From Aristotle to Waste Colonialism w/Jesi Taylor Cruz
Show notes
Please enjoy my conversation with Black Jewish philosopher Jesi Taylor Cruz on waste colonialism, flourishing, and anti-colonial philosophy. You might notice the sounds of life, aka seagulls on my side and the hustle and bustle of New York and the coos of a small human on Jesi’s side. I hope this only adds to your enjoyment.
Content note: There is some swearing in this episode as well as discussions of colonial violence, ableism and racism.
Jesi mentions the works of Max Liboiron and you can find a list of their articles here:
https://maxliboiron.com/publications/
And you can buy a copy of Liboiron’s book “Pollution is Colonialism” on Bookshop.org.uk
You can follow Jesi Taylor Cruz on Twitter @moontwerk and find their work at https://commongroundcompost.com/
Rate and review the podcast wherever you listen!
Find Philosophy Casting Call on Twitter and Instagram @philoccpod
Find the transcripts at https://www.elainagauthiermamaril.com/philosophy-casting-call-podcast
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Philosophy Casting Call is hosted, edited, and produced by Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril
Follow Élaina on Instagram @spinoodler and Twitter @ElainaGMamaril
Transcript
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 0:04
This is Philosophy Casting Call.
Hello, and welcome to Philosophy Casting Call, a podcast that features underrepresented philosophical talent. My name is Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril, and I'm your host and resident casting director. Today, I'm taking you from Thailand to Washington Heights, New York, to meet Jesi Taylor Cruz, an expert on waste colonialism and an activist in composting in New York. In my talk with Jesi, we cover a lot of things from anti-racism to the sustainability movement, to Aristotle, to what the difference is between individual and structural change. So it's a bit long today. I want to say as a content note that there is some swearing in this episode. It's brief, but keep that in mind and be mindful of where you're listening to this in front of whom you're listening to this, but I hope this will be a rich experience for you, and you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed speaking to Jesi. Without further ado, here's my interview with them.
Hi, Jesi, welcome!
Jesi Taylor Cruz 1:42
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 1:45
Thank you so much for being here. Would you like to introduce yourself for the listeners?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 1:50
Sure. So my name is Jesi Taylor Cruz and I live... seagulls sorry. I thought I heard seagulls in the background wherever you are.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 2:00
Yes, there are definitely singles here in Aberdeen. But I heard that you live "in seagulls" was just like "that's interesting!"
Jesi Taylor Cruz 2:06
[laughs] I live in a seagull actually! Um, so I live in Washington Heights in New York, on unseated Lenape territory and I am a grad student in philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Centre. And my research focuses are waste colonialism, political ecology of waste, genocide studies, and some bioethics in there. And in addition to grad school I work in "sustainability" type stuff. I work with a local micro hauling compost pickup service that also does education related to green infrastructure, waste infrastructure, and recycling of plastics and organics.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 2:50
Yeah, and I want to talk about how you got to where you're at now and your interest in waste colonialism, and in what you call "sustainability". Because you told me when we talked last week that you actually got interested in philosophy through Aristotle, which I found was interesting. Tell me more about that.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 3:14
Sure. So my the first time I went to college, it was actually 2008. That was when I graduated high school, I just went to college for one year, left and left Florida and moved to New York. And I was out of school for like, five, six years. And then finally went back to school. And I started as an anthro and geology major. And I loved it, it was great. But something was, I don't know, I kind of what I was just like something feels, I don't know, I need to do something else. And I saw a listing for an ancient philosophy class just randomly, and I was like, you know, what, no idea what this is, but I'm just gonna take it this could be fun, you know. So I take the class, and he started with the pre Socratics. And from the pre Socratics went to mean, you know, the Aristotle's and Plato's and, and those boys. And when we were reading Aristotle's ethics, and we got to talking about eudaimonia I don't know what it was, but I just felt like finally, something. I'm reading something that actually captures exactly how I feel about how I've like gone about figuring out what not what I'm supposed to do necessarily, because that's not necessarily something I think he's like a lifelong passion or whatever. But just like something just came over me and I was like, well, I need to learn more about this Aristotle guy. I don't know why, but I can just read these little sections for class like I need to read whatever Aristotle I could possibly get my hands on something about this guy, just. Yeah, I'm interested.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 4:48
So just to be clear, for people who might not know who they eudaimonia in ancient Greek is roughly translates as kind of beatitude or happiness and it's kind of a Aristotle's version of what we strive for, like the good life is to strive for ammonia, as opposed to other thinkers that maybe are like strive for kind of impassivity, or strive to prepare for death. Like there's different philosophical thoughts, but with eudaimonia is really more acts towards what we would now call roughly happiness, although it's not exactly the same as contemporary happiness.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 5:29
Exactly. It's more like a flourishing and doing something according to your own internal desire to do it for the sake of doing it type thing because it just brings you contentment. And yeah, I just thought that was really great. And then I read more of his work, and then just kind of fell in love with the, with the Greeks, more generally, sort of learning ancient Greek. And then I kind of became a bit of a Plato scholar for a while.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 6:01
[laughs] Blasphemy!
