So I wanna talk to you a little bit,
03:44because this is a university setting,
03:46and you are students,
03:47about where we're right now.
03:48At this moment,
03:50we are seeing a lot of money on the table.
03:54The IRA money, money from Bezos, from Gates Fund.
03:57There is tons and tons of money on the table,
04:00some of that money supposedly for frontline communities,
04:03for the infrastructure projects
04:05and the work that we have
04:06that will literally get us to adjust transition.
04:09But it is not coming to us.
04:11And what we're seeing right now isn't just the threat
04:14of the big greens, the big organizations
04:16that are multimillion dollar organizations
04:19that have historically gotten the lion share of the funding
04:22to determine what policy is,
04:24and how it's going to affect those of us on the frontline.
04:27We're also seeing universities play a role
04:29of becoming the new big greens.
04:31So they're getting $50 million at a clip,
04:33and determining who are the leaders in our communities,
04:35what are the priorities.
04:38And they're serving as interveners,
04:39coming into our communities.
04:40I can give you an example.
04:42There was a moment where NYU got a $900,000 grant
04:45to come into our community to replicate the work
04:47that we were doing,
04:48and then wanted to pick my brain
04:50for a thousand dollars, right?
04:53So that we would provide them with access to our brain trust
04:57that would basically populate their proposal
04:59so that they could get funded.
05:01That top down extractive approach is going to kill us.
05:04And I'm gonna use words like killing us
05:06because that's where we are right now.
05:08I am a descendant of extraction,
05:10and my body is riddled with all of the health disparities
05:14that exist from being born,
05:16and raised in an EJ community
05:17and worked in an EJ community.
05:20And for you as students, what is your role?
05:22I wanna talk about that
05:23because honestly, every single year,
05:27UPROSE, the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance,
05:29the Climate Justice Alliance,
05:31it is inundated with calls and emails
05:35from students who want to interview us
05:38for their thesis.
05:40And what you don't do, this is what you don't do.
05:43You call because you have a dream.
05:44You came into these institutions with a dream,
05:47and you see us as the opportunity
05:49to populate that body of information
05:52that you need so that you can manifest
05:54your individual capitalist, paternal, patriarchal dream.
05:59What you should be doing,
06:00if you are concerned about climate justice,
06:03if you are concerned about using your privilege
06:05to elevate and to support the frontline,
06:09what you should be doing is asking, how can I use
06:14access to data, research,
06:16all of the things that I have access to right now,
06:18to advance a local climate justice agenda.
06:22And that becomes your thesis.
06:24And we're willing to talk to you
06:25if you talk to us about that.
06:27But we're no longer talking to students
06:29who are contacting us
06:31because they have their individual dream,
06:33and they wanna lead.
06:35And they're using the rhetoric of a movement
06:37when their culture or practice
06:39is inconsistent with those values.
06:42And so the students that get to work with us,
06:44that get to be part of this
06:46leaderful, matriarchal,
06:47intergenerational frontline led movement,
06:50are the ones who ask the question,
06:52how can we serve?
06:53How can we help?
06:54And how can I have access to these resources?
06:56That means that you are not only an ally,
06:59it means you are pro-Black.
07:00It means that you're anti-racist,
07:02that you are really thinking critically about
07:06and understanding, recognizing that those of us
07:09on the ground have the solutions,
07:11that we understand policy,
07:13infrastructure, community building, land use,
07:16that we, despite what people think because of how we look
07:20and where we're from, are a bunch of badasses
07:23that are literally transforming the landscape.
07:25And we are.
07:27And we are.
07:27And I say that because everything across the country
07:30from the CLCPA in New York state,
07:33that is a piece of legislation.
07:35The Community Climate Leadership
07:37and Community Protection Act,
07:39I forget how to say it because government changed the title,
07:43is a piece of legislation
07:44that has made it possible, for example, for DC,
07:47the Department of Environmental Conservation
07:50to stop two power plants.
07:58And so that legislation, that land language
08:01that comes from all of us.
08:03Working with each other in a way that is strategic.
08:07Talking about one person leading.
08:10We're talking about how we can be leaderful.
08:12because being leaderful
08:14is how we're gonna be able to win.
08:16So the threats for us are enormous.
08:19They are, we're talking about not just big universities
08:22and big greens, we're talking about corporations,
08:25fossil fuel companies, government.
08:27<v Voice>Chris, CJA.</v>
08:29<v ->Sorry, that's the Climate Justice Alliance.</v>
08:31Never leave me alone.
08:32Okay, I'm sorry about that.
08:34Yeah, sorry.
08:36But the Climate Justice Alliance, by the way,
08:4010 years ago, we founded it 10 years ago
08:41to be sort of the center of gravity
08:43in the climate movement.
08:45There were a lot of big organizations
08:47that were leading on climate.
08:49And the voice of the frontline wasn't central.
08:53We weren't being consulted.
08:54Our work was being supplanted,
08:56our work was being duplicated.
08:57Everything was being replicated.
08:59And so we needed to have an organization that was gonna hold
09:02that space where we would be able to shape and influence.
09:06And so we decided that we were gonna fight the bad,
09:09build the good, change the rules, right?
09:11And move the money.
09:12And move the money literally
09:14from organizations that have always had the majority of it,
09:17to the frontline, so that we can invest.
09:20And remember, we look very different across the country.
09:23What it looks like in West Virginia is very different
09:25than what it looks like in Brooklyn,
09:26that is densely populated.
09:28And we don't have site control over our buildings.
09:30It looks very different than Indian country,
09:32and very different from the northwest,
09:34of Puerto Rico, or the Gulf South.
09:36So the solutions are really different.
09:38And so these big organizations and agencies
09:41that get so much of the funding come up
09:43with cookie cutter approaches,
09:45don't work on the ground.
09:47They don't work on the block,
09:49they don't work in the neighborhood
09:50because the solutions have to be very different.
09:53In a community like ours,
09:54where we look at it block by block,
09:56in one block, you can have section eight housing.
