Give in to Hope Day 20: Jamie Margolin
Have you ever heard the word intersectionality? You might know the word intersection, like at a stoplight, where lots of cars meet, but intersectionality is thinking about how all the different parts of who we are come together to create our identity and our experiences. Here’s a great video that I’d love for you to check out before we go further!
Maybe you can go back and look at some of the previous young activists we have talked about and think how intersectionality affected them–for example, Anne Frank was Jewish, but she also was a girl–I wonder how her experience would have been different had she been a boy? Or think of Philo Farnsworth from yesterday–if he had been a girl, or a person of color, he might have had to work a lot harder to get people to pay attention to his ideas, especially 100 years ago!
Our hero today, Jamie Margolin, identifies as many things–she is a female, a young person, she is Jewish, she is Latinx, and she is lesbian. She is also very committed to climate justice, but when she thinks about climate justice, she always thinks about it looking through all of those lenses. She is aware that she often has to work harder to get heard because she is young, and she is a woman. She fights for indigenous voices to be more centered in our climate work, since they are often left out of these conversations, even though their connection to and stewardship of the land and the natural world are cornerstones of their identity. She constantly reminds people that racial justice and environmental justice go hand in hand. Her goal is to weave a web where people across identities, countries, and belief systems can rally behind the reality that we only have one Earth, and it needs our help. She is a fearless connector.
To learn more about Jamie Margolin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W1P6iVe2ts
To learn more about how racial justice and climate justice are linked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di-JmGwjoOs
What are some of the different identities that you have? Are there some identities that make things easier for people than others? What is something you could do to help make sure lots of different voices are heard, not just the loudest ones, or the ones with the most privilege?
Closing prayer: Dear God, there are too many people saying “I can’t breathe.” Please help us do things to make breathing easier, and safer, for ALL people. Amen.