Emily Atkin's June 1st issue of HEATED caught our attention with the headline "The climate movement's silence" regarding the Black Lives Matter protests taking place all over the United States and the lack of a substantial response from climate organizations. One of the long-running debates that shows up on the podcast is "to what degree should climate change policy be focused exclusively on decarbonization and drawdown vs. a more comprehensive suite of related issues?" On the one hand, ostensibly there is less room for disagreement when policy is unbundled. On the other hand, big change may be possible within moments like this and it seems myopic at best to focus only on the former and ignoring ongoing harms or negligence. What is an organization to do? Here's a beginning to that conversation, with more programming on the topic to come.
Mellina White, who has been moonlighting as a Norinaut, wrote the article, "Attention white people: Your #BLM memes are not enough", that inspired this conversation.
The Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces by Radley Balko
"U.S. Lawmaker Prepares Bill Aiming to End Court Protection for Police" in The New York Times
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Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello, and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast. I’m Ross Kenyon. Today I have with me Melina White, writer on Seattle politics, who is moonlighting as a marketer at Nori. Hey, Melina.
Mellina White: Hey, Ross, how are you?
Ross Kenyon: I’m doing well, and I am so happy to have you on the show. We’ve been thinking about ways to have you on. I’m sure we’ll do many more things together, particularly as it relates to food and food systems, given your background. But given everything that’s been going on, I thought it might be a good idea to have you on because you wrote an article called Attention White People, Your Hashtag BLM Memes Are Not Enough or KUOW here in Seattle. I want to dig into it. So thanks for writing that. And I’m happy you’re willing to come onto the show to talk about it.
Mellina White: Yes, thank you. I’m excited to join. I wish that the topic was food systems or food politics, but This is the time we’re in right now. And I think it’s an important opportunity to have these conversations.
Ross Kenyon: Me too. And I promise you, we will do it under better circumstances soon. I hope that is able to happen. In fact, you have it here, my commitment on the air that we will make this happen. But maybe for people who, I don’t know how you don’t really know what’s been going on, but why don’t you give people a nice little summation of where we’re at at this moment in time when we’re recording and introduce your article.
Mellina White: Sure. So, you know, right now we just got outside of a weekend where we saw a nationwide and really I could say a global weekend of protests around the Black Lives Matter movement. And really, it had to do with, I think for at this point, it’s been a little bit of a month of different coverage around very sad, tragic stories of unnecessary deaths and incidents involving African-Americans. The first one that really came to attention, I think, of our community was of Ahmaud Arbery. And he was a young man who, at least as far as we understand at this point of the story, was just outside exercising, jogging in a neighborhood near where he lived.
And some folks who we might describe as neighborhood vigilantes decided that he was not supposed to be in that neighborhood, that he was committing a crime in that neighborhood. And they took it upon themselves to hunt him down and actually shoot him dead. While he was jogging. And some of the cell phone video that has come from that incident shows that he was clearly running away. He was trying to avoid these men. And yet they still basically executed him in a quiet neighborhood in Georgia. And then from there, we saw some incidents of a young woman who was in a home that the police wrongfully thought was the home of a Of a criminal who they’re about to serve a note, what’s called a no knock warrant, went into her home and shot her dead.
And it turned out that she had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was the wrong address. And yet there still hasn’t been any charges as of right now that have been presented for the police that did this to this woman. There was also, I think, what was the biggest catalyst to what happened over the weekend, the killing of a man named George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Where he was arrested by four officers for, I believe the reason he was arrested was for trying to cash a bad check or something like that, something to do with money.
And he, again, from what we can see so far in cell phone video, was cooperating, was going with the police as he was being arrested. But there was a police officer in that group of four who decided to press his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Suffocating him and killing him. So we’ve just seen, on top of being in the middle of this COVID crisis, incident after incident after incident, and I’m not even sharing all of the incidents. I’m sharing the ones that I think had the biggest impact on our community, of Black people still facing things that a lot of us, I think, wished went away back in the 60s.