09:59On another block,
09:59you can have auto salvaging shops
10:01that need to be made climate adaptable
10:04so that their chemicals don't become projectiles
10:06in the face of an extreme weather event.
10:08It looks very different.
10:10So I wanna share that with you
10:12because we are,
10:15when you think about who we are
10:16and you're thinking about public health,
10:19you're thinking about us
10:20in terms of a moment in time.
10:22You're saying, well, people of African or Black
10:25and indigenous ancestry have all these health disparities
10:28because they are living in the midst of toxic exposure,
10:32and it is exacerbating their health,
10:33and making it more difficult.
10:35You don't think about us in terms of the continuum of time.
10:38That we are the descendants of enslavement and colonialism.
10:43And so there has never been a time
10:45going back, back, back, back
10:47that we have not been exposed
10:49to not having the best food,
10:50the best healthcare,
10:51that we have not been surrounded
10:53by petrochemical industries
10:55that we have not had to deal with
10:56the high stress that comes with trying to survive,
10:59put food on the table, and raise our children.
11:02That shows up as a health disparity.
11:05And so you need to look at it within that context.
11:08The other thing that I want you to think about is
11:12I want you to think about data,
11:14and the collection of data.
11:16Right now, you see the Bezos fund,
11:18and all these funds wanna lead with data,
11:21and the collection of data.
11:23The way that data is collected right now is deeply flawed
11:25and doesn't tell the story of our people, right?
11:28There is a very big difference between Puerto Rican,
11:32a Mexican, and a Dominican, right?
11:35We show up differently in terms of
11:37our entire profile in terms of our history.
11:40And so when you put Latinos all together in one category,
11:43and you call it Hispanic.
11:44By the way, Hispanic includes people from Spain,
11:47all kinds of people, people with Spanish surname, right?
11:50It doesn't tell the story,
11:51and what it does is it washes out the impact
11:54that different communities are facing.
11:57Socioeconomically, environmentally.
12:00It doesn't tell the story,
12:01and when you don't tell the story,
12:02what it means is less resources, less interventions,
12:05so that we can get to a place of health.
12:07The Asian community, there are vast differences.
12:10Enormous, right?
12:12Enormous differences, right?
12:13If you look at a place like Hawaii,
12:15you've got Japanese people
12:17who are doing really well
12:18when it comes to the health profile.
12:20And then you've got the indigenous people
12:21of Hawaii who are not.
12:23And when you put them in one category,
12:24what it means is that they're not getting the attention
12:27and the resources that they deserve.
12:30Black folks.
12:31And that's a whole lot of us, right?
12:32I wanna say that because there's a difference
12:35between African Americans, people from the Caribbean,
12:39people who are coming from Africa, right?
12:41From the motherland.
12:43And so the details really matter
12:46if you really want to address root causes,
12:48how they land in our bodies.
12:52And those terms were created
12:54so that we could be managed, right?
12:56Literally differences wiped out.
12:58So if you're European, you could be French,
12:59you could be Italian, you could be Greek,
13:01you could be all those things.
13:03But if you're us, you become a Hispanic.
13:05I don't know what that is.
13:07And so you erase our blackness, our indigeneity.
13:10And then for Latinos, not all Latinos are people of color.
13:14There are so many differences.
13:15They come sometimes here with privilege.
13:17And so they don't have the same
13:19disparities as some of us.
13:22So how do you change that?
13:24I charge you for changing that.
13:27As your charge,
13:28you need to be able to change it,
13:30so that we are addressing
13:33how a legacy of extraction lands in our bodies.
13:38And you get people who have health disparities
13:40and are now faced with climate change, right?
13:44So we know quite a few things.
13:45We know fossil fuel companies
13:47and governmental power plants, landfills, highways,
13:49incinerators, and other toxic infrastructure
13:52in our communities.
13:53We know that our communities sacrifice zones, right?
13:55And that right now you're seeing
13:58the climate movement talk about false solutions
14:01like green hydrogen and carbon sequestration,
14:04and turning our communities to sacrifice zones.
14:06Our solutions are not the same.
14:08They're hyper local.
14:10We know that even before Covid,
14:11about 250,000 people in our communities die
14:16because of air pollution.
14:18And we don't know what that looks like now.
14:19So you combine all of the health disparities that we take,
14:23that we are exposed to extreme policing,
14:26incarceration, under employment,
14:28poor educational opportunities, displacement,
14:31daily, overt racism,
14:33the lack of healthy food and transit options.
14:35And it's not surprising that our communities are the ones
14:37that are suffering individually
14:39and collectively from mental health issues.
14:41I'm surprised that it has never been documented
14:45to the extent how this history has impacted us
14:48and our ability to cope every single day.
14:50So our priorities,
14:53I'm gonna talk fast, 'cause we got a lot of solutions.
14:55So our priorities are
14:56to address four things across the country
14:59and hyper locally.
15:00Renewable energy with community ownership at its center,
15:04drinkable water, food sovereignty, and wellness.
15:08Those are the four things that our communities
15:10have told us are real, our real priorities.
15:12We see ourselves as people who staff the community.
15:14We don't see ourselves as people
15:16who are making decisions on behalf of our communities.
15:19You know, we were the ones who had,
15:21were very fortunate to go to school,
15:23you know, thank God for affirmative action,
15:25or I wouldn't be here talking to you right now.
15:28We can have the skills that make it possible for families
15:32that have two or three jobs,
15:34and two or three children,
15:36so that we can staff them
15:38while they're taking care of their lives.
15:39And making sure that community events are generational,
15:44that there's always food,
15:44that there's always childcare,
15:46that there's at least translation,
15:47and that we're available to meet with them
15:49when it's convenient for them.
15:51We see this not as a job.
15:53And this is important for those of you that are Gen Z,
15:55who are talking about grassroots organizations
15:58and talking to us about nine to five,
16:00and self-love and self-care.
16:03Self-care is the language of colonialism.
16:05This country was built on the needs of the individual.
16:08We talk about collective care.
16:10And for us, this is not a job.
