I’m looking forward to spending a day outside, hopefully in the sun (if this funny weather lets-up) at tomorrow’s Fresh Fest, organized by Grind for the Green.
The “green” movement has really taken off in the United States over the past few years, but as it currently stands, it doesn’t speak to the experiences or lifestyles of folks like me. People of color living in urban communities taking it one day at a time. The “green” that I see on television is all based in a consumer culture of ‘buy a hybrid’ or ‘ install solar panels on your rooftop.’ But I’m a renter that plans on having the same car for the next 10 years, so a movement based on consuming things that I can not afford, quite frankly does not resonate with me.
What does speak to me, is a movement that empowers folks of color living in urban communities to highlight the solutions that we have been using in our homes, with our families and friends as the real solutions to addressing climate change and creating shared prosperity for our communities. Me, and many of my friends, grew-up with parents reminding us to turn-off the lights when we left a room, or making us put on another layer of clothing before putting on the heater. We got bus passes before we could dream about getting an energy efficient car for our sweet-sixteen. Our parents taught us these things out of necessity, not because energy efficiency was the new fad.
This is the movement that I’m interested in and excited to be a part of. A movement where people who grew up working in farms and having a small garden on their kitchen ledge can be proud because they we’re doing before organic and local farming was the latest thing to belong to.
The Fresh Fest is all about creating a space for people of color to belong to and be proud of in a way that speaks to us in the growing fight 
against climate change and the imagining a new and better way of life. Zakiya Harris, the organizer for Fresh Fest and Founder of Grind for the Green has a vision of using the arts and culture that happens informally in so many spaces throughout our communities as the vehicle for bringing forth a mass movement that incorporates and elevates communities of color as the change makers.
If this is a movement that you want to be a part of, then come and join us! Tomorrow from 12:00-6:00PM at Mosswood Park, Soul of the City will be creating an important space for healing and community building. As a community, will be creating a Ribbon Mural for Oscar Grant, where we can share hopes and prayers for his memory, his family, and for a better Oakland for everyone.
After you tie your ribbon to the Oscar Grant Memorial, you are invited to take our new Pledge of Civic Engagement. Whether it’s a personal commitment to vote in the November elections or volunteering to door knock or phone bank with Oakland Rising this fall, we’re asking Oaklanders — and everyone else — to take an active role in becoming responsible for their community.
I hope you’ll join me there. This is OUR movement. We just have to make it so.