And it’s still happening. And the only reason why we know about these stories is because they had such tragic endings. But if you talk to your average African-American, they’ll tell you that they face varying levels of discrimination and prejudice on a daily basis. And so we saw these protests around the world really, really demanding justice for George Floyd. But I think it was a much bigger protest about, you know, when are we going to get it right, America? When are we going to change some of the things to our structural government that helps to prevent these tragic events from happening again in the future?
Ross Kenyon: I wanted to do this show for a bunch of reasons, and I’ve been trying to think about how to do it. And then Emily Atkins’ newsletter, Heated, which if you’re not subscribed to, it’s definitely worth your time to subscribe to it. There’ll be a link in the show notes. But it was talking about how Climate organizations have historically done a negligent job just in not talking about race or other issues. In some cases, if you go back far enough, are actively hostile to race issues. One of the long running debates that we’ve had at Norton, if you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know, is to what degree should one support the comprehensive solutions of something like the Green New Deal versus something that’s a lot more narrow.
If something is more narrow, Like something like a carbon tax. There’s less things for people to disagree about, hopefully. And you might be able to get action on the thing that you think really matters, which is, you know, Reversing Climate Change. But there’s a whole bunch of other issues that relate to race. And it’s typically lumped into the category of environmental justice that are somewhat ignored by such a policy that’s less comprehensive or they aren’t treated to the same degree as they would otherwise be with dedicated policy. To what degree should we lump things in together and have a giant package of issues that people should care about versus be really narrowly focused?
And I think Emily Atkins’ issue of Heated that came out this morning really drilled that into my head because Nori’s typically been a keyhole, like lean, focus on carbon removal, focus on climate change. And I wonder to what degree we should be doing that. Cause there’s, there’s trade-offs either way, but at least in this moment in time, it seems very, it doesn’t seem right to, to not even talk about it. So that’s at least the reason we’re doing this show in particular at this moment.
Mellina White: So I think I understand what you’re trying to get to Ross and that’s you and Nori as a company, I think you have a very laser focused goal and strategy and how you’re combating and Reversing Climate Change. But then we get into Kind of what I often see as the politics of it all, right? And as much as many of us might want to try to avoid politics, it seems like almost everything nowadays is political. But I think you can still stick with your core message, your core mission, and that’s to reverse climate change.
While at the same time, being factual and honest and saying, right now, climate change is impacting Our most vulnerable communities in a way that our wealthier communities are not experiencing. And so to me, it’s a stronger message as to why we as a community, especially those who are more able, should take action, should be a part of the solution and should really be seeking out the best way to do that. You mentioned the Green New Deal a little bit ago, and I’m sure you would agree That Nori’s approach to Reversing Climate Change is different than a lot of what’s in the Green New Deal, right?
But I think you would also agree that a lot of the people who support the Green New Deal want the same results that Nori hopes to accomplish through this carbon removal marketplace. So in my view, talking about what needs to happen in order to get to the end goal and promoting What we think is the best way to get there is a great conversation to have. And there’s no harm in saying that, yes, Black communities, minority communities, poor communities are impacted disproportionately by the effects of climate change. It doesn’t in any way muddy or hurt the goals and the work that Nori is doing, nor do I think it should alienate anyone from continuing to support How you guys are tackling this.
Does that make sense at all? Yeah, it does.
Ross Kenyon: And I wonder, I wish I knew more about our audience and people listening. I know we have people out there who are right of center, but I know you identify somewhere over there and I have a background that’s in libertarian politics and I’ve become since confused and a big muddle of moral intuitions, but I can at least see strong reasons for people who care about limited government and the rule of law and to be supportive of much of what is happening now. And in fact, most of the libertarians I keep in touch with have been genuinely supportive of the protests.
I guess one of the things that Emily put in heated today was There’s a long running sentiment I’ve seen, which is that if your politics alienate people who are sensitive to race such that you couldn’t even have a conversation like we’re having now, would you have been able to reach them anyways? And did you need them to actually get where you needed to be going anyhow? I don’t know. Do we need that? Or I don’t feel like anything that we’ve said so far would necessarily turn people’s stomachs. God, I hope not.