16:11This is a calling.
16:13If it is a Saturday afternoon and I'm exhausted,
16:16and there's a possibility that some legislation
16:18that is gonna benefit my people is impacted,
16:21I take that call.
16:22I do that work,
16:24because that's in the interest of justice,
16:25regardless of whether I'm tired,
16:27regardless of whether I'm getting paid.
16:29Because if I don't do that,
16:31I'm not honoring my ancestors who gave up their life,
16:35who put their lives on the line,
16:36who spilled blood,
16:38so that I would have rights right now.
16:40For them, it wasn't a nine to five, it was a calling.
16:42It's what you do when you're a movement builder.
16:45That work ethic, that culture of practice
16:47is radically different than what you see at the big greens,
16:50than what you see at big organizations.
16:52And it's now because it's being learned in LinkedIn,
16:55being applied to the grassroots
16:57and it's killing our organizations.
16:59So if you come to our organizations
17:01and you wanna make demands about,
17:02I only wanna work four days a week,
17:04and I only wanna do this.
17:06I'm telling you injustice is not nine to five,
17:09and neither is climate change.
17:10We're gonna need to be leaderful,
17:13and we're gonna need to be engaged in collective care,
17:16if we're gonna survive,
17:17and we're gonna not burn out during this process.
17:20So I wanna put that
17:21because when you guys get interviewed,
17:23you say you're about that life,
17:24and then when you come in, you're like, hey,
17:26but you know, and I'm like, oh no.
17:28This is not happening.
17:30So, and it's not just us,
17:31it's literally a complaint in leadership across the country
17:34about a new generation
17:37that is emerging with demands of the grassroots
17:40that we can't accommodate.
17:41What it means is that the leadership is gonna burn out
17:43and we're not gonna be able to hold the line.
17:45We're talking about climate change.
17:46It is disruptive, it's unpredictable,
17:49and it is happening.
17:50And so we need people that are warriors, right?
17:52And who think about this work
17:54in a very different way.
17:56So I wanna share that with you.
18:00So what are we doing?
18:01What are we doing in our communities?
18:02We are working to protect, repair, invest,
18:05and transform.
18:06In Sunset Park, we've got the grit.
18:09I'll tell you a little bit about Sunset Park.
18:10It's in Brooklyn.
18:11It is a community of 132,000 people.
18:14It is located in
18:16the largest significant maritime industrial area
18:18in New York City.
18:19It is an industrial sector
18:21that has a legacy harm in our communities.
18:25Toxic exposure, fossil fuel.
18:28We have everything from the Gowanus Expressway
18:30that has 130,000 cars, 13,000 trucks
18:34going through there every day,
18:36to solid waste management plants,
18:38three peaker plants, the Gowanus, the Narrows,
18:41and the Joseph Seymour.
18:43And what have we done in response?
18:45In terms of organizing,
18:47we've created coalitions like Glass Mile
18:49to take care of all of those Amazon trucks
18:52and get some regulation
18:53that will make sure that they are not going
18:56through the most vulnerable neighborhoods.
18:58That we're reducing emissions,
19:00that they're using technology.
19:01We created the Peak Coalition as a way
19:04of decommissioning peakers,
19:05and replacing them with battery storage.
19:08When we fought Industry City for seven years,
19:10Industry City is a company that owns an enormous part
19:14of our industrial sector at Sunset Park.
19:17And they wanted to take the industrial sector
19:19and turn it into a destination location
19:21for the privileged with high tech.
19:23And we thought, well, you know, this is a sector
19:25that has been harming us for years.
19:27What is a sector that is doing green manufacturing,
19:30that is working towards
19:32an adaptation, mitigation, and resilience look like?
19:35How do we bring the jobs?
19:36How do we make sure
19:37that we don't follow the market,
19:38but we create the market here.
19:40And so in order to fight Industry City,
19:42and we were told that we would lose
19:44because literally it was like
19:46David and three Goliaths,
19:48it that was that kind of fight.
19:49The sector, Industry City had spent
19:52an enormous amount of money in our community,
19:55dropped it in the pockets of CBOs and churches all over
19:58to do an enter and around us.
20:00They had five public relations firms.
20:02And then there was UPROSE.
20:04UPROSE would be told we were gonna lose.
20:06And we needed to figure out
20:08how do we bring movement into the space.
20:11But it wasn't enough to fight against something.
20:13We needed to lead with a vision.
20:15What does this have to do with health?
20:16Everything.
20:18You know, when you think about health,
20:19you're thinking about it in a very,
20:21it's very siloed.
20:23And we need to break out of those silos
20:25and start thinking about infrastructure,
20:26and thinking about what people's needs
20:28are going to be 30 years from now.
20:30The fact that the environment right now is creating disease
20:33at a level that is neck breaking, right?
20:36So we put together the grit.
20:39It came out of 12 years of community-based planning.
20:42It includes a just transition worker waterfront exchange,
20:46a just transition worker resource center
20:48where people can learn how to access those green jobs.
20:53An industrial microgrid.
20:55We are getting ready
20:56to launch the first community on solar
20:58in Sunset Park.
20:59We have mapped 20 rooftops for community on solar.
21:02It's a plan for the decarbonization
21:04of this industrial waterfront community.
21:06A small business decarbonization pilot,
21:10and a zero emission distribution hub
21:12so that we can move away from Glass Mile.
21:14All of those pieces have a lot of different pieces in them,
21:17and they all have a price set.
21:19One is $145 million,
21:22the just transition worker center,
21:24which would take about 10 years, $25 million.
21:28So why am I sharing that with you?
21:29Because those are big ticket items
21:31that are not just aspirational,
21:34they are operational.
21:36And we made sure that we were passing the kind
21:38of legislation that would give it teeth.
21:41That would give us access to the resources necessary
21:43so we can operationalize.
21:45But then what are we doing?
21:46We're competing with Columbia,
21:48with NYU, with Fordham, with all of these people
21:52who saw the opportunity that was created
21:54by the grassroots, right?
