I'm asking this question because it feels like being green is all about consuming green products and making companies invested in "green" products, richer. Rarely do I see mainstream ads, workshops, and lectures about looking at "green" in terms of environmental racism, or looking and critiquing its recent roots in "selling" "green".  Is it me, or is "Green" these days all about "buying" and less about making systemic changes and questioning the very nature of capitalistic moral economy and systemic racism, imperialism, and neocolonialism?  It just feels like "green" is all about making money from a very class privileged USA view of "ecosustainability". I go to my local "holistic" pharmacy and they sell a lot of "green" items that are packaged in plastic and non-biodegradable materials, usually made in China, and not marked as fair-trade or sweatshop free. I'm beginning to think that "green" is about "green dollars" being made from a "trend" that is a one-dimensional issues for the mainstream. 

 

Does anyone think it odd that the Toyota Prius' battery is incredibly toxic to get rid of? Or that Brita's filters are non-recycable? Where are these being disposed of, after they’re used? Will they be taken to “those usual sites of disposal” in which "toxins" and “privileged peoples’ ‘green’ garbage” are disposed of next to or in communities of color or low income communities? Is it shipped out of the USA to the global South? I can't imagine this “’green’ garbage” would be put in Berkeley (class privileged ) or Marin County (class privileged). I live in Northern California, which is why I mention these locales.

 

I see a similar trend with "vegan" items, in  which the product is "non-human animal cruelty free", but the packaging is often insanely "un-green" and the process it took to make it "vegan" (i.e., sweatshops, violation of human rights, etc) is questionable. But, it sells to many vegans who only seem to solely be focused on the fact that the product, wrapped in layers of plastic or whatnot, is "cruelty free" because it has been labeled as "vegan".

 

Does this connect to [neo]colonial ideologies of "buying" your "moral" and "modern" identity and then labeling yourself as "more enlightened" and "evolved" than "those other people" through these material symbols?  This reminds me of how the class privileged, during USA and European colonial times, claimed to be "modern" because they could buy symbols of "modernity"-- regardless of the fact that their consciousness really didn't "evolve"  in terms of social justice, or questioning what ‘slaves’ created their "modern" and "enlightened" materials.... This is a problem to me because why should someone need to be "economically privileged" to guarantee that they can afford clean water, organic hemp clothing, non-toxic materials to build their “green” home, etc? And if they can't afford it, why are they looked down upon as "contributing to the global warming problem" or "not caring about their health"? What structures and systems make it so that low-income people can only afford to cloth their bodies in "toxic" clothing, or drink "toxic" water, or drive "toxic" cars?

 

Oh, I know why: "green" dollars; profit! 

 

These are my thoughts for the day.

 

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