Climate on Tap: Stories of Remembrance & Restoration

Day 7: Rest

September 04, 2022 Colette Pichon Battle, Mana Tahaie and Anthony Giancatarino
Climate on Tap: Stories of Remembrance & Restoration
Day 7: Rest
Show Notes Transcript

Rest with us as we step away from the grind. Leading up to Labor Day, we pay homage to the invisibilized and stolen labor of Black and Indigenous peoples, of migrants, of union (and non-unionized) workers internationally. May we bask in rest as a means of resistance.

Guest Speakers:
Colette Pichon Battle // Vision & Initiatives Partner, Taproot Earth
Anthony Giancatarino // Strategy Partner, Taproot Earth
Mana Tahaie // Managing Partner, Taproot Earth

Introduction by:
Colette Pichon Battle // Vision & Initiatives Partner, Taproot Earth

Tap into REST by…
Doing just that - resting. Take a long nap in the shade. Unplug from your devices (and email!). Give gratitude for your being.

Connect with us @taprootearth on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Day seven, Rest. It's our final day y'all, Climate On Tap, Rituals of Remembrance and Restoration concludes with a final reflection from our Taproot Earth leadership team. This episode features Taproot Earth's own Anthony Giancatarino, Mana Tahaie, and myself Colette Pichon Battle. Rest with us as we step away from the grind leading up to Labor Day, we pay homage to the invisibilized and stolen labor of Black and Indigenous peoples, of women and femmes, of migrants, of union and non-unionized workers, internationally. May we bask in rest as a means of resistance. We're seeing a lot of struggle, and fear, and scarcity, and just worry for a lot of good reasons, right? We're talking about these big vision and big ideas because that's what we're hearing around climate science is that we have until 2030 before things get really bad. And we have just gone through a pandemic where, in my mind, I was like,"Oh, maybe a pandemic will bring people together." And it has for some communities. But as a society it has actually worn our communities more, and it has actually created more fissures and fights. And it's just like,"What's it going to take?" I thought a global health pandemic that puts people at risk would do it. And that's clearly not the case. I do think, though, we are seeing the cracks in the system, a 500, 600, 700 year old system that is finally starting to break down. And to me, there are two ways to go about it. We can go the way of fear and scarcity, and it's all for yourself, and it's all about just othering others and taking what you can and survive, which a lot of people want. That's obviously not our vision. We have a vision of love and abundance. And it's not just soft, it's real, it's hard. But there's something about— this is a moment to recreate democracy. We haven't really had a democracy for a long time, if at all, and we want to practice it. So now's the time to practice self-governance. When we talk about what are we co-creating? We're co-creating abilities for communities that come across difference, to come across regions, to come across perspectives, and make really hard decisions on what do we prioritize with our budget. What do we think about when we have to come up with what is the first solution we're going to step forward on, on this crisis to move together? That's hard to do. And our elected officials have a really hard time doing it for a lot of reasons. And the only way we're going to do that is if we practice together in our communities on up. And so I think that's something beautiful, that's why we are at Taproot Earth, right? It's like going deep and wide. How do we... I think this is the opportunity, the communities doing democracy grappling with those challenges of learning and building together with the solutions to the climate crisis. I think that's the way it happens. To replicate that. And that requires the ability to take risks. Yeah, I just I'm thinking about that really great executive strategy session that we all had that Kate facilitated for us. And we were talking in real terms about like, if capitalism is what got us here, how do we reject capitalism? Even in our own organization, even in our own spaces, How do we how do we reject ideas of scarcity and dominance? How do we actually look at what a culture of care, of resistance looks like internally? And that was famously when we added the word "rest" to our mission statement or a vision statement. We had live and thrive, and we were like,"Is thriving the goal? Is the goal just to like - are we just giving in to the grind again?" Are we just giving in to this idea that you have to grow in order for success to be realized? Can resting itself be its own end? And I think that was, I mean, for me just being, just existing. I remember, Colette, you saying,"Part of the rights of nature are, the water in that puddle exist there just to be." The water doesn't have to produce anything, it doesn't have to generate anything. It can just exist." And that is in of itself, the point. And I think that was a really pivotal moment for me about,"Okay, we're really trying to experiment with something new here." We don't want to grind until we have a future that we won't where we don't want to grind. Right? We want to do that now. We want to experiment with it now. In the same way that we're building these formations that self-govern because we're trying to experiment with what democracy needs to look like. And we have to try it out, and we have to mess up, and we have to get it wrong, and then try it again, and then recover from that and do it over and over again because this whole thing is an experiment. Adrienne Maree Brown says,"All of this work for social justice and liberation is really science fiction." That we're really just imagining a world that doesn't exist yet. And we're trying that here, Taproot's a great experiment. And love and abundance, what? What does that even mean in practice?