21:56And have helicoptered into our community
21:59so that they can engage in empire building.
22:01What we're trying to engage in community building.
22:05And literally, decarbonize the neighborhood.
22:07Highly sophisticated.
22:09We build strategic partnerships with a number of people
22:12so we don't have to know everything.
22:13And since you're at Yale, let me just say this,
22:16you don't have to know everything.
22:18You need to understand, I mean, you have been expected
22:20to know a lot, which is why you're here.
22:22Big ups to you for that.
22:24But understand that collectively, we know a lot.
22:27And so that when working in an organization,
22:30it's important to recognize what you don't know,
22:32and develop the relationships with people
22:34who come in from a place of building just relationships,
22:37so that we can strategically address these big items.
22:41Everything from trying to figure out
22:42how do we finance community on solar,
22:45and pre-development costs.
22:46Those are things that for a while,
22:48we didn't know anything about.
22:50But we identified people
22:51who could provide us with that.
22:52And that's gonna be your role.
22:53Your role is to provide us with the technical support
22:56so that we can operationalize it.
22:58Yale's been really cool.
23:00And I wanna say that on the real,
23:03because we work with a lot of institutions
23:06that we've been like, okay, no.
23:07All right, so it's surprising
23:09and refreshing that we have for the last few years
23:12worked with a number of departments
23:14or a number of schools at Yale
23:17that have provided us with the support
23:18so that we can move as quickly as we have.
23:21So we have several fellows from Yale.
23:24And that says that something is happening
23:25at this institution,
23:26where you're really sort of checking in on yourself,
23:29and your professors are checking and thinking about
23:32how are we going to be the most impactful.
23:34Not sort of like thinking about,
23:37you know, sort of this community
23:38that is talking about ideas and influencing.
23:41We influence, we come up with the ideas,
23:43we come up with the recommendations.
23:45You're the ones who are gonna be able to provide us
23:47with the support that we need,
23:49so that we can manifest those.
23:51So I had a long list of,
23:53but I wanna open up for questions and answers.
23:56A long list of all the health disparities that we have.
23:59Hyper-local problems with air monitoring,
24:02and how it's done, and how it should be done.
24:05But I kind of feel like I just really wanna break it up
24:07for questions, because I think that's where the richness
24:11of the conversation takes place.
24:12And I really hope that I've given you sort of
24:15a broad view of understanding
24:17the challenges that we're having locally.
24:19You will end up working in a lot of places
24:22that are engaged in contemporary missionary head.
24:28You know, super saviors.
24:30We don't want people like that.
24:31We don't wanna work with you if that's who you are.
24:34We don't think that you know more about anything than we do.
24:36We don't think you care more than we do.
24:39We are looking for people who are partners,
24:41who wanna work with us in a way
24:43that shows that you're committed
24:45to a different culture of practice.
24:46Because that's what climate change is demanding from us.
24:50This sort of top down, patriarchal way
24:54of thinking about power is unacceptable to us,
24:57and we're not suffering from insecurity.
25:00You will go into some communities
25:03where they will defer to you,
25:04and they will give up power because you came in,
25:06and you give the impression of having the skills
25:08and the understanding that maybe people
25:10who don't have a formal education don't have.
25:13You know, my grandmother
25:14didn't know how to read or write.
25:15My mother had a very limited education.
25:17I'm the first one out with college education
25:19in my family.
25:20And I can tell you that my mother
25:21and my grandmother were absolutely brilliant.
25:24And that when I am in community
25:25and I am listening with all, all my senses
25:28to people in the community, that they know what they want,
25:31and they know the solutions.
25:32And my responsibility is to facilitate that,
25:35to elevate that voice,
25:37and to make sure that we are honoring
25:40what they're telling us even when we don't agree.
25:42And I'm gonna give you one example of when we didn't agree.
25:47We, on 3rd Avenue, if you know Sunset Park or Brooklyn.
25:49How many of you know Brooklyn?
25:51Right, you know, 3rd Avenue,
25:53and you know how you've got the Gowanus
25:55and you've got all those industrial spots.
25:57Where there's a over,
26:00so many children in the neighborhood,
26:01and not enough schools.
26:03So our former councilman wanted
26:05to put a school in 3rd Avenue.
26:06And we said,
26:07but if you put the children under the highway,
26:10in the industrial zone,
26:12they're going to be running in their backyards,
26:13breathing hard,
26:14while all those emissions, socks, knocks, all of it,
26:17is going to be dumped into their little lungs, right?
26:21And so the Department of Education said to us, well
26:23of course we're gonna clean up the brownfield
26:25that the school's gonna be built on.
26:27And we said, but you can't control the adjacent brownfields.
26:30And you can't,
26:31you don't have any control over the adjacent brownfields,
26:34you don't own that property.
26:36And there are chemicals there from before
26:38there was even an EPA,
26:39that when dislodged, are carcinogens upon contact.
26:42So you can't, you shouldn't put the school there.
26:45But because the council member was somebody
26:47that the community loved, they supported him.
26:50The school got built there.
26:51I said, I would never send my little child to that school.
26:55Did we protest the parents?
26:57No, we did not.
26:58We gave them the information we wanted.
27:00We gave them enough
27:02so that they could make an informed decision.
27:05But there are people, and once they made that decision,
27:09they were stuck with that decision,
27:10and it broke our hearts.
27:12But it wasn't our place to supplant leadership,
27:16or to tell them what to do.
27:17It was our place to provide them with all the information
27:20that they needed,
27:21so that they could make an informed decision.
27:23So you're going to be in spaces where that's going,
27:26where your heart, everything is gonna be telling you,
27:28this is so wrong, right?
27:31But you need to honor what people are saying.
27:34They were desperate for schools.
27:36And so that decision led to us fighting
27:39for upland schools,
27:41upland buying properties like hot sheet hotels,
27:45and turning them into schools.
27:46Letting people know this is a storm surge song.
27:49We're gonna be dying from extreme heat.
27:52Literally, that is what's going to kill us.