Jesi Taylor Cruz 6:02
[laughs] Yeah, it was, it was so much, because I was certain I was going to end up being in an ancient philosopher, scholar, that's what I was going to do all my other programmes I was in, were going towards that I was doing some research, research things at Harvard and Princeton, I was like, set, I was like, I'm going to be an Aristotle and Plato scholar. But it was actually the summer of 2016, where everything kind of changed.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 6:30
Do you mean politically, or in your life?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 6:34
In my life. And politically, generally, I just didn't feel fulfilling anymore. I felt like I wasn't asking the right kind of questions that I wanted to answer. And I felt like I was being a bit too distracted from what I really enjoy, which is like actually being out, like, boots on the ground, doing stuff, you know. And so I kind of had a shift. At first, I tried to just apply the ancient Greek stuff to my more contemporary interest. But then over time, it was kind of just like, I need to just branch out more generally, and kind of see what it is that I'm really, really trying to do. Because we have, I don't know, I could die tomorrow. And it just, it just didn't feel right anymore.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 7:21
In your current research, is there a main theory you're using?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 7:27
No, no. Like the my entire approach to doing research generally is just so different. Since my main focus is really just combating waste colonialism, I guess. So all of my research is just, "what can I do to spread this information to people make all of this information as clear as possible?" And yeah, it's just completely different. Like, I'm really trying to find words to explain it just like my whole approach to every single thing that I do is just so much, I guess less abstract. I'm just, it's just so much more concrete and just down to earth more, you know, it's yeah, I hope I'm making some difference.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 8:07
No, I totally, I totally understand, because as someone who, you know, studied a fairly classical philosopher, Spinoza, and then also wanted to engage in contemporary feminist debates, I had to ask myself these questions like, what is the limit of transposing? How do I want to go about, I don't really fit into a history of philosophy approach within the English speaking world, but I still feel I'm doing philosophy, and I'm not doing sociology of medicine, or I'm not doing other types of scholarship. So I wanted to ask you, since you found that your entire approach has changed. But now looking back, what do you see in the ancient Greeks that kind of fascinated you? Or was like, really interesting that has carried over even if it's not the methodology?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 9:03
Yeah. So I feel like, even though I have kind of strayed, I guess, theoretically, and when it comes to what my actual focus is, I guess the one thing that is always there is just to say this flourishing like, what are the barriers towards every single being having the conditions of possibility for flourishing by their own means in ways that don't harm other people? So it's like, I feel like when it comes down to it, that really is what my basic research question is, like. That's the question I'm always trying to answer. And I feel like now, instead of focusing exclusively on, you know, like answering that question, it's also doing what I can to get other people to realise that the reasons why they aren't flourishing and don't have access to those conditions of possibility, or because of these deeply rooted systemic structural issues. And I just happen to focus on toxicity and trash and waste and environmental racism and such.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 10:09
Yeah, that's really interesting. And I suppose I should ask, how do you define waste colonialism?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 10:17
So, waste colonialism. When we think about colonialism itself, we're talking about the granting of access to land by often violent, dangerous means by people that intend to completely erase the cultures and peoples and beings and remnants of civilization that existed before, right. So it's, (I love the seagulls in the background). And so when we factor in waste, it's really just what are the ways in which people in positions of power are using waste infrastructure to not only continually dispossessed people, but deemed some land? destroyable? If that makes sense, or political? Does that mean, it wasn't a good definition?
