From the Black civil rights movement in the usa, we can learn something very important about the prospects of the environmental movement.
While the movements are obviously fighting for completely different subjects, the parallels are simple to see. The green movement has powerful champions, such as Al Gore, Agnes Denes and Amy Balkin. Probably the most extraordinary people who have ever existed fought for civil rights, like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Neither movement has simply sprung from the ground, but instead were a culmination of centuries of labor, of abolitionists such as W.E.B. Dubois or conservationists for example Henry David Thoreau.
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So what can we take away from the fact that the movements offer a similar experience? One is that we need fighters (you are able to give them a call artists, if you want) with bold ideas. African Americans waited long enough for Whites to hand them their rights before bold people increased home plate with bold ideas. Boycotts, sit-ins, marches, along with other creatively organized resistance delivered justice to Blacks in America in the end.
Their efforts succeeded in convincing government to determine their perspective. Black leaders did not end racism, though. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated before he saw his vision of the world. The American Government didnt end racism. It wasnt until todays era, the 21st century, that race issues have finally started to fade. Why now?
It started with an idea. A genius government official took a doll of white girl and a doll of a black girl and asked little black girls, "Which is better?" When the girls find the white dolls, the world was moved. Segregation in schools was ended. A new era of school reform slowly took place. Every year since, the idea of tolerance continues to be more engrained in the mind of each and every student in the usa. Our generation in New York has had this concept (correctly) brainwashed into us: we are all equal. The result is a society with less racism as more generations are born.
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People become hard set in their ways with age. It is during youth that ideas and preferences for life are fixed. Saving money movement must understand this. Changing the minds of adults is very hard, although necessary. Teaching kids when the best arrange for the future of the movement.
From elementary school, kids need to learn how plants grow. There must be community or school gardens where children can experience this act of Creation on their own. They should discover the taste of their own fruits and vegetables.
They must be taught in easy lessons how, with one of these gifts, an obligation is offered to them to take care of the earth. We are able to help them learn to be disgusted through the idea of pollution. Their world is going to be cleaner than we can imagine plus they wouldnt even know how anyone could live another way. Can you emphasize with a slave owner, or realise why people would discriminate against a soft-spoken, well dressed black man? The concept is absurd.
This really is my art project. Its within our schools that change must come. While we adults must do our best to guide a good example, it will be for free as we dont start, today, teaching children how to love the planet, and the way to love the smell of growing life on the spring morning.
