When knowledge of what needs to happen is met with an inertia that’s unwilling to exercise the necessary steps to make it happen, the conditions have been set for a revolutionary response - this irrefutable conclusion, in itself, vindicates the need for a BRT lens to inform, influence, and shape any discussion about the climate crisis as well as the collective initiatives necessary to confront and dismantle it. Robin D.G. Kelly, in discussing the BRT, adroitly espouses this idea, once writing, “the need to politicize the link between capitalism and racial domination is itself a response to how this link has been depoliticized and concealed by liberal and influential left theorists of capitalism.” Dr. Kelly could easily be describing a growing chorus of liberals, and even some leftists, who are calling for so-called Abundance theory that completely perambulates the myriad and incontrovertible ways that the climate crisis is also a crisis of racism and exploitation of poor and working class people and fails to connect environmental racism to fascism.
An understanding of the symbiotic relationship between racial capitalism and the climate crisis has yet to be demonstrated by the mainstream environmental community in the U.S. and globally. There are many reasons for this, chief among them is the fact that these liberal nonprofit organizations and institutions are not anti-capitalist in the slightest and believe that capitalism can be tweaked to be fairer, safer, and less racist. We saw this when far too many climate groups touted Biden and the Democrats’ so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) while also knowing that numerous elements of the bill would sacrifice Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor environmental justice communities.
This is why I have not much hope for most environmental advocacy entities in America
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