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 11:12
That's kind of having disposable people, you have disposable land? Yeah. And you said it intersected with environmental racism? What do you mean by that?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 11:23
100%, when we look at different areas that are exploited, or are no places where they're going to set incinerators, landfills, where they're not going to invest in regular cleanup, stuff like that, it disproportionately ends up being in black and native communities here in the United States, specifically, in this in this level of our nation. And when you look at it that way, it's it's just such a big web. And I'm having trouble getting into it, because it just goes so deeply. And I guess kind of to bring it back how I shifted specifically to talking about waste colonialism. So once upon a time, my focus once I shifted, you know, from the Greek stuff and tried to more apply it into like on the ground stuff. It was when I was teaching at Rikers Island. And I was just researching mass incarceration generally, but particularly how it impacted black pregnant people. And when I started doing research into Rikers Island itself, as a jail, I learned that about 40% of the actual physical Island was made out of landfill materials, like it's literally part landfill. And multiple islands in the New York City area, I learned, it's the same, quite a bit of the landmass is actually made out of, you know, combining trash, different, just all the discards in the region would just go to these areas, and they prop it up and build bigger land. And on these land masses that are made of trash, which we're on Rikers Island is an interesting story. At one point, there was so much filth on the island, that there were rats that grew to be the size of almost cats. And the city had to import dogs to the island, just to eat the rats and control that population. And this is like this is the Rikers Island and put and then they built a prison. So exactly, so they built a jail here on this island, and other islands in New York City as well. Randalls Island, Ward's Island, Roosevelt Island, they're all also part landfill. If I'm not mistaken, about 20% of all of the New York City Island, landmasses are landfill material. When I learned that it really just, I mean, it really just shook me. And at first I was just like, something tells me this isn't an isolated incident. I don't know exactly if it's other areas are going to be landfilled, or maybe close to landfills. But I was just like, What is going on here? This is this is really interesting, this, you know, proximity to trash and people that are deemed disposable. And the deeper I dove into this research, the more you know, the picture started becoming clearer, if it's not prisons and jails being built next to these are on top of these toxic areas that are, you know, proven to be a danger to people's health. It's certain communities and it just so happens to be communities that are primarily black or communities that are primarily native, but they're all chronically disenfranchised. And I always use the language of chronically disenfranchised instead of poor to really focus on the fact that you know, it's this is a systemic structural issue. It's not just people that are without it's people that are...
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 14:52
Yeah, and it's not medically just economically, right there. If they're systematically disenfranchised. It includes financial disenfranchisement, but also other things like health, and well-being and all these things. And so, exactly how do you see your research practice, meld or intersect with your, your job and your activism? With actual waste management and sustainability, do you feed one another? How does that work?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 15:32
So they definitely feed one another. So one of the jobs that I have is to create content that clearly explains why organics recycling is important. So composting, why people should compost why cities should invest in accessible and equitable composting programmes. And I guess just to give a definition, real quick, what is composting it's really just turning your organic materials like your food scraps, your yard trimmings, and leaves that have fallen to the ground, just all of those materials. It's removing them from the waste stream, preventing it from going to landfill, and literally turning it into soil amendment. So literally all of those things, I just named every single thing that for instance, has grown, once it's quote unquote, done and becomes quote unquote, food waste, you can literally turn it into something that can go back right into the earth. And so not only is this amazing, because I mean, you're reducing that from going to the landfill, about 30% of materials that end up in landfills are actually compostable materials, organics. So one in preventing that from happening. But to this compost that's created after this process can actually I mean, it has so many benefits one it can help with stormwater management if you have like composted compost assisted soil and like a community park, for instance, when you have rainstorms, you're preventing so much of that extra water from like plugging storm drains carrying pollution out because all that water is being retained in the soil. Now, because it's been made more healthy by compost, you can also improve crop yields. If you're a farmer or just a backyard grower in your house, you know, you increase biodiversity in the soil. And you can sequester carbon, like you're literally snatching carbon from the atmosphere. So there's like there's so many benefits to composting and of all the types of recycling that exist. The way I see is that composting is the only one that's you know, the tried and true Sure thing recycling method that's actually going to have a direct impact and reduce harmful emissions. And so when cities don't invest in these, you know, in composting resources, they're, I mean, they're honestly perpetuating harm.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 18:09
And does New York City not literally have the composting programme?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 18:18