I don’t feel like we’ve said anything that was objectionable.
Mellina White: I agree. And I think this topic specifically should be divorced from politics. You know, you mentioned that I’m right of center. I would agree with that. I personally identify as a libertarian. There’s certainly been a lot of pieces and specific organizations associated with what we describe as the Black Lives Matter movement. That I don’t align with, that I don’t agree or support those organizations. But that doesn’t mean that broadly, I don’t agree that Black Lives Matter. I do. I think that in order, if Black Lives Matter, that means that all lives matter in the sense that, you know, we all have value.
All human beings have value. For those of us who may not be treated equally right now in society, we need to find ways to elevate that. Again, I think that should be divorced from politics. Absolutely. And it doesn’t take away from whether you identify as a conservative or a libertarian or a progressive of how you think we should get there. I think the first step is agreeing that there’s a problem. How we how we attack and solve that problem is a different conversation. But there’s no reason why we can’t get on the same page.
And if you aren’t on the same page, I can provide you with lots of evidence and lots of information to help you to see my way and see the way of many people.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, fair enough. One of the heartbreaking things about this agreement over this is I don’t feel particularly better off in the state of affairs than I would be in a more just society. I feel like I don’t view society as being zero sum. I think we would all be better off where they’re not a persistent underclass of people who are deeply unhappy. Their opportunities are limited. I think we would all be healthier, happier, wealthier, safer. Were we to just create a society that didn’t throw people in the garbage, basically? How many lives are just wasted with the system that we have now?
I find it really tragic. And I don’t really see how anyone is absolutely better off under those circumstances. It seems like we’ve all lost a great deal and we’ve gained nothing. It seems so wasteful and terrible.
Mellina White: Oh, absolutely. I agree. And I would also say with the protests that have been happening over the last week and in this movement, which I fully support, that doesn’t mean that we haven’t made huge progress as a society. We have. One of the folks who I really enjoy reading is Steven Pinker, and he’s published lots of great information about how globally, Humans are doing so much better, exponentially better than we did 100 years ago, 50 years ago, 20 years ago. We are making progress. We are making systemic changes in our governments around the world to help the most vulnerable in our community rise up.
That’s happening. But it doesn’t mean that the work is done. And I think the protests over this last weekend demonstrate That we can’t brush our hands off and say, well, we’re all equal now. Let’s move on to something different. So there’s still work that needs to be done. And I think the faster that we all recognize that, and for those of us that maybe hearing those words is a little harder to hear, it’s a little harder to swallow maybe some criticism that you might get from a friend or a coworker, listen a little bit harder.
Because again, as you said, Ross, I truly believe that it’s better for everybody. This might sound crazy, but I do believe that the elite wealthy white people of the 1930s are not as well off as as white folks in 2020 because white folks in 2020 just have a much richer life because they live in a more equal life, even if it didn’t impact them specifically. It means they have a richer life of having or at least having the opportunity. Of having a group of friends and associates that are more diverse, come from different backgrounds.
That makes all of our lives better. That’s the gift that equality brings us. And if we want to, going back to what this podcast is all about, if we want to really be focused on putting into action the tools to reverse climate change, we will all be better off if more people in our society are equal. We will accomplish that goal faster.
Ross Kenyon: I’m with you there. I would love to see it. You mentioned having conversations. I imagine many people are trying to have good ones right now. Most of the people I know have been almost, I feel like any issue will split my friend group pretty evenly like most days. But this has been overwhelmingly supportive, which I found really refreshing. But I’ve had at least one Friend that’s really, really testing my empathy and like trying to not just castigate him and cast him into outer darkness and throw him away, but try to be empathic and to have a conversation and hopefully be persuasive.
Do you have any tips or have you seen any of these conversations go successfully that might be instructive to someone listening and also for me?
