Melissa Harris-Perry: We're continuing our celebration of Earth Day weekend. Let's turn to environmental justice, an approach to environmental activism, which puts the communities most affected by pollution and climate change at the center of creating environmental solutions. Environmental justice documents the disproportionate effects of climate harm on communities of color, and it insists that these communities must be the key decision-makers as we find solutions.

For example, we know that climate change is increasing the severity and frequency of natural disasters. A 2018 study from researchers at Rice University and the University of Pittsburgh found that these disasters actually increase the racial wealth gap. Why? Because racially inequitable reinvestment following disasters leaves Black and Latinx communities poor while making white households and communities more wealthy. It's a stark reminder of why those most affected must be the most empowered to make decisions about climate resilience.

Wawa Gatheru is a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, an environmental justice advocate, and the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist. When we sat down, Wawa started by telling me what it means to be a Black girl environmentalist.

Wawa Gatheru: Being a Black girl that unapologetically loves the planet, loves people, and is working towards ensuring that we have a just climate future for all of us.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I must admit, as a Black old lady environmentalist, that it took me a little while to get here. I really was pushed by the girls, by my students, by the young women in my classes who kept reframing what felt to me initially like a movement that had little to do with me. How did you first become interested in environmental activism?

Wawa Gatheru: It's so interesting to hear you say that because that quite literally has been my experience, but the inverse. It's been the older women in my life that have really reframed climate environmentalism for me, and have really led me to finding my voice as a Black girl environmentalist, and even founding the organization that I did. My story to getting into environmentalism that I'm so, growing up, I grew up in rural Connecticut. I grew up surrounded by green space. I spent a lot of my time outside, and I always had this deep love for the planet. I argue that everybody truly does care about clean air, clean water because it's what we have to have to survive.

Growing up, even though I knew I love these things, environmentalism to me, and the way that it was presented and packaged to me definitely did not feel as though it included me. I felt as though environmentalism was this very top-shelf, white issue for wealthy people that went hiking and camping and spent a lot of times outside in their leisure. Even though I did that, to me, things like camping and hiking just weren't necessarily things that my family would do together.

The folks that I saw engaged in those activities are the folks I saw doing environmental work, or even my idea of an environmental scientist, look nothing like me. A lot of the narratives surrounding that didn't really feel as though they were close to home. It wasn't until I literally stumbled into this environmental science class my junior year of high school that my teacher, Mrs. Rose, she decided to add an Environmental Justice Chapter. She'd been teaching the course for over 10 years. I'd never done it before, but I decided that she wanted to really integrate this lens of equity within the curriculum, and I just happened to be one of those first students to get the education.

The scales literally fell from my eyes. I essentially had this big aha moment of, "Whoa, environmentalism actually has everything to do with me, especially as a Black person, especially as the daughter of two Kenyan immigrants, especially someone that comes from the Horn of Africa." Understanding all these intersections of environmentalism as being a racial justice issue, as being a gender justice issue, as being an issue that is disproportionately impacting Black and brown people around the world, amongst the most marginalized. That's when I realized that, A, there's a huge problem that I've lived my life up until this point thinking that this issue has nothing to do with me when, again, has everything to do with me.

Two, I realized that there was a lot of issues in regards to framing in environmental and climate spaces in regards to framing these issues as being inclusive and being an issue that truly relates to everyone. At 16, I had this big-- I was quite dramatic. I still am, but I essentially went to my room one day and I prayed and I said, "I'm dedicating my life to environmental justice," and I guess I've been on track to do that.

Melissa Harris-Perry: There's so much about that, that I love. I think, in certain ways, we make diminutive, those experiences that we have at 15, 16, 17 years old, but over and over again, particularly when I'm talking to people who are changemakers, it's actually right at that moment that the AHA, the passion, that fire, is lit.

Wawa Gatheru: Right. Right. Right, right.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about Black girl environmentalists as a community. Who are the people in this community and why is it necessary to build it with such explicit purpose?

Wawa Gatheru: I think it'd be helpful for me to lay the framework of what it's like to be a Black girl, a Black woman, or even a Black non-binary person in the environmental space. What we know is women in general experience climate change with disproportionate severity, because gender and equality around the world reduces our physical and economic mobility, our voice and opportunity in many places, making us amongst the most vulnerable to environmental stressors.

We also know that Black girls and Black women, in particular, bear an even heavier burden from the impacts of the climate crisis because of the historic impacts of racism and colonialism, and inequality. Due to this proximity, we have this unique role to play as indispensable leaders in creating just and effective climate solutions because we're at the forefront of this issue and are already creating solutions as a means of survival. However, at the same time, what we see is that the American Green Workforce is amongst the least diverse of any sector.

Every year, this green report 2.0 is released, and it's called The State of Diversity and Environmental Organizations. It's the most comprehensive report on demographic makeup of US-based environmental organizations and nonprofits. What we see is that people of color, don't exceed the 16% green ceiling of representation. Our concentration within these spaces are mostly early career and barely even reach the senior career position.