So they do, it's kind of complicated when COVID hit. Alright, so they have this thing called the Brahmin programme that was started in so it started recently started within the last decade. And what they did was they chose certain communities where they would have these special bins that you could request outside of your apartment building, office building, etc. Where they would come around with trucks, you know, from the sanitation department to come pick it up compost, etc. But it was only certain communities. And it's kind of like a pilot run lasted no got a lot of popularity. It was great. I mean, it drastically reduced emissions and it went really well. And so COVID hits and they completely shut it down for a year and actually just now restarting it again. But when that happened, a coalition started here in New York called Samar compost where just tonnes organisers activists, people that work in compost, people that work in waste management, they got together and started creating their own compost sites to to handle this, and some smaller places just like sort of popping up. But it's one of those things where even though you know, we do have the programme, it's not the most equitable, it's not the most accessible. And it's just something that should be prioritised. It's one of the easiest ways to start you know, helping cities we reach their "zero waste goals" that they have.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 19:49
Is that what you're doing with Common Ground? Is Common Ground to kind of trying to go out into communities and facilitate these self composting areas?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 20:02
So for the most part, so Common Ground Compost has a service that's part of it called Reclaimed Organics and our runs from downtown Manhattan to right around 100 Street. And they have, we have tricycles that are electric assisted that have like little trucks in the back... cargo trikes, and they go around to people that you know, have a plan with us. And they come around once a week, pick up all their scraps, it's residential, and it's commercial office buildings, etc. And so we do that. But then we also do you know, education, advocacy, we do some, a lot of legal advocacy stuff, we do a lot of public hearings and testimonies and such for local government. And we're part of like a larger network of other, you know, micro haulers is what they're called the ones that go around with the cargo bikes, picking up the scraps and such and it's, yeah, we're just connected to a lot of other people around the world who are interested in this, this work. And we're just trying to do what we can to get everybody to compost.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 21:06
And how does your philosophy background and research influenced this work?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 21:12
Sure. So another part of our work that we do is we do consulting with different organisations, businesses, nonprofits, etc. And my main goal during these presentations is to, you know, change behaviour and get people to change their, their belief formation processes that will actually directly impact their behaviour. And so it's, we're philosophy comes in, at least in my mind, the way I see it is, you know, how can I effectively convince people to change their mind about the way that they behave when it comes to waste? And so, I mean, saying it like that, it might sound I don't know, maybe it sounds weird, I don't know. But to me, that's, that feels like...
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 22:00
I mean, it's the million dollar question is like, how do we change people's beliefs and how our beliefs formed? And why is there sometimes a disconnect between belief and facts over I mean, I come at it from an effective point of view, which then people ask me like, Well, isn't that psychology? It's like, well, yes, psychology looks at that. But I feel like philosophy can do it in a different and cough, cough more interesting way. But, but that's just me, that's my bias. But yeah, I think the whole idea of how do you convince someone is something philosophers have been obsessed with forever.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 22:44
Right. And that's really what it is. Because it's not just, you know, I'm gonna change somebody's behaviour. It's our behaviours are directly impacted by our beliefs. And so how do you really get to somebody on that belief formation level? Like, how do you really get somebody to kind of like, zoom out and see where this idea they even have when it comes to something, whatever it is, like, how do you get somebody to say, okay, instead of, when I'm preparing all my food for the week, instead of just taking all of the, the potato skins and apple cores and banana peels? How do I get somebody to, you know, instead of putting that in a trash can, to find a place to drop off their food scraps or compost in their own apartment. But then there's this whole other layer, which I focus on a lot, and like the workshops and stuff that I do, where it's equity and access, because, you know, some people don't have the time to be like, I'm CINAHL, I'm gonna sort my food scraps, or they don't fucking have food. So they're not thinking about where the fuck they're gonna put their food scraps. So there's like all these other layers too. And when they live in a place where they don't even have access to anything that can make it possible for them to compost. They're gonna look at me like, this is not applicable to me. Like I like what am I supposed to do? I can't I can't do that.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 24:09
Yeah, yes. And when the nearest composting centre is like 20 miles away, and you don't have access to a vehicle, and you're just like, no one is gonna, well, maybe not no one, but not all people are going to take the subway for like 45 minutes of their potato peelings, you know?
Exactly. And it's like, I don't blame you, like, at all. And it's one of those things where like, yeah, it's important for us to you know, I think we can get to this in a little bit. I guess the the whole individual choice or the individual lifestyle change?