27:54And if you wanna know more about that,
27:56the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance
27:58is preparing a report,
27:59and has been doing an enormous amount of work on this.
28:02So I'll stop and I'll open it to questions.
28:06And I'll put on my glasses so I can see you.
28:10So yeah, so it's a lot that we're doing locally,
28:13that's just Sunset Park.
28:15And it looks different everywhere,
28:17all over the United States.
28:19This is exciting.
28:20What we're doing is viable.
28:21It is operational, and it has a price,
28:24and we need to move the money,
28:26so that we are investing in local communities,
28:28particularly around adaptation, mitigation, resilience.
28:31And because you are in the school of public health,
28:33really important that you break out of those silos
28:36and you're working with people who are in the law school
28:38that are working on land use
28:40and planning and zoning,
28:41that you are thinking outside of the box
28:44because this, the way that we are trained
28:48sometimes is very limited,
28:49and climate change is not that.
28:51It is not limited.
28:53So thank you.
29:00<v ->Yes, so I think we collect a lot questions from students.</v>
29:05They're very interested in a lot of the work you do.
29:08So now we have 20 minutes, which is very rare
29:10for the presenter to ask all the questions,
29:12especially what we don't know.
29:14Especially what, for all the things.
29:16So now, floor's open.
29:22<v Speaker>I'm not a student.</v>
29:23Can I ask a question?
29:24<v Instructor>Sure.</v>
29:26<v Speaker>You commented on a new household</v>
29:30solar power initiative in Sunset Park.
29:34And of course this is a source of great frustration,
29:37all of us that we have so many roofs,
29:41industrial roofs that are flat and vast
29:44that you can just imagine solar panels on,
29:48and household roofs
29:49that many of them face the sun in a very agreeable way.
29:53So could you comment on some of your successes
29:56and challenges in launching this initiative?
29:59<v ->A lot of challenges.</v>
30:00This is the rooftop
30:01of the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
30:03It's owned by the New York City
30:05Economic Development Corporation,
30:06which is a quasi public corporation in New York.
30:11It's the first time that they partner
30:12with a frontline group like ours.
30:15And there have been a lot of challenges,
30:17just in financing and contracting
30:19a lot of things that we didn't know
30:20and we learned along the way.
30:23But through the relationship with them, we are getting them
30:26to do a study on green manufacturing,
30:29and other kinds of things
30:30that can happen along the industrial waterfront.
30:32So that one started out,
30:35the idea was that it was going to be a cooperative,
30:36and that did not work out.
30:38So now it's a community owned initiative,
30:41where the investments will be in community led projects.
30:45And they look different in different places.
30:47So we've mapped, for example, the MTA,
30:49the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot,
30:50which is enormous in Sunset Park.
30:52And then we've met with Industry City,
30:54which is surprising
30:55because we drove them crazy for seven years.
30:58And we said, we want your rooftops,
30:59we want your parking lots
31:02for community owned solar canopies.
31:05And what we'd like, because your private business is
31:08to make your rooftop a source of renewable energy
31:12for small businesses that have been devastated by Covid.
31:17We lost so many of them in Sunset Park.
31:20So that small businesses,
31:21mom and pop shops have access
31:23to renewable energy at a reduced cost in their homes.
31:27We've met with Liberty View,
31:29we've met with NYU Langone.
31:32St. Michael's, OLPH, churches.
31:35They look different, right?
31:36So we're not looking at homes
31:38because site control is a problem in New York City.
31:41So where, if you're in Buffalo,
31:43and you're working with PUSH, they own the property,
31:45they have control of the rooftops.
31:47It's a little easier for them.
31:49But in New York City, there's no site control.
31:51You can have a landlord that owns the building
31:53for five years and then passes on
31:55ownership to somebody else.
31:57So we're looking at a long history,
31:59deep roots, own the property,
32:02and then we develop contracts that make it possible for us
32:05to have access to them.
32:07For a while there, I was looking at how we can own airspace.
32:10We had the law school
32:12and it was a crazy question and request.
32:14They told me it was crazy,
32:15but they researched it anyway,
32:17so that we could have air rights.
32:18And we could literally use our rooftops as eminent domain.
32:23I'm still haven't given up on that idea.
32:27So there's a lot.
32:28It takes time, it takes a lot longer than I had expected.
32:32And this one, I think we're ready
32:33to launch in the fall of this year.
32:35We're excited about this one because it becomes a model.
32:38We captured the learnings, the mistakes, all of the things
32:42that we did well.
32:44We did that with the fight against Industry City
32:46so that other communities
32:48can hit the ground running with that.
32:51What we learned was that the organizing
32:55that we had been doing for years benefited us.
32:59And it wasn't just organizing on the ground,
33:01but you know, when I was talking about
33:02how the climate justice movement is talking about
33:05moving the money,
33:06we've also been organizing in philanthropy
33:08and trying to get people who are in philanthropy
33:10to be on the inside talking about how
33:15our communities benefit from moving the money.
33:18How our communities benefit at all levels, right?
33:21And so when we needed the resources,
33:24we started getting those resources to make sure
33:27that we can operationalize that.
33:29Had this been over 10 years ago
33:30when we weren't part of
33:31a national climate justice movement,
33:33we would've been in a very different place.
33:35What's happening locally is that
33:37every local community is benefiting
33:39from the national movement.
33:41So the national agenda is being defined,
33:43what is happening on the ground,
33:45which is very different from how it happened before,
33:47which was grasstops, right?
33:49We saw that with the Green New Deal.
33:51When the Green New Deal came out, we had to have a meeting
33:54with AOC, and we needed to tell them, listen,
33:57this is being dictated by groups like Sunrise and others,
34:00who are not based in community,
34:02who are not accountable to community
34:04with an agenda that they're creating
34:08regardless of community,
34:10and are not working with us in a way
34:12that honors racial justice
34:14or the Jemez Principles.
34:17And it has to reflect a just transition
34:19and the thinking of the frontline all over the country.