When you have this really interesting situation of folks of color, especially Black girls and Black women, are experiencing the climate crisis, environmental injustices, first and worst, yet we are simultaneously not represented in the movement that is tasked with solving our biggest crisis. Experiencing that as a Black girl and now a Black young woman in the environmental space, and as this budding leader in the space, going into environmental meetings, going into environmental organizations and looking around and being like, "Whoa, where are we?"

I know that we do care about these issues, and we are talking about these issues and other spaces that might not be understood as explicitly environmental, but there's been this disconnect because again, there's a lot of issues with framing.

In experiencing a lot of these dynamics, and really wanting to facilitate a very unique community, an inclusive and intentional community that is meant to serve as a safe space for Black girls, Black women, Black non-binary folks that are already in the environmental space, and are looking for this community that understands all these really complicated dimensions, as well as facilitating a community for this next generation of folks that might be just like me when I was 15, 16 years old up, "Whoa, I want to get involved, but where do I go? Where are people going to understand me? Where is my life going to be centered in this conceptualization of a just future?"

That's what we're really trying to do. We're trying to build up this community and really work amongst ourselves to really ideate a just future that actually takes our lives, our vitality into account.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about colorism in this.

Wawa Gatheru: I'm very interested in generally speaking, how do we make the environmental climate movement as inclusive as possible. As I said before, there's been a lack of diversity across the board, especially in environmental scholarship, and the way that we understand environmental problems, and that then extends at how we solve environmental solutions or solve environmental problems, to begin with.

Growing up, like I said before, I spent a lot of time outside. I loved being outside. However, I did have this interesting turning point around 14, 13, just a couple of years before I had my big aha moment, of which I was spending a lot of time outside and getting darker in the summer. I'd have "well-intentioned" aunties every time I'd go to Kenya that would tell me, "Hey, you should spend less time outside because you won't be as beautiful as your sisters, you won't be as beautiful as you can be.

At the time I was a track runner. I loved to run and as I got older and I'm starting getting more of these comments, I decided that I didn't want to spend time outside. I knew what I was giving up. I knew that I love running. I love being outdoors, but if it meant that at this very impressionable stage in my life that I wouldn't be seen as beautiful or dynamic, I didn't want to have to deal with that. I started spending less time outside to the point where I quit track.

Actually, my environmental journey was even impacted by that. I gravitated more towards environmental social sciences rather than conservation biology. One of the reasons being is I didn't want to do fieldwork because I didn't want to be outside for too long. I was a part of this program called the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program, where we spent two summers essentially doing fieldwork outside in California.

I started having these conversations with other women of color on the program and we realized that we all had very similar experiences of having this period in our life where we love the environment. We love to be outside, but we stopped spending as much time outside because of colorism, because of this historic cycle of people that we love and care about telling us that being darker isn't beautiful.

Then I started realizing that whoa, all of these programs and initiatives are working to create a multicultural diverse set of young naturalists, perhaps don't know that there is a barrier called colorism that might be keeping people from wanting to participate in the first place. That love of the environment can be there, but there might be dimensions that we're not diving into.

My research is looking at the way that colorism is perhaps a barrier that exists and then looking at different pathways to where the environmental education sphere could be talking about colorism, and talking about self-love actually as being an environmental action, because our bodies are a part of our environment. We're all a part of this beautiful, massive ecosystem. When we connect these things together, it makes it much easier to understand why these barriers exist and then address them.

One of my goals is to make sure that research can help inform, for instance, Black Girl Environmentalist, and other organizations that are trying to mobilize a movement made in the image of all of us by addressing all the issues that might be coming to head that keep especially young folks from feeling seen.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Wawa, what is next for you?

Wawa Gatheru: What is next? Graduation is next. My exams are May 16th, 18th, and 19th. I'm very excited to get it over with. I'm very excited to really finish my dissertation and continue to throw myself into this work. After I graduate, I know that I want to continue to cultivate the community that is black girl environmentalists and work alongside other folks that are vested in crafting this truly just climate movement that is made in the image of all of us. Working towards shifting narratives, making sure that we're all seen and heard and therefore really facilitating a movement that is truly just.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Are you going to take a nap at any point during any of that?

Wawa Gatheru: Oh, don't worry. I am a big proponent of nap ministry.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Oh, good.

Wawa Gacheru: I take naps all the time.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It can't be all the time that you have accomplished this much and continue to have this much more in front of you. I am smiling here as I listen to you because you do give me a sense of hope about what is possible in our future. Thank you for your analysis, for your passion, for your commitment, and thank you for joining The Takeaway.

Wawa Gatheru: Yes. Thank you so much for your work. Thank you for inviting me, and thank you for inspiring young black girls like me to be unapologetic in our work.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.