[laughter] How do you even make that work? Yeah, no, it's real. I struggle with the rest part. You don't say? I have to say this leadership team has really been my transformation. What is it to move with partners who remind each other about these principles that we can we can fall out of sync with because of the grind, right? Because of capitalism, because of the way things work. It's so easy to go through your life achieving good grades and degrees and whatever. And to really think that that's what we're supposed to be doing— it's what's sold to us so early. You are successful if you grind, if your labor is good enough it'll be valued at something high, monetarily. But to have a team of people who are constantly reminding each other that rest is is not just valuable beyond any number, we have a very short life. And to to have a quality version of this life is really a bigger part of the game than to have a monetarily valued one. But also the natural systems that Anthony spoke of earlier those natural systems include rest. Who do we think we are? You're gonna have a heart attack at 50, you're gonna burn out, you're gonna do these things if you don't really incorporate this into yourself. And that has been a real lesson for me and my big vision, right? I think big, you can think as big as you want, but if you're not incorporating these natural cycles into your life, into your practice, you're not going to get to your own vision. You'll be one of those biblical characters who did all the work but never made it to the Promised Land, who never got to see it. And I don't want that, I want to see it. I want to see the good parts and rest, speaking of our executive session, rest, where we're in executive session with our families, we're in meetings with our whole selves, we're checking in on each other, really, for me, it has been an eye opening moment once we're in it. We're practicing this thing, and I really appreciate it. I think about it sometimes, we are bucking the system. I used to work in a law firm, and, you know,"How many billable hours can you get?" was the question. That was, billable hours, you know what I mean? And now I'm in Taproot Earth as a partner, and the question is,"Has everybody taking a rest? Is our team ready for what we know lies ahead, but has everyone taken a rest?" A very different concept for me. Well, if we're going to reject the notions of capitalism, capitalism is inherently oppressive. It's inherently disabling. It requires people to be extracted from. And we know historically American capitalism has extracted from very specific communities. It was built on the stolen labor of enslaved Africans. It was built on the genocide of Indigenous peoples. It thrives on exploiting oppressed people who are martyring themselves for their own liberation, as if you could ever grind your way into liberation. Right? As if the goalposts aren't going to move anyway. So many of my, especially my Black friends, have said that they grew up with the ethos that you got to work twice as hard to get half as much. And it's like, by whose measure? And why would working twice as hard... It's never going to actually get you into... you never win at white supremacy. You never win at it. All you do is you grind yourself down. We've had a pandemic that's a mass disabling event. We also just have capitalism that's been a mass disabling event, right? There's a reason that we live inside these communities that are suffering chronic illnesses and being poisoned and being sacrificed, because we believe that some bodies are just worth tearing down in order to support some other bodies. And I think it is a huge act of resistance and revolution to say,"We're not going to do that to each other here." Not here. I just think about all of the Black women, you know, going back to that CSI moment when we first started working with Maya, the report that we did. It was it was basically three Black women in three different states that got hit by Katrina who all concluded that Black women were organizing their community in the recovery. I believe we called her "Miss Mary" like, gave her this sort of persona. Like, we all had one— we all had many. We ran into them everywhere. And the work that was happening was so visible if you were paying attention. If you valued the work of the woman in the community whose job it was to know who was back, where did people go? Because we were displaced everywhere after Katrina, Who was back? Where did everybody go? What did people need? You know, there's people driving around with things, and a woman in the community saying,"Oh, leave two bags of ice over there, they need ice." Or, you know,"Oh, no, they need baby food, down at the red house." and who is paying attention to what the community needs? Who's bringing the community together because they made a big pot of beans? We didn't have electricity and stuff, but somebody's out there cooking and frying some fish. And all this work that was invisible, never got resourced, only to watch other pieces of work in the recovery. Who was doing the data sweep? Who was doing the policy analysis of the moment? And to watch that get ballooned payment. I remember even in the recovery of Katrina in Louisiana, there was a firm in Louisiana whose job it was to get the disaster resources out to the ground. And they paid themselves millions of dollars before they got $1 out the door to the people who were actually suffering. And that was the agreement of the of the state, you know, like,"Okay, you can do that and then get the money to the people." And it's like, how many times do we have to tell people we don't value them? And if they're not producing anything for this economic dominance, then we do not value the labor that they bring, the relationships, the invisible work that it takes to maintain relationships for 20, 30, and 40 years, and the value that those relationships play in disaster. Meanwhile, here comes these other folks needing to ask that same Black woman, where should we go to get the data? What should we do to get the report? They're getting paid, she doesn't get paid. And I'm just thinking about, there's a number of stories around invisible labor, especially in disaster and I think even in this movement work, I think about, Mana, when you were just talking about grinding yourself, you know, I remember looking up Fannie Lou Hamer and I remember thinking,"How did she die?" And she died like so many other Black women. She died after giving her all— she gave everything. You know, it's worth studying what is extracted of us, Brown people, women folk, rural folk, poor folk, working class people, what is extracted from us? What's taken from us? It's not just a lack of monetary value that's taken from us—it's our lives. And what we're doing, I think, is giving us and everybody moving with us their lives back. What does it look like to give you your life back? I love that part of our understanding of labor, when we think about our pillars. Our climate justice pillar is valuing the care economy, not just because it's low on greenhouse gas emissions, but also because what you were just describing, it's the glue. It's invisible, but it is the thing that binds together the existence of all of our communities. And of course, we undervalue it because it's traditionally gendered, because you can't get a Ph.D. in it and have credentials that you can loom over and lord over other people with. You can't monetize it in the same ways. It's always laughable to me when suddenly policymakers are like,"Maybe childcare should be considered infrastructure? Hmm..." As if like, are you new?