34:22We were able to do that,
34:23and we were able to change the culture of practice
34:25of a lot of institutions
34:27because time is of the essence
34:28and we need to build those partnerships.
34:31So I guess the shorter way of saying that is
34:33that everything that we're doing locally comes out
34:36of the collective vision that is not just local,
34:39but is also part of a national movement.
34:41It's movement work.
34:43But it's not easy.
34:44We're trying to figure out how do we get
34:46drinkable water in people?
34:47How are we making sure that there's infrastructure
34:49put on the rooftops.
34:51Organizing block to block,
34:52identifying one organizer per block
34:55that becomes sort of your block captain, your leader,
34:57the person who determines whether or not
35:00they're going to be your first responder.
35:02And I jokingly for years have said that
35:04that busybody on the block,
35:06the one who organizes the block party,
35:08who knows what your business,
35:09who you're hooking up with, that's your organizer.
35:12They know whether you are on a respirator,
35:14whether you're on dialysis, they know.
35:17And so the idea of organizing block to block
35:20is also a way of strengthening social cohesion,
35:23because that's the way that we're gonna survive.
35:25And you could do that around projects.
35:27Like one block can build an anaerobic digester,
35:29another one can paint all the rooftops white.
35:32So there's a lot of interventions,
35:33and renewable energy is just one of them.
35:36But it's the sexiest,
35:37and it's the one that people talk about the most.
35:40But we need to think about food sovereignty.
35:42We're on an industrial waterfront,
35:44and it has the possibility of being a place
35:46where there's food distribution,
35:47where we can connect with upstate farmers
35:49that are economically depressed,
35:51to bring the food to us through refrigerated gardens.
35:54Not only will it strengthen social cohesion
35:57between downstate and upstate,
35:59but between poor white folks
36:01and people of color in New York City.
36:03And that's necessary
36:05because they get the benefit of our tax dollars.
36:07But when they make legislative choices,
36:10they're not thinking about our interests.
36:12They're based on race.
36:13And so we need to figure out how we use these interventions
36:16as a way of connecting communities
36:18so that we're ready for these things.
36:20So we are making tons of mistakes.
36:23And here's the thing about mistakes.
36:24I wanna share this because this is true.
36:26White folks get to experiment
36:28and make mistakes all the freaking time,
36:31all the time.
36:32We have to excel all the time.
36:34And so even being able to talk about
36:37our mistakes is uncomfortable,
36:39because we're not allowed to fail,
36:41to try something, or to make mistakes.
36:43You could be someone who comes from privilege,
36:46and they're just like, well,
36:47they were trying out idea.
36:49With us, it's not the same.
36:51Funders treat us differently.
36:53Everyone treats us differently when we fail.
36:55And so there's a lot of pressure on us to succeed,
36:57not just because of how we're perceived
36:59because of racism,
37:00but also because the lives of our people
37:01are literally on the line.
37:03And so we have to succeed.
37:05So I wanna share that with you
37:06because when I say that we're available to share
37:11the learning and the mistakes, it can be the thing
37:14that defines us, you know?
37:18Yes.
37:19<v Student>Thank you for speaking.</v>
37:20I'm really interested in what you're saying about
37:22younger applicants and students who interview you
37:25that are idealistic,
37:26and maybe romantic about how they perceive EJ,
37:30and seemingly never ending list of to-do tasks
37:35for you and your organization.
37:37And they come in and it's actually, oh, too much work.
37:40Maybe I want a four day week, like you said.
37:43How do you personally balance knowing that that list exists
37:46and also pursuing that collective community care
37:49you were talking about
37:50and what gives you hope?
37:52<v ->Well, we have honest conversations,</v>
37:55saying this is not a nine to five organization.
37:58So we're real honest.
37:59Also, we think that if people are engaged
38:03in collective care,
38:03that we will be able to take off
38:05and be able to take care of each other.
38:07And we also assess people's energy.
38:09Like, we don't want people to burn out.
38:11There's always food, there's always dogs in the office.
38:14Like literally, it really is like that.
38:16There's music, there's joy.
38:19We have a lot of events
38:20that are really just about embracing joy, right?
38:24But we're honest about what the work demands,
38:26and then we try to get a sense of whether that's the place,
38:28not every place is is for you, right?
38:31Maybe our organization is not for everybody.
38:34Maybe you need to go work for an NRDC
38:37or God forbid, an EDF, right?
38:40But not every place.
38:41And so the idea,
38:43and then the other thing is that the challenges that come,
38:46often come when it's a woman of color in leadership.
38:50So you hire people who are more likely to hire,
38:54and we're seeing this across the country,
38:55to challenge and make the lives
38:57of women of color and leadership.
38:58What I mean saying women of color,
39:00are people of Black and indigenous ancestry.
39:03And that could be anything.
39:04Black and indigenous means Colombian, Mexican,
39:07you know, Honduran, right?
39:08Puerto Rican, right?
39:09So I just wanna say that
39:10because I think there is,
39:11people don't really understand
39:12how we think about those terms.
39:15And it's more likely that leadership burns out
39:18and is leaving because they can't take the pain
39:21of coming from the frontline,
39:23having a vision
39:24and having people challenge them
39:25just because they think they can.
39:26But when there's a white man in leadership,
39:28no one challenges them.
39:29They let it go, they complain on the side,
39:31they out for drinks and they complain,
39:33but they do the work.
39:34It's very different.
39:35So I'm being honest about the challenges
39:37that we're going through.
39:38So I'm just saying that in terms of an invitation,
39:40if you're coming into our organizations,
39:42we take care of each other.
39:43We look out for each other, we get paid.
39:46I bust my butt raising funds so that people get paid well.
39:50Worked really hard to make sure
39:53that the health insurance is the best
39:55that there is on the market.
39:57That you know,
39:58that we are engaged deeply in collective care.
40:01So the organization has to be a place
40:03where children are welcome, where all people
40:05of different kinds of abilities,
40:07where we are sancocho.
40:08A little bit of this and that and awesome, right?
40:12But there is a very, there's something that's happening
40:16to this particular generation,
40:19and I don't know, I don't even know.
