the Rose that grew from concrete did you
hear about the rose that grew from a
crack in the concrete proving nature’s
laws wrong and learned to walk without
having feet funny it seems but by
keeping its dreams it learned to breathe
fresh air long live the Rose that grew
from concrete when no one else ever
cared tupac shakur poetry and pollution
global fiction and global warming I know
the difference fears of my talk aren’t
normally associated with each other but
here’s how they connect for centuries
African Americans were considered to be
animal rather than human fit to be
bought and sold branded and bred our
writers responded by crafting a literary
canon that defended our humanity but
they also expressed empathy with the
exploited natural realm and now that our
world is in the midst of ecological
disaster now that climate change is
harming our ecosystems and threatening
the global food supply the stories and
poems black artists created are more
important than ever because they contain
essential insights into how to save our
planet
now I understand if black literature or
even black people aren’t the first
resources you think of when it comes to
protecting the environment even
environmental activists Van Jones who is
African American says in my neighborhood
you go around talking to people about
polar bears they are not feeling you Van
Jones is from Oakland California and the
neighborhood about which he speaks is
like many places poor urban and black
his claim makes sense doesn’t it this is
a nation that can’t even build a
consensus that black lives matter so
polar bears are probably pretty far down
on the priority list in Oakland Ferguson
or the Bronx right I disagree after all
it was the African American poet Lucilla
and who wrote being property once myself
I have a feeling for it that’s why I can
talk about environment I argue much of
african-american literature suggests if
you’re on a journey to a healthier
planet black people are essential to
your project if your aim is to save the
trees he those who are once they’re
strange fruit if you hope to speak for
the voiceless listen to those who are
once bound into bits and Bridals listen
to African American literature like
polar bears African Americans have been
the first to suffer harms harms that
have all too often been neglected we
scream we can’t breathe because of a
noose because of air pollution because
of a policeman’s arm around our necks
but it takes so long for the law to hear
us the thing is though that experience
of oppression uniquely positions us to
empathize with and advocate for the
environment not only do black people
care about polar bears but polar bears
don’t stand a chance without us in our
stories let me give you an example Tupac
Shakur was a hip-hop artist and poet
from Oakland he represented the west
coast during the East Coast West Coast
hip-hop rivalry of the 1990s 20 years
later urban minority communities are
still battling on the west coast they’re
not fighting for musical dominance but
for environmental justice Shakur’s palm
points to grim sociological realities
but it indexes ecological ones too like
the long odds of youth developing
healthily in places where the only green
is what manages to grow up through the
concrete you see green places like parks
and gardens don’t just provide habitats
for trees rabbits and bees their
presences increase health benefits and
lower rates of violence green places
begin protecting children before they’re
even born when impoverished mothers have
access to green space their babies are
born with healthier higher birth weights
but in California’s there’s extremely
unequal access to green
space in one area of black Los Angeles
there’s only one playground for every
23,000 children in LA’s white
neighborhoods there are 32 acres of Park
for every 1,000 people in the black
neighborhoods there’s only one point
seven acres like the size of a large
backyard this poem makes it clear in too
many communities if your skin is black
green you lack for the Rose in the poem
clean air is a dream just as it is for
many African American kids they’re much
more likely than their white buddies to
live in polluted areas with high ozone
levels that’s why our children die of
asthma at seven times the rate of their
white peers only one in every ten white
children suffers from asthma for black
kids it’s more like one in five black
kids live with and die from asthma at
higher rates than whites but for kids
like those in Oakland the situation is
even worse because there’s a class
component to the biggest risk factors
for asthma are simply being black or
Puerto Rican and poor these verses found
the alarm it is a struggle simply to
breathe while black long live the Rose
that grew from concrete when no one else
ever cared the poems last lines speak of
an indifference all too familiar to the
marginalize they grieve the fact society
often seems not to care that people of
color and the poor bear more than their
share of environmental burdens but
receive less than their share of
environmental benefits our plight
inspires our literature but it doesn’t
seem to be inspiring policy now it’s not
as though there aren’t laws on the books
in shakoora state aimed at protecting
both nature and vulnerable human
populations but those laws are piecemeal
they’re these single issue bills that
treat things like toxic waste cleanup
and reduction in diesel emissions they
leave brutal gaps in the ecological
protections they hope to offer because
they Center on environmental sins rather
than on the
to my’s populations Shakur’s poem a
reference a rose that proves nature’s
law wrong but it also illuminates what
laws dealing with nature get wrong in
contrast to california’s legislation
Shakur’s poem takes an integrated look
at the oppression that keeps both plants
and people from thriving it referenced
his lack of green space lack of fresh
air and environmental injustice all in
eight lines but what if California
allowed African American literature to
inform the way it does law well it might
do something radical
it might make environmental laws that
are actually civil rights laws you see
Shakur’s poem reminds us of what current
environmental laws just don’t understand
that oppressed people don’t experience
injustice in separate parts but as a
coherent whole something the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 also recognizes the
act outlaw segregation and
discrimination in a broad array of
arenas by placing racial minorities
rather than individual racial and
justices at the center of the act
it bans several different forms of
inequity at once
offering blanket protection we need to
make environmental laws like that we
need to craft policies that our
community rather than issue focus and
compound several matters I’m talking
about laws that outline humans the green
civil rights funny it seems making
environmental laws that are actually
people centered but much of African
American literature reminds us that
human nature decisions are false because
blacks exist in a shared and fragile
ecology with nature what’s good for
blacks is good for the environment a
world in which African Americans thrive
is one that will foster roses it’s
simple protect the environmental rights
of marginalized people and you protect
the environment itself to make the best
green policy consult black prose and
poetry slave narratives will be the
cooling force that saves polar bears
hip-hop will be the filter that cleans
our air african-american literature will
water the Rose that grew from concrete
because green green is just the new
black [Applause]