Mellina White: Sure. Well, I think the first thing to mention is You know, you said earlier in the conversation, it’s not a zero sum game. You’re recognizing that certain people in our society do not have the same level of privilege as you doesn’t take anything away from you. And also, I think that just bringing statistics to the table, bringing data to the table helps. But here’s the most important thing. This is the key. And I think this is the piece that’s missing from a few of the folks who I have interacted with that don’t show that same level of empathy to what’s happening.
And in some ways get offended by almost feeling like, oh, if I’m not with this movement, I’m racist, I’m not racist. And I have nothing to apologize for. You know, I’ve definitely heard that tone. So this is what I would encourage for those folks. Make a black friend. Make a black friend. And the reason why I say that is for, you know, our first point is, Is that there’s absolutely no law. There is no structural change we can make. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to change a human’s heart than to get them to sit face to face with another human being and learn that human being story.
There’s nothing that a law can do to change that. So make a black friend and do it with sincerity, with authenticity that you genuinely want to get to know this person. As a human being. So that’s the first thing I would recommend is listening. And then the second thing is, is to read the data. You know, I in the article that I wrote for KUOW earlier today, I mentioned that. The statistics are clear that the chance of an African-American, particularly an unarmed African-American getting shot by a police officer is so extremely rare at this point.
Across the entire country, about 100 people, unarmed people are killed by police each year. That’s 100 people too many, yes. But in the grand scheme of things, and we look at all the different reasons why Americans die each year, 100 people are unarmed and shot by police. And looking even closer at that number, it fluctuates every year. But let’s say about 25 of those 100 unarmed people are Black people. So there’s actually more white people who are unarmed people who are killed by police each year than black. However, if you dig more deeply into the data, you see that blacks are still disproportionately and when you look at the Population of black people in the United States.
They are disproportionately shot and killed by police when unarmed. They are disproportionately shot and killed by police when they are armed. They are disproportionately stopped by police, arrested by police, charged. You start looking at that data and you will see a consistent theme. I think what most would agree is unfair. That doesn’t make sense. That could be correlated With only what I consider two things, their socioeconomic level and their race. And when you start looking at that data and then you make a black friend and you start learning about the little things that person has to experience that will never be covered in the news and never be statistical because it’s not a crime, but it’s real and it’s painful and it’s a part of their daily experience.
Then I think your perspective may shift. But the only way that happens is if that you as an individual Make the decision to do the work. Again, no law is going to do it for you. No structural change is going to do it for you. You have to do it.
Ross Kenyon: Is this advice for someone like my friend who’s not very supportive of the protests or essentially for anyone listening?
Mellina White: I think it works for anyone listening. Frankly, it might be a little bit Difficult to get your friend on board. You might have to trick him, you know, maybe invite him out for beers and just have me show up, just having a conversation. That might, you know, you might have to sneak attack with the black friend for someone who has just decided adamantly, no, I’m not going to buy into this. I’m not going to do this. But I think it’s good advice for everyone because one of the things that I really wanted to dive deep into in The essay that I wrote with KUW, it wasn’t a message to white people who are not supporting this movement.
It was actually a message to white progressives. It was a message to white liberals. It was a message to white people who for the past few weeks have posted nothing but memes about Black Lives Matters, being an anti-racist, recognizing your white privilege. My message was to them because in many ways, As much as I want to believe that they’re coming from a place of sincerity when they’re posting these things, I don’t see tangible action behind that social media behavior. So yes, I believe that advice I’ve just provided is for everyone.
Ross Kenyon: Do you have your sights set on any sorts of policy changes that might help address some of the issues we’re seeing?
Mellina White: Oh, absolutely. And again, let me reiterate that the changes that I want to see is for all Americans. It’s not just for Black Americans. It’s for all of us to have more agency, more freedom, more civil rights as Americans. So one of the things that I have really been focused on, like I like to tell my friends that if I had to be a one issue voter, if I had no other choice but to choose one issue, I would be a criminal justice reform voter. And the reason why is when In my view, when we look at inequality in our country, and it’s not just racial inequality, it’s socioeconomic.