40:20You all look Gen Z,
40:20I dunno where you're getting
40:22your marching orders from,
40:23like LinkedIn.
40:24And that's corporate culture,
40:26that you're literally toxic corporate culture
40:30is really influencing
40:32how you think about the workspace across the board.
40:34And it doesn't apply to grassroots organizations
40:37that if you think and are supposed
40:39to be accurate in justice,
40:40you shouldn't have to be worried about that.
40:42Right?
40:43People talk about the nonprofit industrial complex,
40:46and that's not grassroots, frontline led organizations,
40:49but it's the kind of rhetoric
40:51that makes you sound like
40:52you know what you're talking about.
40:54And so you come in ready to fight inside
40:56instead of rolling up your sleeves
40:58and doing the work outside.
41:00And that is really taking out a lot of organizations.
41:03I don't know if I've answered your question.
41:04I hope that you have.
41:07<v ->Thank you.</v> <v ->I think I hope that I have,</v>
41:10but I'm really willing
41:12to have uncomfortable conversations.
41:15I think that that's how I show respect,
41:17and that's how I make it clear about,
41:19as someone who's in a leadership role
41:22and runs an organization, what I expect from people.
41:26And people not keeping their word,
41:27like saying, you know,
41:28you go through the interview process
41:30and you say, this is what we need.
41:31And they're like, okay, okay. 'cause they want the job,
41:33and then they come in like, well,
41:35what I really want is like.
41:37That's self, that's self.
41:40Even when you think about
41:40intergenerational and youth-led,
41:43this country has issues when it comes to age, right?
41:48So you got young people trying to push older people out,
41:50older people trying to hold onto power.
41:53And power has to be intergenerational.
41:56We need to be able to work
41:57with each other across the continuum of age.
42:00We learn, we build, and we have power
42:02when it's intergenerational.
42:04So young people and everything,
42:05that's sort of how we romanticize and fetishize
42:07youth leadership,
42:08is really extractive, competitive, patriarchal.
42:11It's, I wanna run to the front, I want shine,
42:14I need this, I'm ambitious, and you're in my way.
42:17And then older people holding on for dear life.
42:20Intergenerational power
42:21that comes from the Global South
42:22is not like that.
42:24When you are building an intergenerational movement
42:26and power, clearly you may have skills that I don't have.
42:30And those are important, and they're really important,
42:33and I'm gonna recognize that those are important,
42:35and understand what the deficits are of my generation,
42:38because of the time that I grew up in.
42:40I will not be able to be an impactful, powerful leader
42:43if I am not part of an intergenerational movement.
42:46I am learning from you constantly,
42:49and I hope that out of humility,
42:51you were learning from me as well.
42:52So those tensions that are part, that are literally part
42:56of an Anglo-American construct,
42:58they're uniquely part of the United States,
43:01hurt institutions because you've got young people
43:04coming with knowing nothing
43:06than what they learned in the classroom,
43:08trying to push older people out, right?
43:11Knowing nothing, no humility.
43:13This is work that requires tremendous humility,
43:16because it is complex,
43:18and a lot of what we're doing
43:19has never been done before.
43:20And then older people holding on for freaking dear life
43:24and not knowing that there's really room for all of us,
43:27that we can be matriarchal and we can be leaderful.
43:30There really is room for all of us.
43:31And that this moment is demanding
43:33that we all be in play with each other.
43:36So those are some of the tensions
43:37that are appearing in the workspace at a grassroots level.
43:41And I think that these conversations
43:43are absolutely necessary.
43:47Si.
43:48<v Student>Well, thank you so much.</v>
43:49This sounds like really impressive
43:51and really interesting work.
43:53I was wondering, I obviously don't know your space
43:56and the geography of the space,
43:58but with the solar canopies you were talking about,
44:02is there any, or like,
44:05how are you guys ensuring that?
44:06Or is there any risk of like flood zones
44:08or how are you ensuring that it's sustainable for --
44:11<v ->Over time?</v>
44:12<v Student>Yeah, over time.</v>
44:14<v ->So we have a geographer on staff,</v>
44:16and we work with a number of people.
44:17We work with a company called Working Power.
44:20They're pretty amazing.
44:20You should look them up.
44:22And they look at the infrastructure,
44:26they look at the space and they determine whether,
44:28what is being proposed to be built there,
44:31will it withstand over time.
44:35On the industrial sector,
44:36you know, there are all these parking lots.
44:39And so, you know, there's an opportunity for solar panels,
44:42for solar canopies there.
44:44And then of course there's our rooftops.
44:45And then we're thinking about our backyards
44:47for like bioswales for growing food.
44:50And the neighborhood has literally, if you look at the grid,
44:53if you go online and you read the grid,
44:55has been mapped for all of these different interventions.
44:59But we work with people who understand
45:00how the infrastructure works,
45:03how it's going to be impacted
45:04by extreme wind and heat.
45:07I don't know those things.
45:08I have to be a generalist,
45:09I have to know a little bit about everything, right?
45:12But luckily I work with a lot of experts in those areas.
45:15But those are really good questions and they're necessary.
45:18We did a project where we reached out to
45:2190 auto salvaging shops
45:23to make them climate adaptable,
45:25because they fly below the radar
45:27and because a lot of environmentalists
45:29wanna take them out of business.
45:30But these are mom and pop shops that are, you know,
45:33they're fixing cars in our neighborhood.
45:35But in their businesses, they're using chemicals
45:38that present the possibility of toxic exposure,
45:42that can become projectiles.
45:44And so we created an app for that.
45:46We created a comic strip to educate them
45:48because we assume that if we create,
45:50put together a body of literature in Spanish
45:53or in another language that they can read.
45:55Sometimes people can't read, right?
45:57Regardless of the language.
45:58So we created video content.
45:59It was multidimensional information
46:02so that they can access it in a different way.