Yes, please.
It's a mess. I mean, the first thing I'll say is like, I completely do not endorse the idea that individual lifestyle change doesn't matter. I do not endorse that. I definitely think that At depending on what you have access to what you're able to do, those are the types of things that should dictate, you know what you do. But I don't think it's responsible or appropriate. to just say, you know, the crisis that we're dealing with is primarily the fault of, you know, large corporations and a handful of violent colonisers because it's like, yeah, I mean, yeah, that is true. But we all are sharing the same planet. And if you're somebody who has access to certain resources, where you can make the lifestyle change, where even on a local level, you can impact things, then it's important to do so because I feel like one thing that gets left out of those conversations is like, yeah, those large polluters, you know, are ruining everything and endangering all of our lives. That is true. But there are also very local issues like local ecosystems and directly impacted by the choices that we make in our communities.
Yeah, no, I mean, it makes me think that we are trained by Western society to think in a kind of either or, like, it's either individualistic, or it's communitarian, or, and binaries, and the binaries, fuck the binaries. For me, part of my research is like showing everything that's entangled in between. And as you say, they both things are true at once. Like we have big actors and large systems that are far away from maybe our personal individual lives, but we also have, our actions have consequences, and our communities are shaped by the people that live in them and act in them. And so those, we have to be able to hold those two things at once. But my question to you is, I've always thought that we add a layer of moral responsibility to these things. And so there are different traps. So if you say, oh, it's the big polluters, you kind of Divest yourself from responsibility, and you're kind of like, there's nothing I can do about that. Or if you flip it, and it's only individual action, then it's all about like, How can I be a good person, and you start judging yourself and people based on specific actions, as opposed to seeing your actions as part of a larger system? Do you agree?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 27:34
I agree completely, it goes back to the whole fuck the binary thing, because we literally just can't look at it like that, because that's not how it works. Like, it's not just either them or us. It's just not how it works like that. Like, it's just so frustrating to me, because I feel like a really common thing actually, is for people to just want to divest, as you said, because they're so comfortable with just, you know, putting it on to somebody else. And or they...
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 28:04
They get like paralysed I mean, maybe paralyse, I shouldn't probably say that ableist, but they get kind of flustered and say, like, "oh, there's so much to be done. And I'm just one person, and I can't do it all". Or they, they start being really fixated of like, well, if I change my diet, and if I do this, and then they start like judging people who don't make exactly the same choices they have, without taking into account as you said, accessibility, and lots of other factors.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 28:38
You just said something that's just been getting to me so much lately, because I feel like one of the most so I'll say what, so the clients that I work with, when I get these webinars and workshops, it's mostly like, you know, like big, different businesses, corporations, nonprofits, and it's like huge teams of people. And what's honestly really heartbreaking to me is that almost every time I ever give a workshop or webinar, multiple people always say something like, you know, it just it sucks that other people don't seem to care enough to make these choices. They don't want to do this. They don't. They don't feel the need to it's like, oh my gosh, that's not how you can be looking at this. There are so many factors that stand in the way of people being able to make certain lifestyle changes, first of all. And second of all, like of all the things to like, go back to the whole blame thing. I got them all the things to have blame than to put blame on to. It's not another person that literally has zero power and is just struggling to survive. Like it's, oh, it's so frustrating because it often is really just people that are like, I don't have room to have a compost bin in my apartment to do this. I don't live close enough to a place to go drop off my food scraps like I don't have the money to buy a $30 reusable water bottle. It's not that I don't care. I just leave really can't do this. And so when people focus so much on that, oh, this other person just doesn't care. Instead of thinking about all of the things I could possibly be preventing somebody from doing something, it's, it's just so sad to me. It's, it's so sad, because you what you could be instead of saying, you know, they must not care, like if because it's often people, you know, talking about their neighbours or something like that. It's like, instead of saying, Oh, they don't care, maybe ask them, talk to them, strike up a conversation. Be like, you know, I noticed XYZ. I would love to, you know, maybe help you maybe we could team up as neighbours and do something I don't even know. But it's just a hate when it goes to the you know, or they just must not care.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 30:47
Becanse that's another way to divest. Because if it's someone else's moral status, I can't do anything about that. They're just not a good person.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 30:55
Right? Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah, oh, they just don't care about our planet. They don't care about our own lives. That's like, direct that to the people that literally have the money, resources and power to be able to ensure that everybody can do these things that are important. Like, yeah...
