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The speaker discusses their approach to climate justice, emphasizing the need for a change in our environmental framework to save the planet. They highlight the unfairness of those who contribute the least to climate change being affected the most. They propose learning from historical examples such as indigenous spirituality and hoodoo to protect the environment. The speaker shares their personal identity as a black indigenous woman and the practices they grew up with, including burning sage and using dream catchers. They explore the intersection of their identities and the practice of hoodoo, which originated from the mixing of indigenous and African practices during the slave trade. Hoodoo views nature as sacred and values the environment. The speaker reflects on the lack of representation and influence for indigenous and African American people historically and suggests that increasing diversity and inclusion in academia and other influential areas would foster a greater love and r In this recording, I will talk about how I approach climate justice. My overarching idea is that I think that by changing our framework when it comes to environmentalism, we'll in fact save our planet. Human interference is causing our environment to outpace the natural cycles of evolution. We've studied this under microscopes and climate models, and we've been able to pinpoint the beginning of this crisis, the Industrial Revolution. We know that there needs to be a change in order to reduce the harm of climate change, but what we do not know is the perfect solution. We also see that different individuals and different communities are being impacted at different rates. This kind of goes into our whole theme of it being called climate justice. Even though it is unfair, those who contribute the least to climate change are often the ones who are affected the most. We learn that being in tune with the land is a very common and very important part of communities. Communities that aren't in tune with their land end up practicing very healthy environmental behaviors. Pulling all of this from the reading, I ended up writing my Joining the Conversation about this thought experiment that I came up with, where basically that we could learn from historical examples like indigenous spirituality and hoodoo in order to change our environmental framework and help the planet. I had this idea that if we could convince people that the earth is sacred and get them to participate in actions that reflect that, we can protect the very land that we are currently destroying. This idea came from my personal identity as a black indigenous woman, or otherwise known as Afro-indigenous. To me, I look at the dirt that we stand on, and honestly, most of the times I can only think about how it holds the blood, sweat, and tears of my ancestor, as well as the fruits of their labor. A lot of times my indigenous identity often goes unseen unless I'm actively talking about it or actively participating in practices of this heritage. Yet, this culture was most of my upbringing. My grandma, who I call Lala, and my mom are mostly Native and Mexican. In my household, we often burn sage for protection, tobacco leaves that we dry in order to crush up and leave a sacrifice when we pick plants. We had frame catchers in every corner of every bedroom in the house, and I often grew up hearing the words, the people. I grew up basically thinking that everything is sacred, nature is sacred, everything has a spirit. Those kinds of ideas. And I also grew up being black. It's an identity that is often the only identity that is perceived when people look at me. These identities actually overlap in a very interesting place that I often read about, and that is the practice of hoodoo. I love reading about hoodoo. I think it's personally a beautiful intersection of my ancestors, even though it was born out of atrocity. When Mexicans were forced across the sea in the Atlantic slave trade, they brought their indigenous practices and religions with them. And because there was a bunch of different tribes together, those practices and religions mixed. People who were forced across the sea and in the slave trade didn't come to the new world with family. They didn't come with community. They came with people who were complete strangers to them. And they had to recreate this family and community with people who weren't from their tribe or even their territory. They had to recreate it with people who didn't share the same beliefs, values, religions. And the only thing they had in common was a continent and a skin color. This led to massive trade of beliefs, practices, and religions. Additionally, the indigenous people of the new world gave them knowledge of the herbs and roots that are on the Americas. This altogether came to be known as hoodoo. Hoodoo can also be referred to as rootwork or conjurer. Hoodoo's entire framework functions on the belief that all pieces of nature—flowers, herbs, trees, bugs, air—have spirits. And that those spirits will give energy for any magic that you want to create if you worship or sacrifice to them correctly. Indigenous spirituality and hoodoo highly value the environment. They view the earth, nature as sacred, and they often have practices and rituals that provide for the environment in order to take from the environment. And this is something that is very common in communities that are in tune with the land. Historically, indigenous people and African American people have not had access to the spheres of influence that they need in order to make a difference and protect the environment. Our readings from class often made me wonder what it would be like if people like my ancestors, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, were teachers, policymakers, lawyers. People who had those spheres of influence to make a difference. I like to imagine, like, if my grandmother was in school and she was teaching about how trees are living and rocks are not living, I would learn, like how I did at home, how things are animated and inanimate. Because everything is considered living because everything is within the ecosystem and needed. I like to think that the increase of diversity and inclusion in any spheres of academia would help future and current generations learn to love nature more. To want to be in nature, to feel the responsibility of keeping it well taken care of for not only ourselves but future generations. My experiences as an Afro-Indigenous woman have often made me look at the world differently and wonder why people who look like me, who believe things that I believe, are often in positions of power because historically they weren't allowed to. However, I do think that we would benefit from diversity in areas like academia, like policy, like philosophy, and even more influential areas. Please don't be afraid to ask any questions and thank you for listening to my recording.