Mother Earth and our Health: Mourning, Love, and Liberation
By Naadiya Hutchinson
When I first began diving deeply into work around health, black freedom movements, and the relationship between earth and communities of color, my grandma was beginning to get sick. As I learned more about how pollution impacts our health, I watched as my grandmother’s memory began to slowly deteriorate. I would eagerly visit my home in Florida, ready to take in all of the parks and wildlife around me. Recognizing that moments in nature created a sense of grounding, and helped me to feel calmer and relaxed. Breathing in the fresh air, and breathing out my worries. At times though, the calming presence of nature would get distributed as I drove past wildfires, and visited parks destroyed by the recent hurricanes. The world seemed so frail and I saw that same frailty in my grandmother’s physical and emotional state. Losing friends and family members is a process we will all go through, and it can be challenging and painful. Coupling this loss with the losses of nature around me was slightly numbing. I asked myself: When I love someone, what would I do to help them? And comfort them? This might look different for everyone, but for me, it meant giving them my love. Love to my grandmother. Love for my Earth.
I use the word Earth, but technical and professional fields usually use the term ‘environment’. It encompasses air, water, land, and all the variations of use for these natural resources, such as agriculture, wind turbines, and even swimming pools. Something not entirely apparent to the general population is the extent that human health and the health of the environment are intertwined. Most people can name one instance of this recently since it took the headlines: water, specifically the high lead levels in Flint, Michigan and the resultant public health disaster. Lead is associated with developmental deficits that can lead to lower IQ and behavioral issues for children. The lead crisis in Flint, however, drew attention because it afflicted a primarily black community. While this type of problem could happen anywhere in the US, it didn’t. When reports started to come out about the issue, the government was slow to help. Though reports of lead in the water came out in April 2014, the people of Flint still do not have safe drinking water today.
Air keeps us alive, but when there is pollution there is an increase in rates of asthma and heart disease. These health outcomes are universal to all people; however, communities of color and low-income communities are likely to be located closer to pollution sources than affluent, white communities. Asthma in youth can lead to less time spent outdoors and associating exercise and outdoor activities with horrifying asthma attacks and hospital experiences. Having such strong and painful experiences with being outdoors and exercising results in a trauma response, like flashbacks, anxiety and a strong feeling of missing out when friends and family partake in those activities. Coupling this emotional trauma with all the medical bills and fees of having a chronic illness, overall deteriorates the mental health of communities of color.
The experience of comfort and serenity that I described when I go outdoors is common for many. Green spaces such as parks, trails, and forests are known to decrease symptoms of mental distress such as stress, depression and anxiety. When available in cities or easy to access outside of cities, they are also cheap ways for people to get exercise. Due to intentional city development policies, such as redlining however, communities of color suffer from a severe lack of green space which decreases mental well being. A common thread with all of these environmental issues we face is that they are systematically done to communities. By situating communities of color in polluted spaces, the cycle of oppression continues — for one cannot break the chains of a broken system and achieve liberation without their health.
Liberation isn’t a simple process and doesn’t happen overnight, but realizing our connection to the earth and finding ways to cultivate a relationship with the environment around us gets us closer there. We are on the land of Native Americans, which has been tended to by Blacks, Latinx, and poor Whites for decades. Yet our communities don’t get to see the bounty of nature’s resources in our neighborhoods — we just see the waste and blight. Constantly being exposed to the trash in our streets and incinerators in our backyards, we are told a message that we matter less. We can counteract this message, with love for our Earth, love for ourselves, and continued action against the systems that continue to oppress us. We could view pollution, exploitation of the Earth’s resources, and the ensuing sickness that comes with it with a look of sadness and anger — feelings that we often experience during times of grief and mourning. Or we could use this information as a source of empowerment, helping to find our truth and freedom in a way that also brings harmony to the world around us. Most likely, we will fluctuate between all of these feelings — sadness, anger, grief, empowerment, freedom — and that’s okay too.
