Before The Streetlights Come On

Adult nonfiction 

     "How in the world are Black folks supposed to talk about climate change when we have other pressing issues to deal with?  How and better yet, why?

     I've asked myself these questions a thousand times.  I hear them when I talk to Black people about climate and environmental topics.  Why talk climate in an era of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor; with BBQ Beckys and Karens monitoring Black behavior; while school shootings and voter suppression continue unabated?"

     In Before The Streetlights Come On Heather McTeer Toney addresses these questions and many more.  At the beginning of the pandemic people started tossing around the phrase, we're all in the same storm.  After awhile some people started qualifying it with the notion that we weren't all weathering it in the same boats.  Whites were much more likely to be steering around cabin cruisers or at least motor boats while a lot of people of color were navigating the disaster on leaky rafts.  The same is true about the ongoing tragedy we're currently calling climate change.  And even as Black people unfairly bear the brunt of this unraveling they also have to deal with social justice issues that whites have the luxury of being able to ignore.  

     "The difference between mainstream majority-white environmental movements and minority-led Black, brown, and Indigenous movements is that the latter does not have the luxury of silo.  Our issues coexist.  Climate change collides with other historic and systemic racially based issues to create a long-overdue desire for one thing: equity."

     Of the environmental books I've reviewed in the nearly twelve years my blog has been around Before The Streetlights Come On is the one I most highly recommend.  

     The first reason is that it's much more accessible for those of us who didn't ace organic chemistry.  The title gives readers a big time clue.  As children Toney and her friends knew that if they didn't drop everything and get in the house before the streetlights came on there would be serious consequences.  In the book this phrase most of us can relate to also sums where humankind is in relation to climate change.  We still have some daylight left.  But if we don't get things turned around before darkness falls the consequences will be tragic and irreversible.

     This preaching to a wider audience carries on throughout the book.  Each chapter discusses one aspect of the problem and its disproportionate effect on people of color.  Each features a glossary of terms professionals tend to throw around and suggestions for incorporating expanding into personal and community life.

     This book is intersectional.  It ties together issues of environmental and social justice.  But it isn't telling people with my pallid complexion to go all white saviour.  It stresses that because of their traditions of Earth stewardship instead of exploitation and their adaptation to conditions of adversity and scarcity people of color have a lot to teach the rest of us.

     Toney doesn't wake us up only to soothe us back to sleep in the last chapter like so many books do.  Comfort and complacency are luxuries that we can no longer afford.  She spells out just why tweaking here and there just won't work.

     "This is the same way we've tried 'quick fixes' to address climate change.  Too much plastic?  Tell people to stop using straws.  Electric bill too costly?  Unplug your microwave and coffee pot.  The solutions are based on small personal acts versus the larger societal transformations that will be necessary to save the foundation of our planet."

     Amen to that!  We have only a limited window of opportunity to ensure the continued viability of our one and only planet.  In the words of Toney, "Playtime is over, it's time to clean up."

     I usually suggest that people seek out the books that I recommend in their local public libraries.  But Before The Streetlights Come On is too important.  If you can afford to do so buy a copy.  If you can afford to go above and beyond consider buying an extra copy to donate.

     And join me in promoting the book.  Do you have friends, family members, or coworkers who would want to read it and respond to its timely message?  Are you a member of a book club?  Do you belong to a house of worship or other organization that could put its collective force toward educating about and working toward much needed change?

     As Toney so eloquently reminds us, if we don't collectively get home before the streetlights come on there's gonna be hell to pay.

On a purrrsonal note, reading the book got me unstuck on an issue that was really bugging me.  Right before Christmas 2017 Eugene surprised me with my first smartphone.  I knew that stewardship of it was a serious responsibility.  The minerals used in it are not in infinite supply.  The ways in which they are mined often involve oppression of and downright cruelty to people of color.  And the discarded phones become landfill environmental nightmares.  So I took very conscientious care of it.  A few weeks ago Eugene told me to choose a new model to upgrade to.  I told him no need for that.  Mine didn't even have the smallest screen crack.  I didn't need all the bells and whistles that would make a newer model a "must have."  Eugene showed me the letter.  The service provider was going to stop providing services to my model.  So everyone who had it was being forced to upgrade.  WHAT THE FUCK!!!  This was planned obsolescence of the worst sort.  My first reaction was, fuck this shit!  I don't need a damn smartphone.  I did perfectly fine without one for most of my life.  I can go offline just like that.  I don't get withdrawal pangs when Eugene and I spend a weekend (even a long weekend) at camp.  Only seconds later I realized that the profession, student services, I've been working so hard towards will render it a non option.  So I was in a state of grieving.  The end of the chapter suggestions reminded me that I have a lot more power to change things than I was realizing.  I have these mad oral and written communication and networking skills going for me.  I go to a church where racism and environmentalism are regular sermon fodder.  I've volunteered for my local public library since the day it's doors opened.  And at UMaine I'm very popular and drag royalty.  In just the past semester I collaborated with both Green Team and our Diversity and Inclusion office as the commuter lounge intern.  I'm going to be coming at that planned obsolescence bullshit like a mad hornet!!!

     If the book can get me that much on fire just imagine what it can do for you and yours.  But don't just imagine.  Start reading already.  (Jules)

It isn't just about you humans.  Your actions endanger all of God's creation.  And you're the only ones with opposable thumbs.  So heed the warnings and do something while there's still time.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to Heather McTeer Toney for telling the truth.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone