White Supremacy and the Fate of the Earth

CHANGE IS DIFFICULT, great change even more so. Yet some things change naturally over time with seemingly little effort—the course of a river, the shore of an ocean, the direction a tree decides to grow. When humans interfere with the course of nature in an unnatural and thoughtless manner—such as by damming a river or clear-cutting a forest—we are bound to experience unknown and often unwanted consequences. But perhaps reverting to more natural systems of change will not be as difficult as we imagine.

Western civilization is just beginning to realize that nature is wiser and more powerful than we are and will, without a doubt, outlive us. She knows her mind, and she understands what keeps life in balance. Because today we seldom see nature in her unmolested glory, we rarely consider the degree to which Western civilization has changed that which is natural to what is now unnatural. Since time immemorial, Indigenous people have learned to observe natural change and tried to flow with it, or bend it to their benefit.

Now, like never before, we need people with keen observational skills to help us recover and retain the truths in nature. Indigenous wisdom’s long relationship with creation is based on an ethic of harmony, humility, and respect. Such efforts need not always contradict Western notions of science. Modern scientific methods often confirm the truths that our Indigenous teachers have always known. Science verifies what scientists observe. In more than one sense, our Indigenous elders have always been scientifically aware. Western scientists use tools that tell them the hydrological cycles have changed. Our elders know the huckleberries are ripening a month later than they always have. I have heard from elders in the past few years that our medicine plants are not nearly as potent as they used to be. They say the earth is weakening; an unnatural change has occurred. Western science has come to the same realization by explaining that as more carbon is released into the atmosphere, plants are less able to develop the nutrients needed. Both observe verifiable knowledge. But one is abstract while the other is personal. What modern science tells Western society about creation, our Indigenous “scientists” have been observing for millennia. What we can agree upon together is that the earth is changing, unnaturally, and it is not a good change.

Dualism and the origins of whiteness

WHEN WE THINK about the ongoing ecological damage to our world, we seldom consider white supremacy as a cause. Although the connection has certainty and is provable and logical, making that connection takes some explanation. Let’s begin with the ideals behind whiteness itself. Whiteness, born in ancient Greece, is a 3,000-year-old mythological construction created to judge who is fit to rule. Christendom simply added the theological fallback: “who God made fit to rule.”

The Greek philosopher Plato separated the idea of a thing from the thing itself, creating a duality between a thing’s ethereal essence and its material existence. Platonic dualism places more importance on the ethereal than the material. Once dualism is a basis for reality, everything is seen in hierarchical order. Aristotle, a student of Plato, is sometimes referred to as the originator of whiteness. He categorized what he considered “natural” social placement based on something immutable about a person. There was an immutable essence, he said, that made some naturally suited for enslavement and some suited for ruling—and, not surprisingly, he considered the lighter-hued peoples, such as himself and his people, to be natural rulers.

Plato’s student Alexander the Great was, among other things, an evangelist for Greek culture. Hellenism was spread by Rome and then Great Britain, and later romanticized in the West as the ideal form of civilization with the lighter-hued at the top of the social hierarchy. It included concepts of categorization that became a part of Western systems of “progress.” Western Christianity and American systems of thought inherited and embraced a false value of separation rather than embracing a whole reality. In the Western mind—and Western worldviews are not limited solely to white people—one’s “correct” beliefs even equate to action. The result for many Christians has been a theology rife with dualism that looks nothing like the teachings of Jesus.

Although Hellenistic influence can be found in the New Testament, Jesus did not seem to be terribly affected by it. Perhaps his rural Galilean childhood kept his more Hebraic and holistic worldview intact. A number of early church fathers, however, were influenced by Greek dualisms and hierarchies that directly shaped the church. Platonic dualism and racial hierarchies became even more distinct during the Age of Reason, including the idea that Western, white, and male human beings are qualitatively different from and better than all other creatures, and qualitatively superior to nature herself.

These anthropocentric notions surfaced directly in pseudosciences such as race theory, craniology, and the modern eugenics movement. An array of false racialized theories was used to justify Native American genocide and African American enslavement. The false science of eugenics had a direct influence on Hitler’s Jewish extermination plan, on tens of thousands of forced sterilizations of Black, Indigenous, and other women of color in America, and on the infamous Tuskegee experiments that intentionally withheld treatment from Black farmers with syphilis without their consent. Craniology, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, resulted in tens of thousands of Native American heads being severed from dead bodies and shipped to museums such as the Smithsonian, where many of them remain today.

When Western society wanted to use these now-debunked theories of Western science for economic gain, it used “blood quantum” to do so. African Americans could be enslaved as free labor with only “one drop” of African blood, whereas Native Americans, who they hoped would eventually disappear through assimilation, needed to meet much higher blood quantum to be considered “a real Indian” and obtain any treaty rights. The roots of this system of white supremacy fueled the Indian reservation system, residential boarding schools, Jim Crow laws, separate but “equal,” and even modern maladies such as the school-to-prison pipeline and the use of excessive force on Black and brown bodies by law enforcement.

The cost of unbridled ‘development’

WHAT DOES ALL this have to do with our current climate and health crises? European-based white civilization, with roots tracing back hundreds and even thousands of years, views itself as the highest form of life on earth, meaning white people view themselves as the most valuable members of society. While explicit racial bias is no longer officially allowed in most schools, it continues to be taught simply by maintaining a system built for the benefit of white people. White supremacy, with notions of white privilege and white normalcy, still sits tall in the seats of power including Christianity—ensuring these systems continue.

These systems also relate to white people’s relationship to nature. Consider the state of Western Europe 500 years ago. Most of the hardwood forest had been cut down to build fortresses, cathedrals, and castles; to heat iron for making tools; and to shape weapons of war. Western European urban centers were filthy from pollution, the rivers and creeks contaminated by human refuse and discarded animal remains. The fisheries, including bays and rivers, were becoming depleted, crime was rampant, large mammals were going extinct, and justice was mainly for the wealthiest 1 percent. I can understand why white Europeans wanted the unspoiled Indigenous lands that were being kept in harmony and balance with nature. Unfortunately, they did not adopt the necessary Indigenous worldview to maintain them. As a result, we are now experiencing an ecological crisis similar to, and more serious than, the Western European crisis in the mid-to-late Middle Ages.

Why more serious? The scale of extraction of natural resources has intensified through modern technologies via globalization. The global influence of white America’s view of progress, resulting in unbridled development nearly everywhere, has created much of the ecological crisis, including public health crises around the world. Infectious diseases such as COVID-19, Lyme disease, hantaviruses, Ebola, and HIV, first infected people through what scientists call zoonotic transfer or zoonosis, which occurs when animal-borne pathogens are spread to humans. This is often a result of environmental/ecological degradation that results in an imbalance in nature. Overcrowding nature through careless development, poisoning wildlife through agricultural sprays, and the pollution of land and water also decrease natural predators, which causes overpopulation in other species (often rodents), which increases their contact with humans. Under such strained conditions, zoonosis occurs. Without careful and well-thought-out plans, we will undoubtedly continue to suffer pandemics, as will our children, grandchildren, and their grandchildren—that is, if humans survive as a species.

What is a reasonable response to these facts?

Why diversity matters

IF WE ARE to survive the future, we must adopt a more sustainable and Indigenous worldview. We must understand our relationship to the whole community of creation, not just in terms of what can be extracted for utilitarian purposes. A bright future is one where we change our own thinking and that of our next seven generations from a Western, dualistic, hierarchical, competitive, wealth-driven, individualistic mindset to the kind of more holistic, equitable, cooperative, healthy worldview that Indigenous peoples have learned over thousands of years.

With white supremacy so deeply ingrained, it will be difficult for the West to swallow its pride. Continued devotion to the long march of white supremacy, dualism, false hierarchies, and embedded systems of racism not only keep the world divided, but they reduce our chance for survival. By losing Creator’s intended relationship with nature, white society has lost its connection to a reality where God is in charge, where every species in creation is considered sacred, and where the well-being of the community is more essential than that of any individual’s desires.

In the West, the world as it is ordered has forced isolation from creation and from the God who moves in and through the whole community of creation. When we consider the trees in places such as the Amazon rainforest, the Olympic Peninsula, the California redwoods, and the boreal forest to be less important to our oxygen supply than our lungs are to our respiratory system, we are in extreme danger. When coral reefs and plankton beds, the foundations of ocean life, become less of a concern than the raising of our own children, we may lose the opportunity to secure a future for any of them. To begin to think of the next seven generations affords us a chance to solve these problems together.