46:05And then we raised the resources so
46:06that we could retrofit their business
46:09so that they could know where the chemicals are,
46:11what would happen upon,
46:12what they needed to do
46:14to protect themselves so that there wouldn't be any spillage
46:16and it wouldn't impact the adjacent,
46:18you know, their neighbors.
46:20So those are the kinds of things that we need
46:22to be thinking about.
46:23Really looking hyper-local
46:25at what people need and providing them with the resources.
46:28You know, we're coming from a climate justice perspective,
46:30and so we weren't gonna say throw them out,
46:33close them down, shut them down.
46:36We wanna make sure that people thrive economically,
46:39but that they get the resources that they need to thrive.
46:42And because these are small businesses,
46:44we needed to meet with them like at five in the morning,
46:47late at night.
46:48They work 24-7, right?
46:51So there's a lot of different things that you can do
46:53with a lot of different sectors,
46:55so that they're ready for climate change,
46:56and they're incorporating protections.
46:59When I first met with one of those auto salvaging shops,
47:02they had antifreeze on the ground,
47:04and there was a little girl running around barefoot.
47:07And I said to the guy, companero,
47:09do you know that that's a carcinogen?
47:11And that she's walking around barefoot?
47:14And the guy almost started crying.
47:16He didn't know.
47:18All he knew how to do was fix cars.
47:20And so what was I supposed to do?
47:22Criminalize him, report him to DC?
47:26Right?
47:27That's not what we do.
47:28We let him know because his family was working
47:30in that business, and they were being exposed.
47:33These are the things that you need
47:34to do to protect yourself.
47:36And if there's extreme heat,
47:37this is what's gonna happen with these chemicals.
47:39And if there's extreme wind, this is what's gonna happen.
47:42You don't have any ventilation in this space.
47:45You need to use
47:47this kind of protective gear.
47:49If you're talking about public health,
47:51and you care about creating wealth,
47:54community power,
47:55making sure people thrive so that they don't have to deal
47:58with the stress of poverty generation to generation,
48:01you need to be thinking about
48:02how do you support these kinds of businesses
48:04without judging them,
48:06and coming from your place of privilege
48:08and imposing your,
48:10and having interventions that will actually work for them.
48:13And those are the things that we do.
48:16<v ->Thanks Elizabeth.</v>
48:17Because of timing,
48:18I think we can only take one final question from online.
48:22One of the audience asking,
48:23minority children are some of the most vulnerable
48:26effected by the environmental disparities.
48:28Do you have any other advice on whether it is more effective
48:31for us to focus research
48:34and other efforts that you mentioned,
48:36especially on children,
48:37that continue working with their broader at risk
48:41communities as whole?
48:43<v ->So first I'd say that we are not minorities,</v>
48:45that anywhere in the world, we're a global majority.
48:48And I don't like the word minority,
48:51because it disempowers us,
48:52makes us feel small and insignificant.
48:55And we're heading towards a world of climate apartheid.
48:58So I wanna make it clear
49:01that we are the descendants of extraction,
49:03of colonialism, and enslavement,
49:05and we are the majority in the world.
49:07There are a lot of initiatives.
49:10You know, EPA has a lot of federal advisory councils
49:13that focus on children.
49:15There's a lot of work that is being done across,
49:18because we're intergenerational.
49:19We look at what does that mean for our children
49:24in terms of toxic exposure when they're in utero,
49:28you're living under a highway.
49:30And that means that our children are going to be
49:33more susceptible to asthma of respiratory disease,
49:37learning disabilities, all kinds of things that are a result
49:41of sort of the legacy of toxic exposure.
49:45So there's a lot of work being done across the country,
49:48and in different parts of the world
49:50that focuses specifically on children.
49:52And I think I would encourage you to think about that.
49:55I would also encourage you to, while you're doing that,
49:59to also create popular education tools
50:03so that parents have access to the kind of information
50:05that they need about where they live, their space,
50:09what they're eating, what they're drinking,
50:12and how to protect the bodies.
50:15Women, how to protect their bodies.
50:17But there's an enormous amount of information,
50:21and we know how climate change
50:22is going to affect children and women.
50:25So, yeah.
50:27I hope I answered all of your questions.
50:29It's a lot.
50:30You know, I've been doing this work for a minute,
50:32and I work with a lot of different people
50:33who are just really holding it down.
50:37I would encourage you to look at
50:38the Climate Justice Alliance website.
50:40We have created all of the frameworks,
50:42all of the tools so that you don't have to
50:44reinvent the wheel,
50:45or you don't have to extract our thinking
50:47and use the redefine, adjust, transition,
50:49redefine climate justice or environmental justice.
50:52We have definitions for all those things.
50:54And so what we want is for you to use the body of work
50:58that we have created so that it shapes
51:01and informs how you move forward in this area.
51:04I wanna congratulate you for your interest in this.
51:07And I wanna say thank you for,
51:10we need you, we need to be leaderful,
51:12and intergenerational.
51:13And you need to figure out,
51:15you need to follow the Jemez principles
51:16for democratic organizing.
51:18And be comfortable with being led by the frontline.
51:22Honestly, it's time.
51:24It is our communities that are suffering
51:25because of the legacy of extraction,
51:27because of decisions that have been made,
51:29and are being made even today by the Supreme Court
51:32that are killing our people.
51:35And so yeah, just lean into that
51:40and be comfortable with your vulnerabilities.
51:43It really is about decolonizing your education.
51:45We've all been conditioned to think
51:47that we know everything and we don't.
51:50And that's okay.
51:51I mean, knowing everybody
51:53and being comfortable
51:54being part of a collective,
51:56intergenerational, leaderful model
51:58that is matriarchal, is the only way
52:00that we're be able to address these resources.
52:02(Elizabeth speaking in foreign language)
52:04<v Student>Thank you.</v>
52:09<v Instructor>Thank you everyone for coming.</v>
52:12(indistinct)
52:15Like she said, we need everyone,
52:16and especially. (indistinct)
52:19Thank you, everybody.
52:20Thank you also, the online audience.
52:23The lecture is recorded,
52:25it will be posted online.
52:27(instructor speaking softly)