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 31:12
And now that you you have all of your experience on the ground giving these workshops and working with people, how do you think that will direct your your research and your grad programme?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 31:25
Well, if logic doesn't destroy me this semester [laughs], then I mean, honestly, I'm, I'm excited to see how all of this work is going to impact what I do, because I took him to incompletes last semester, and I had to like turn in my papers still for those. And one of them was for a class I was taking on decolonial epistemology, oh, well, Linda, Martine alikom, and the paper that I'm working on for her, is on what would an anti colonial approach to composting look like? And so it's stuff like that, where in doing this work, it really just, it just inspires me to regardless of what the paper or the class whatever is, finding ways to apply that into this into philosophical work. And it's just really fun. Like for a Heidegger class that I took, fuck Heidegger first and foremost, but other than that, no, literally, I think he literally just stole a lot from Jewish mystics.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 32:34
Oh, definitely, he stole from so many people. I mean, the only thing I take away from Heidegger is that Being and Time is literally, him publishing his dead ends. And I think we should normalize that. We should should have more in philosophy of being like, "let me try this. Whoops, it doesn't work. Let me try something else. It doesn't work." I think that's as a concept is pretty cool.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 33:02
I agree completely. Another thing I take away from Heidegger is no power will really grant you popularity, I sincerely feel like if not, no, it's not for him being a Nazi. I don't think people would read him as much as they do. I think he benefited heavily from the rise of Nazism, in Germany, and the firing and exile of well of Jewish scholars in Germany during the time. If not for Heidegger, being a Nazi people would definitely, definitely be reading much more Marcuse than him. I'll say that, yeah. But um, where was I going with that? Oh, my paper for that class. I ended up writing about natural organic reduction and Heidegger's concept of death. And natural organic production is a method of handling human remains after death. And it's basically saying, it's, it's incredible. Yeah, that's how I want to go out.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 33:59
Yeah, me too, definitely.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 34:02
But it's stuff like that. It's just, there's just so much possibility there when you take the tools that philosophy has to offer and apply it to, you know, these other questions you have about these other things, applying philosophical questions and methods, and tools to questions related to waste colonialism.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 34:22
And it reminds me of what you said at the very beginning when you say you work in, "sustainability", and for me, that's such a philosopher's answer. Because like, you feel this work is important. And the people you work with and serve, like should have access to these things. But then you you're also doing research on anti colonial waste management and composting and like so you're thinking critically about the work you're actually doing. You're doing both.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 34:56
At all times, because I mean, like even like sustainability I get it. It's just like it's the word you know, people are using but like, why is our goal to sustain ourselves like our goal should be flourishing? So it's like, I get it. It's like a nice shorthand, whatever, Cree, it's the buzzword snaps. But even just like when we, yes, thank you, but like, oh, gosh, and then we're gonna get to oh my gosh, the words, the words that we use, like, they just have so much power. And so like calling this whole movement that we have, you know, sustainability efforts, it's like, without humans, the planet would do a fine job of sustaining itself. You know what I mean? That's, that's not what this is different than that.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 35:40
What my thesis supervisor Beth Lord, she's so she's a Spinoza scholar, and she's been doing work recently on Spinoza. And environmentalism. And one of her talks, basically changed my life. Because for those people who don't know, Spinoza believes, you know, human beings are a part of nature, and they're not against nature, which is like one part of it. And it's this idea of when we're thinking about environmentalism, and we're thinking Spinoza has the idea of connectedness, which is kind of like eudaimonia. So like power, like based on your own nature, your own capacities. So everyone flourishes in different ways. But everyone and everything, including rocks, and trees, and water, like have a connect to it's like, they all strive to flourish. And so that's it for him. He's never happy with this idea of sustainability or conservation is, it's like, it's always about the flourishing. And the best Lord was saying, when we're thinking about environmentalism, we have to say, like, why are we afraid of our own power? It's kind of reframing, like, yes, we need to change our activities, we need to look at like how human beings are impacting the planet. But can we do that and accept our power and accept their flourishing, we just kind of have to really rethink what we mean by flourishing, and it will probably not be, you know, late capitalist. Grow. Yeah. But it's this idea of like, Okay, one more thing, thinking about our relationship to natural environments, and non human animals and all of these things.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 37:18
It's a nonhuman beings period, like you were saying, stones, rivers, they've got lives of their own.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 37:25
Exactly, but it's, it's how do we do that while still saying, I'm not going to just kind of like, beat myself up and just feel guilty about everything that represses my power represses our power? And it's like, how do we harness our flourishing within the planetary flourishing? Anyway, that's the end of my rant.