Western hubris has gotten us into our current climate crisis, backed by the false reasoning of racist philosophies and pseudosciences. Even when the theories and philosophies are proven to be false, white supremacy continues to move forward indiscriminately. Most people have no idea that by not making a change, they are maintaining a system of oppression based on notions of white supremacy. I must often remind myself: The journey is the destination; a thoughtful process is essential to producing the best outcome. For a thoughtful process to occur, we need all voices empowered at the table. This is where diversity comes in.

No two fingerprints are exactly alike. No retinal patterns are a perfect match. Our voices differ enough to allow voice-recognition software. I could examine a thousand sparrows and not be able to distinguish between them, but the differences are there. Each snowflake is different from the other. Each molecule on the planet is different than the next.

Homogeneity, or sameness, is an illusion that gives us all comfort at times. When we are around people like ourselves, we feel we can relax or are safe. Perhaps this sense of tribalism is a primal instinct carried forth in our DNA. And yet, when we examine anyone else closely, we find worlds of difference. Once we really get to know a person, we either learn to appreciate and even embrace the differences or we avoid or reject them. Embracing difference builds both character and community. Everything in the universe is diverse because we are made not only to live in the comfort and security of superficial sameness but also to explore and learn from differences. In Native America, this reality is often acknowledged by recognizing everything as our relative. Moral teachings that occur through story and ceremony teach us how to acknowledge and respect the community of creation by learning how we might become a better relative.

Hearing the voice of the earth

ONE DOES NOT dare exploit a relative because the law of reciprocity shows that, over time, we may need help, and we would not want to be exploited. We should always consider what parts of the community of creation will be affected before enacting decisions. It was the land that taught our Indigenous people how to keep everything in balance, to reason just how much to use and how much to leave. Edith, my spouse, grew up on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. While our family picks berries, she often recalls, “Leave some at the top for the birds and some at the bottom for the mice and squirrels; pick mostly from the middle. That’s what my brother Tom used to teach us.”

My wife and I are farmers, and we always make room for the nonfarm creatures. Even on our smallest farm of 3.75 acres, we set aside a half-acre that was theirs, not ours. That little half-acre had a creek running through it, snowberries, rose hips, blackberries, and all sorts of trees, grasses, and plants. We tried to create an unmolested home for the birds and animals and all the creatures we couldn’t see from afar. We were rewarded often by seeing red-tailed hawks, woodpeckers, blue heron, manifold songbirds, rabbits, squirrels, deer, skunks, and even a visiting coyote every so often. Sure, we could have used that half-acre for something else, but we had to ask ourselves: How much is enough? How much land do we really need to succeed, and is it ever worth driving all the wildlife away? If we did that, our community would be poorer for it.

How we see history informs our worldview for today and the future. We turn our understanding of history into our present reality. When teaching graduate students, I always began my history courses with this phrase: “There is no such thing as history, only histories.” We should always ask who is telling the story and why. The winners may write history, but there are many sides to every story. Our worldview should be shaped as much by what those often-subjugated voices have to say. Of late, the earth has been losing. When it comes to extraction, development, and war, the earth’s voice is seldom considered.

Ultimately, a utilitarian view of creation results in wanton destruction of the earth for the purposes of material gain. This attitude often crosses from the realm of nature to people. The way the Western world has historically treated the earth and how it has treated Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), especially women, show remarkable parallels. A highly utilitarian view of people may explain why human life is valued so little by businesses that poison the earth and humanity (most often people living in poverty and communities of color). Consider the similarities in a Western worldview that seeks to control, objectify, and exploit nature, women, and BIPOC; expects production from nature, women, and BIPOC; and creates a rape culture targeting nature, women, and BIPOC. Invariably, the poorest and most marginalized people on earth suffer the most from corporate imperialism’s extraction, depletion, and poisoning of the earth’s natural resources.

True humility is the cure for what ails us. White supremacy must be converted from seeing whiteness as the most important value. White normalized systems of oppression and white people will need a large dose of humility to enable them to deconstruct their own power and sense of superiority from the existing structured systems of oppression.

Jesus taught his disciples to not rule over one another as the Gentiles do but instead that each should become the servant of one another. This humility applies to creation as well. Our future depends on treating the whole community of creation as our relatives. The question remains: How can we become good relatives?