In my opinion, socioeconomic inequality is more of a threat than racial inequality in our country in 2020. You see that oftentimes poor people become criminals simply for being poor. So if you look at some of the bail laws that we have in states across the country, You get fined for something silly. You get arrested for something. You might be breaking the law, but in the grand scheme of things, it was a small mistake that you made in your life. And you can’t post bail. You can’t pay your court fines. Before you know it, these fines have stacked up.
These charges have stacked up. And now you’re in jail. And now you’re a bona fide criminal. And really what it comes down to is that you are a poor person who couldn’t take care of these fees. You did something stupid. You made a mistake. But your life has been completely turned upside down. You lost your job because you were stuck in jail a few nights because you couldn’t pay bail. Whereas you look at a rich person, a wealthy person who also made a mistake, committed a crime. What do they do?
They pick up the phone. They call their fancy lawyer. They get bail posted immediately, sit at home while awaiting trial, have their fancy lawyers craft together a beautiful pricey defense for them. That’s not equal. That’s not justice. So I think that looking at bail reform is huge. Another thing, and we have seen this demonstrated throughout our country in this past weekend, is we need to demilitarize our police. It’s absolutely unnecessary that you need to be armed to the teeth in order to pull somebody over for running a stop sign or pull somebody over for speeding.
And yes, I might hear the argument of, well, you never know that person I pull over might have a gun. They might be a criminal. Well, those cases are so rare. And also I know that before you’re ever going to approach a vehicle, you pull over, you’re going to run the plates. So if you run the plates and you know that this person has a warrant out for their arrest, or you know that this person has a history of criminal activity, well then take those precautions. But in general, I would argue 99.
9% of the time, when you pull somebody over, you don’t need to be armed to approach those cars. We have seen many instances of those routine traffic stops escalate and get deadly. It’s unnecessary. And we also need to get to a point where we’re structuring our police force to be community police agencies. To live, work, and relate to the people who they are vowing to serve and protect. To commit to a police force that is going to be engaged in de-escalation. De-escalation. And ultimately just show general respect for the people who are in the communities in which they work.
And I do believe that those changes need to happen at a federal level. And there’s one other thing I’ll throw out there that I think is very important for some of the instances that we’ve seen recently. Any death involving police needs to immediately be escalated to a federal level third party investigator. Any death. That’s all.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, there’s some good stuff in there. I’ve also seen a lot of writing come back up. It’s such a niche topic that I know people who write about this thing and care about it a lot, but I’m happy to see it getting more mainstream play, which is qualified immunity. I’ve seen that going around too. Have you been following that as well?
Mellina White: A little bit. I can’t speak to it as well as I’d like, but I hear that it’s getting momentum and I’m excited to see that.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, me too. If you’re listening, you might not know what it is. It’s actually surprisingly difficult to sue if your civil rights have been violated. And the people who allegedly violated them, it’s very hard to see them if they’re an agent of the state and underqualified immunity, which is what police officers often are. So there’s that. I’ve also heard stuff about police unions and how that works and how their collective bargaining agreements work that are problematic for this.
Mellina White: Yes, I’ve heard that as well.
Ross Kenyon: And then there’s also just a general over-criminalization too, where there’s a pretext for stopping and confronting people. Stuff like Eric Garner selling loose cigarettes, you know, outside probably didn’t need, was that really that big of a deal? Did that really need a police encounter?
Mellina White: No. Yeah. You know, the first instance that, I think it was back in 2015 or 2016 in Ferguson, Missouri, you know, after the Department of Justice did a pretty thorough review, What they learned is that poor people and in that community, mostly African-American poor people were pretty much bankrolling the city through all of the fines. And oftentimes they would escalate into something that was a criminal charge because these folks were poor and they couldn’t pay for it. So that’s just another example of our criminal justice system not serving its intended purpose and becoming something else.
Ross Kenyon: Well, do you have any good resources you might recommend besides your article, which is linked in the show notes? Where should people look to be informed about this sort of thing?