[laughter] Welcome to the planet. Right.[laughter] You know, before y'all had all these industries, guess what we had? We had to take care of people, we had to feed each other, we had to provide health and wellness care for each other. Like that predates all of this. What do you think? This is the thing I love about how, with these pillars and even just this conversation on labor and the holistic sense of climate. Mana is the first time I think greenhouse gas emissions came up in this entire podcast, so far, and it was almost as like a backhanded slight. We're a climate justice organization, but our primary focus, yes, we do want carbon emissions down, but that's not how we're going to get there. We're not going to get there by just cutting carbon and starting that as the conversation. It's about how to get your life back? How can you take rest? How can you resist the capitalist framework and mode of always producing and extracting from each other? How do you think about water as just being able to be, and not just have to take it for yourself? These are conversations that just speak to people's soul. And I think we had a conversation at one point, I was talking to one of our newer hires and they made a comment and I was like,"Well, we're not really like a spiritual organization." And and they were like,"No, you are. This is, Taproot is a spiritual organization." And I had a pause. I was like, "Oh, right." You know, out of the colonial thinking of spirituality, we are a spiritual organization because we are speaking to people's souls or spirit or energy, however you want to define it for what that is. And it's all around you as a person, you as a community, how are you working together to address making this climate better for you and for your future generations? And that is just... asking questions like that and asking questions around like, what is the cause for this? Yeah, it is burning fossil fuels, that is true. We're going to get there, but it allows us to take a much deeper assessment of what the real problems are. And we can come up with much more creative solutions that are actually much more implementable in small ways that add up to be huge in the long run. And I think that's really what we want people to know, is that, we're not just talking. We're going to try it. They're trying everything else on us. They're experimenting with everything else. Look at all these technologies they're just trying out on our communities, all these experiments. Well, we're going to experiment with some life giving, life affirming approaches to saving not just our planet, but ourselves. And we really want folks in our Taproot family to know that we are envisioning a better world, and we're going to start right now. We're going to start right now. We're going to pay people valuable wages, treat people well, insist on rest inside of our work, resist capitalist and colonized ways of of producing just to produce. We're gonna be and we're gonna love and we're gonna thrive because of the invisible things. That care economy and spirit, you know, these invisible things have been devalued much too long. And now we want to value them. Thank you for that closing conversation. What an honor and a privilege to do this work alongside such a committed and unrelenting team. Tap into rest by doing just that—resting. Take a long nap in the shade, unplug from your devices and email, give gratitude simply for being. We are so grateful for the ways you showed up and supported our virtual launch. Taproot family, thank you. This is just the beginning. Make sure to connect with us@TaprootEarth on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and continue using hashtag#ClimateOnTap. We need folks to know climate is not a one day or one week thing, climate all day, every day. Remember,"Katrina was the worst thing that happened, but it was the best thing that happened." Reckon,"We don't grow if we're not scared, we don't shift if we're not uncomfortable.""Reckoning, you know, it gives me hope, it gives me the positive vibe that continue fighting on that, continue bringing our issues we have that we're not the only one going through it, but we do have hope at the end of the tunnel." Reclaim,"Reclaiming looks like we're gonna be in it for a long time.""Mending broken bonds with the world and Mother Earth around us.""We should have done more sooner, and I don't want that to happen to the generation that's coming behind me." Repair,"Repair looks like creating the nation and the world of our dreams. It sounds like laughter, like real joy, and it feels like freedom.""The things that we have as our birthrights, an indelible joy that belongs to us." Resource,"We need bold and courageous leaders. Vote, engage, and demand democracy, so that we're talking about freedom and justice and joy." Restore,"A swell of people who know what they want, and are willing to fight for it, and willing to do the work to build it." Rise,"There is more trauma, more crises to come. I just really take heart in the idea that, collectively, we can be more powerful than the forces against us." And rest collectively,"Rest tastes like a really good home cooked meal with family and friends. Your taste buds are all firing, and all you have to do is just hold it.""Rest feels like love on my mind.""Rest sounds like crickets at nighttime after a rain, a nice, gentle southern wind through the trees. You can hear all of the leaves slowly swaying.""I dream of a future that tells the story of a people from the Gulf South who never gives up." This was Climate On Tap, Rituals of Remembrance and Restoration.