Unknown Speaker 37:46
No, your rant is beautiful and amazing. And it brings me to this other idea of just like what you said, like, and all of the work that I do, I never lead to guilt. I lead with a loving rage and like, unwavering hope, like as difficult as it is, but really just like seeing stuff, like seeing what people can do when they come together and care for each other, and with each other. And seeing like, what that really does, like that. It's just the most incredible thing to me. I love that you brought up like rocks and such because I have a very, very deep and intimate relationship with stones. I don't want to get to it right now...
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 38:30
We'll do a follow up interview.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 38:33
Right? Just just that. But like, there, I feel like you said like, not just embracing the power that we have. But also just, gosh, you're seeing the possibilities for abundance, like when you really start seeing these. These other beings, we're literally coexisting with like, there's this huge pen oak tree outside of my window that was planted in like the 1950s. And whenever I look at it, just like, gosh, it just takes up so much space, and it's so beautiful, and abundant and wonderful. And it's gone to, like vastly outlive me. It's sad that when I, you know, go downstairs, I see the other reality. It's just in a tree bed that is often full of trash. Yeah. And it doesn't matter how many times you know, it gets cleaned up. It's just one of those spaces that has, you know, been deemed political, by people generally. Gosh, it's so sad, mostly because it doesn't just doesn't have to be this way. Like, it just doesn't have to be this way.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 39:45
And I think that's the biggest thing to convince people that were used to this. But this is not the only world we could live in.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 39:55
Exactly. And I draw comparisons sometimes. And it's messy and I haven't thought As much as I'd like to, but I feel like there's a lot of similarities between movements that have these buzz phrases like zero waste, and even like anti racist, where it's like, they're ultimately ideals. It's nothing that any of us is going to reach as long as we live under racist capitalist ablest patriarchy, all those. And so it's like what we really have to do is like be honest with ourselves about that. And one reason I made that comparison is because it goes back to this, you know, individual lifestyle change versus structural issue. I feel like one thing that you see people talking about a lot when they're critiquing, like environmental activism style type stuff, where it's like, well, what am I gonna, it's just one straw, you know? Hmm. But they don't use the same type of, quote unquote, logics, when they're talking about like, anti racism, they'll say, you know, yeah, we do live in a place that is structurally racist, but you need to constantly be calling out your friends, you need to constantly be unlearning, you know, the way you're thinking about this stuff, you need to regularly always be checking yourself and the people around you, because even though this is a structural issue, we have to work within ourselves to slowly, day by day, moment by moment combat these things within our own selves. And for some reason, people don't like taking that and applying it to environmental stuff. And it really is the same kind of thing. It's like, yeah, you know, maybe one straw or whatever. But especially if we are supposed to get to this new world, that's, you know, no violence, no harm, you know, we're combating all of these these horrible structures and such, if we get to this new world, but we still have these old ways of living them, what are we doing? It's like, yeah, I get it, maybe we're not going to be able to get to the place that we need to be. But we need to start habituating these new habits, that was redundant. But you know, we can't just get to this new world and still be thinking, Oh, it's just one straw. It's like, no, what's What are you saying? Come on, we need to we need to change how we're thinking how we're doing how we're acting, every moment.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 42:16
Like kind of the bitter view is, some people have the privilege of not having to think about all these things at once like for, for me personally, yes. For example, you mentioned like anti racism, and everybody, well, not everybody, but like, a lot of just say, probably the similar circles we run in, but we're a specific type of demographic, let's be real. And we'll be thinking about Yeah, checking themselves checking their, like racial privilege, like doing all of these things, but they will be blatantly ablest. Or, for example, if like a disabled person is like, I need the plastic straw, they'll be like, You're horrible, and you hate the planet. And you're just like, Let's calm down everyone. And, please, I do think circumstances and systemic environments have made it so that some people are more or less aware. And so I guess that's what you're also doing with your activism. And you're, you're doing a lot of teaching and advocacy, so that people become aware of that.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 43:23