Mellina White: It’s a good question. I would say, going back to what I said, honestly, having human face-to-face conversations might have the biggest impact just on how you look at things and how you look at the world. So I can’t emphasize that enough. But I would also really encourage people to, with an open mind, There’s lots of resources online of looking at statistics around our criminal justice system, statistics around citizens interaction with the police force. And again, it’s not just the black community that’s impacted adversely about on this. It’s all of us.
And so, you know, for folks that are a little bit skeptical about the Black Lives Matter movement, I would even say to them, well, hey, our criminal justice system is a problem for everyone. We elevate the black community because they are disproportionately impacted, but it’s for everybody. So if anything, just get online and look at that data and it’s very eye opening and you’ll start to question, is this necessary? Is this what we want as a society as far as a police force to protect and serve us? Can we do things differently?
And how can it benefit people at all levels of the Socio-economic ladder and also of all races in our country.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, fair enough. Well, I’ll think about that, too. And I can put some resources in the show notes if people want to read more. Bradley Balco’s The Rise of the Warrior Cop is really good. Have you read that, Melina? I haven’t. Yeah, he’s a libertarian.
Mellina White: Sounds like I want to put it on my reading list, though.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, it’s a really fascinating story how you went from being a cop in the 50s, you know, it’s almost like there’s something that’s kind of campy about it almost, right? And then to now where they’re essentially paramilitary, that’s a rather serious transition.
Mellina White: It really is. I mean, seeing, and I know that wasn’t the police, it was the National Guard, but still seeing tankers drive down Residential streets in Minneapolis over the weekend to go after, again, these are our own people. These are your citizens. It’s just insane to me that we’ve gotten to that point with the armed forces and the police force in the United States.
Ross Kenyon: Well, I’ll think some more about what books or other resources we can put in the show notes. I’ll ask around too. I’ve read a couple enlightening books myself in the last six months or so. But cool. Is there anything else you want to tell people about, Melina?
Mellina White: No, but thanks, Ross, for having this conversation. I think it’s wonderful and I really appreciate the fact that you’ve made space here for your podcast listeners and audience all together. And the more that we as a community just take pause to have these, and I’ll be frank, for some people it’s going to be very uncomfortable, very difficult conversations. It’s just going to be better. It’s going to be better for everyone. It’s going to I mean, brighter days ahead. And I know that we all want to see that in the near future.
Ross Kenyon: Absolutely. I saw a friend who had put a meme up on Instagram. It said something along the lines of showing up imperfectly is better than not showing up at all. And yeah, I hope I did a halfway decent job. I could also see myself having said stupid things that maybe someone smarter than I can come and do an elbow drop right on to the rhetoric that I use. But that’s okay. It’s a learning process. And I’m sure people listening to you are trying to figure out how to do this as well.
I don’t know. Try and just give it a go, I suppose.
Mellina White: I’m with you. And I think that’s important too. Yes, just show up. We’re all imperfect and we all have flaws. We all have bias in different regards, very much myself included. But showing up is 90% of the work. Coming with open ears is important. Again, we will all be better for it. And Ross, I appreciate you again coming to the table. And it goes both ways. Me hearing you and your life experience is just as important as the other way around. It’s how we grow a stronger community. So that we can focus on more important things like Reversing Climate Change.
Ross Kenyon: Where can people follow your work, Melina?
Mellina White: You can go to theseattleconservative. com to read some of my work.
Ross Kenyon: That link is in the show notes as well. And Melina, I swear, we’re gonna find a really good chef or someone in the food systems, or we’re gonna find someone good for you to really, I think you should be back on the show more frequently. Do you accept?
Mellina White: I accept, and I’m excited to sink my teeth into that. It’d be so much more fun than this conversation.
Ross Kenyon: Cool. Well, thanks for being here and I hope you enjoyed listening. If you did and you’re a fan of the show, please rate and review us on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher. Tell your friends and thank you so much for listening.
