Book #3: Black Faces, White Spaces
Diversity, equity and inclusion in green spaces.
Hi friends! I’m Jess and this is Book Club for the Planet, an online community for us to read about the climate crisis in community.
Our first book of 2021 is Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors by Carolyn Finney. I hope you all have been reading and enjoying it, as I have! Our next book club meeting to discuss this book will be Sunday, February 14 at 1 pm EST.
This book offers a lot to unpack and discuss, from the role of history and collective memory in outdoor spaces; racialized representation in environmental institutions, brand marketing, and media; and today’s Black experience of the outdoors and the reframing and reclaiming of that experience. With the majority of our book club being white or white-passing, we’ll also facilitate the opportunity for us to openly and safely discuss our own role in sustaining and/or dismantling white supremacy in our work, activism, and engagement with outdoor space.
Everyone is welcome to join, whether you’ve finished the book or not, and to engage in whatever way feels right to you. Maybe you’re coming to connect with others and work through these questions with a sympathetic sounding board, or maybe you’re coming to learn in a listen-only mode. You are welcome here! Our meetings last for about 90 minutes, but it’s totally ok to come for the first 45 minutes or an hour if that works for you. If you’d like a little guidance on engagement before joining us, read this short and sweet 9 Rules for the Woke Birdwatcher by J. Drew Lanham.
For those who are new to our meetings, here’s how it works:
A few days before our meeting, I send out a separate Mail Chimp newsletter with a Zoom registration link. Please register so our fellow organizers and I can plan appropriately for the size of our expected group. If you have unsubscribed to that newsletter (life happens and my email inbox perpetually has over 5,000 unread emails in it, so I get it!), please also make sure to unsubscribe to this Substack as well so I don’t accidentally re-subscribe you to the Mail Chimp newsletter when I’m updating the lists every other month.
See you all very soon!
What I’m reading and listening to:
My dear friend Katie (and member of this book club!) gifted me a subscription to Orion Magazine and I just received my first issue! The piece, “Fatherland,” by Nadia Owusu, is a beautiful meditation on homeland and climate grief. Thank you to our book club member, Susan, for sharing a link to author Carolyn Finney in an upcoming panel on February 13, the day before our book club discussion! For other fellow visual and auditory learners, watch or listen to a talk with Carolyn Finney from three years ago. Do you work for an outdoor organization and want to attend a diversity, equity, and inclusion training? Check out the Outdoor CEO Pledge and this Instagram post. A couple of weeks ago, I became a student again—I’m pursuing a Sustainability Certificate from Harvard, and starting with a course on sustainable fashion! Thank you to our book club member Jess for sharing this great primer on the role of fossil fuels in our fashion industry. Did you, like me, hear about the Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest after the fact? Don’t worry—there are recordings! Same deal for last December’s 2020 Fibershed Wool and Fine Fiber Symposium: Healthy Soil and Sea conference. I sent this podcast episode of On Being with author Katherine May, about her book Wintering, to just about everyone—a nourishing conversation about late-capitalist, mid-pandemic exhaustion, and the importance of rest. And the Integratron in Joshua Tree is offering virtual soundbaths!