Thread by @AyadeLeon

#HowICameToClimate: I grew up in an activist fam. Mom was an elected official+attorney fighting police violence. As a teen I was active in the peace movement+witnessed much eco-activism connected to that (mostly white). In my 20s I did black community organizing.
#ClimateTwitter

https://twitter.com/emahlee/status/1210669039984332800

In the early '00s, I co-faciltated a bunch of activist spaces w/ Van Jones+Julia Butterfly that connected racial+economic justice w/ eco activism. Back then, I was primarily an artist+occasional facilitator. Most of my energy went into making art that has strong social commentary

At the time, I wasn't part of any particular political organizations, but I had strong relationships with activists in many movements+folks knew they could call on me for different stuff: performing, teaching, facilitating. Folks commissioned me to write poems for their movements

I recall when I had a biodiesel car, I cut my carbon footprint, but in some ways it was counter productive. I felt like I was already "doing my part." @NaomiAKlein talks about how we erroneously see our power as consumers not activists. I definitely fell into that at the time.

@NaomiAKlein I was concerned about #ClimateChange, but it had to stand in line behind all the other political issues on my radar (racism/sexism). I didn't see it as a bigger existential threat, or as a problem whose solutions could actually solve many of the other political ills on my radar.

@NaomiAKlein Underneath the disconnect was fear. The threat was so big. The peril was so dangerous. So many of the people talking about it were white. It was easier to dismiss them than to really look. But I was part of a political peer counseling organization that was pushing people to look.

@NaomiAKlein So some folks had already pushed me to begin to look at the #climatecrisis by the time #HurricaneMaria hit. This was when my heart broke open. I was enraged+grief-stricken, horrified+filled with guilt, as were so many other Diaspora #PuertoRicans. I couldn't look away any longer.

@NaomiAKlein #ClimateCatastrophe was here. Was now. Was happening to my homeland. For a while I was paralyzed by the feelings. I felt like I needed to do something. I was a writer. I started by writing a spoken word piece about the hurricane.

en-gb.facebook.com/ayadeleonwrite…

@NaomiAKlein I needed to keep writing about #HurricaneMaria, but I didn't know what to do next. I was three books into a #FeministHeist series of urban romantic suspense novels+realized it was my biggest platform. My editor agreed I could change topics in order to write about the hurricane.

@NaomiAKlein At this point in my experience, I was flooded by feelings of not being up to the task of writing about the hurricane. I felt I wasn't a good enough writer, that I was the wrong person to do it. My series wasn't considered serious fiction. Someone else would be the right person.

@NaomiAKlein I just decided that those thoughts must be bullshit. That it was internalized racism, sexism, classism etc. I kept at it. I felt like I didn't know enough to be a climate activist. Neither politically nor scientifically. But I also knew that POC needed to flood into the movement.

@NaomiAKlein So I turned to my peer counseling community w/ grief+rage about Puerto Rico+terror about the #ClimateCrisis+feelings that I wasn't enough or wasn't the right person to take a public role in the climate movement. I made the decision, took action+had to walk through the feelings.

@NaomiAKlein It was really tough for a while, but I got through it. I went to a conference in Chicago about the hurricane. I visited #PuertoRico+read @NaomiAKlein's hurricane book. I finally felt a little more grounded. I finished my novel+it came out less than 2 years after the hurricane.

@NaomiAKlein It was the first novel published about #HurricaneMaria+I billed it as being about #colonization+#ClimateChange. The series has broad appeal but is marketed heavily to low-income black+brown young women. The heroine is in that demographic+it's about her journey to climate activism

@NaomiAKlein Then the book was done+although it gave me ongoing opportunities to talk about climate, I realized I was still too isolated from the larger struggle. I was too professionalized+I did the climate activism individually as an artist. But what about my family? My larger community?

@NaomiAKlein I decided to join @sunrisemvmt+@Y_Vs_A to back youth leaders. I began organizing at my kid's elementary school
muthamagazine.com/2019/12/the-bu…
If the project didn't include my family, it wouldn't be sustainable. @MDeMocker's Parent's Guide to Climate Revolution also really emboldened me!

@NaomiAKlein @sunrisemvmt @Y_Vs_A @MDeMocker I have a vision of organizing Black people in my community. I take every opportunity I get to talk about climate to POC, including my keynote speech at @AfroComicCon (how #AfroFuturism needs to be about black people answering the call to save the future) ayadeleon.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/my-…

@NaomiAKlein @sunrisemvmt @Y_Vs_A @MDeMocker @afrocomiccon More than anything, I have decided to keep mixing it up. Fiction about climate, essays about climate, #climatetwitter, organizing younger kids, supporting teens, organizing POC/black adults. Taking every opportunity. +pushing to elect 2020 officials who support the #GreenNewDeal!

@NaomiAKlein @sunrisemvmt @Y_Vs_A @MDeMocker @afrocomiccon Wanna add this to my #HowICameToClimate thread: My heritage is African American, Puerto Rican+West Indian. My island folks particularly Ricans don't need help understanding that the #ClimateCrisis affects us. PR recently identified as the nation most affected by #ClimateChange.

@NaomiAKlein @sunrisemvmt @Y_Vs_A @MDeMocker @afrocomiccon I have chosen to organize black people, particlarly US b/c--being many generations out of the Global South--we see the threat as distant. But also have a toxic combo of despair: beat down by hundreds of years of slavery+racism. But also sense of US insulation from world problems.

@NaomiAKlein @sunrisemvmt @Y_Vs_A @MDeMocker @afrocomiccon This is why intersectionality in the climate movement is so important+the #GreenNewDeal. Climate justice, economic justice, racial justice, gender justice, international justice. They all come together in a unified effort to save the planet+end systems of oppression. Sign me up‼️