Environmental Movement and the Civil Rights Movement
While the movements are obviously fighting for very 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 those who have ever existed fought for civil rights, like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Neither movement has simply sprung out of the ground, but rather were a culmination of centuries of labor, of abolitionists such as W.E.B. Dubois or conservationists for example Henry David Thoreau.
Exactly what do we take away from the fact that the movements are similar? One is that we need fighters (you can give them a call artists, if you like) with bold ideas. African Americans waited of sufficient length for Whites at hand them their rights before bold people increased home plate with bold ideas. Boycotts, sit-ins, marches, and other creatively organized resistance delivered justice to Blacks in America ultimately.
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 around the globe. The American Government didn't end racism. It wasn't until our modern era, the Twenty-first century, that race issues have recently started to fade. Why now?
It started by having an idea. A genius government official took a doll of white girl along with a doll of a black girl and asked little black girls, "Which is better?" When the girls chose the white dolls, the world was moved. Segregation in schools was ended. A new era of school reform slowly happened. Every year since, the idea of tolerance has been more engrained in the mind of every student in the United States. Our generation in Ny has had this concept (correctly) brainwashed into us: many of us are equal. It makes sense a society with less racism as more generations are born.
People become hard occur their ways with age. During youth that ideas and preferences for a lifetime are fixed. The green movement needs to 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 should be community or school gardens where children can experience this act of Creation on their own. They should discover the taste that belongs to them fresh fruits and vegetables.
They should be taught in easy lessons how, with one of these gifts, an obligation is given to them to deal with the earth. We can teach them to be disgusted through the concept of pollution. Their world will be cleaner than we can imagine and they wouldn't even understand how anyone could live one other way. Can you emphasize having a slave owner, or realise why people would discriminate against a soft-spoken, well dressed black man? The idea is absurd.
This is my art project. It's within our schools that change must come. In the end adults should do good to guide an example, it will be for nothing if we don't start, today, teaching children how to love the planet, and the way to love the odor of growing life on the spring morning.
