A note about this piece: I was invited to participate in Blue Bug Monday is an entomological spin on Blue Monday. Blue Monday is this pseudoscience idea that came into being in the UK that says that the third Monday of January is the saddest day of the year. Well, the third Monday of each year is Martin Luther King Day. Wanting to participate in both Blue Bug Monday, and Martin Luther King Day, I wondered if I might be some connection between the two. It turns out that Martin Luther King was both marched for environmental justice rights and acknowledged the interconnectedness of the world. He advocated for equality and justice for all humans, including environmental equality. I explore this in this piece I’ve named “Here’s to blue skies and beetles for all.
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Here’s to blue skies and beetles for all
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly…
Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? … This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
⁃ Martin Luther King Jr. at his 1967 Christmas Sermon
At the time of the civil rights movements, in addition to marches about social discrimination, there were marches to address environmental justice. They are interconnected issues. The black communities unjustly faced greater environmental burdens of pollution. For example, they were disproportionately subject to having hazardous waste dumps located by their homes and workplaces. Sanitation and environmental marches (some attended by Martin Luther King Jr.) were successful in fueling government action, like the formation of the EPA in 1970 and a Presidential executive order in 1994 that required government agencies to examine environmental inequality in minority and low-income neighborhoods.
There is still so much work to be done on this front. Even today, a disproportionate number of hazardous waste facilities are near black communities. The environmental hazards cause health problems like cancer and asthma. They cut down life expectancies. Yet, the sources of the environmental health problems are often not properly recognized and addressed as the cause by the community members, doctors, and government. I think this leads to the sources of environmental health issues being more hidden than they ought to be.
The blue Eumolpus beetle cruises across a leaf that lies upon dead plant parts and live sphagnum moss.
“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”
⁃ Martin Luther King Jr.
I encourage you to take a moment to look up environmental justice issues in your area. My eyes were opened to modern environmental justice issues during the Environmental Communication course I took during my master’s program at Drexel University a few years ago. I was surprised (and grateful) to learn about the modern day environmental justice in the Philadelphia area! (They ought to teach this stuff in high school!) Environmental justice is difficult to tackle because the problems are often the result of systemic issues and racism. They have been swept under the rug in the past but that is NOT okay. We can and must address them.
Through environmental justice, we will “learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers” and in the process, we will take better care of not just ourselves and neighbors, but also our planet. As Dr. King said: “all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly…”
If you want to learn more, in addition to looking up environmental justice issues in your own area, I recommend this comprehensive article that’s packed with stats, a personal journey, examples, and the intersectionality of it all:
“Pollution Is Killing Black Americans. This Community Fought Back.”
By Linda Villarosa • July 28, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/magazine/pollution-philadelphia-black-americans.html
🍃Final quote from Martin Luther King Jr.:
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
⁃ Martin Luther King Jr.
I want to live in a world that prioritizes people and happiness over profits as MLK presents here. I don’t want my friends, neighbors, fellow Americans to be unheard, gaslighted, feel less than, etc. because of the color of their skin. One step towards resolving these systemic problems is through empowerment.
If you haven’t already, contact your senators about passing the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act to “ensure that voters can safely & freely cast their ballots, stop partisan gerrymandering, limit the influence of dark money in politics, and hold elected officials and our institutions accountable”
Note: This quote reminds me of ideas and lifestyles shared in the book Braiding Sweetgrass. Author, Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about how native Americans refer to animals, plants, other worldly features like mountains as if they were people too and respect and appreciate them as such. I can’t help but imagine that we’d consequently live more harmoniously, sustainably, & graciously in a world with humankind oriented this way. ❤️
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Let’s move toward recalibrating society to put people and environmental sustainability first rather than profit.
Here’s to access to a healthy environment for all.
Here’s to blue skies and blue beetles for all!
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About these blue beetles:
The beetles pictured here are perhaps the BLUEST bugs I ever did see. They are blue leaf beetles that I saw living their best blue beetle lives on the leaves on the side of a steep highway in Colombia. (2017)
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera (beetles) 🐞
Family: Chrysomelidae (Leaf Beetle) 🌿
Genus: Eumolpus [No Common Name] 🪲
Species: [I don’t know]
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Reference:
Attorney General Eric Holder on the topic of MLK and Environmental Justice:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-eric-holder-speaks-environmental-protection-agency-s-martin-luther-king
Voting Act Information: http://participate.lwv.org/c/10065/p/dia/action4/common/public/index.sjs?