Exactly. And just start thinking about, you know, the consequences of yes, even a single straw. Because it's not just you like how many people live in here. So I'm just, let's say you live in like a city, you know, my building, let's say every single person, what every person wants a day, throw away a single straw in my building with, like, 200 people. Not to mention how many 1000s of people live on my block, you know, it does add up. And one thing that I just like to you know, kind of help people visualise and like why I think it is so important to think yes. What are the contents of my trash can? That's because, you know, you're not just you're not throwing stuff away. There is no way that is the first myth people need to get over there is no way it is going somewhere. And there's chances are, your trash is ending up in the backyard of a black community. Yeah, that's just what the reality is. And so if you can't make the change yourself, gosh, I hate the whole contact your representatives thing, because it's, I mean, it's it. That's a whole other conversation. But I mean, it's one of those things like I'll give an example about 700,000 tonnes of trash from New York City, and up in this small town called Waverly, Virginia, one of the largest landfills in the country. And it's a, like a 64% black community. And before the landfill was built, they protested hard against it. They didn't want the landfill coming to their community. They knew the risks, they knew what was going to happen. Obviously didn't work out now. It's one of the biggest landfills in the country. And this is where New Yorkers trash is going, you know, 700,000 tonnes to the black community in Virginia. And you know, it's not just here, it's whether it's ending up in another country, or just wherever it's ending up somewhere. So it's really, you know, I get it, I get it, you know, it's like, it's just my trash bag, but it's like, no, it's not. This is literally material that is going to end up in somebody else's community. And that's part of it, too, is ending up in somebody else's content.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 45:27
No one wants it in there, they're not bearing the brunt of it.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 45:30
Exactly. So like, I like I live in one of those quote unquote, environmental justice communities, you know, and it's like, it's, it's really frustrating, and so out of sight, out of mind for them. And it's so frustrating. That's what's annoying in these like, environmental justice, climate activist spaces is, they don't have to worry about walking outside with their two year old and knowing that when they walked on the street, they're gonna possibly step on needles, and literally just have trash overflowing on the streets, they don't have to worry about that, I literally have to worry about that. Like and, and obviously, it's not just me, it's literally billions of other people where we can't just, you know, ignore all of these other things that we're talking about, like equity and access when it comes to this. And so it's, it's, it's so much and can actually read something for you. So it's from this article article is called waste colonialism. And it's actually by one of my favourite researchers, Dr. Max Liboiron And so I'm just gonna read this sentence. It says, in these are so in uses of the term waste colonialism, as well as its sister terms, garbage, imperialism, toxic colonialism, nuclear colonialism, and toxic terrorism, among others, are almost always about the transboundary movement of waste from areas of privilege and affluence to areas with lower economic status and influence. And discussions tend to focus on legislative solutions and channels. And another thing in this article that I just want to say is there's just a line that just says waste and pollution make land available for settler goals through dispossession. And that just brings me to another thing I want to bring up. And it's this. It's why I sent her anti colonialism and everything because even in these, you know, environmental justice, climate activism spaces, there are so little care for how so many activists are perpetuating settler colonialist goals. Like, it doesn't matter how benevolent your intentions are, it doesn't matter that you know, you're going to a beach cleanup, or a park cleanup, or this or that. If you're not starting everything that you're doing, from a place of, I'm doing this on stolen land right now, you know, like, then, like, we that just cannot be left out of any of these conversations. It just can't, I'm still trying to come to terms with like, what, who I even am in relation to the land. Just because I'd be on like the descendant of enslaved people that were stolen and brought here. But that's also partly why I'm just like, you know, it's just Central, like, anti colonialism has to be central to environmental work, it has to, because first and foremost, everything that is happening, it's happening on stolen land. And so it's, you know, it's not just that, you know, black and native communities are being disproportionately impacted. It's that native people still aren't granted sovereignty over this land that was violently stolen from them. And so it's just just really focusing less on guilt and just more on abundance and what we can build and what we can cultivate.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 48:53
And are you reading anything that is helping you stay in that abundance mindset?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 49:01
I've been reading this incredible book. It's called pollution is colonialism. And it's actually by the scholar I mentioned earlier, Dr. Dr. Max moron. And it's, I don't know, I just highly recommend it. Pollution is colonialism. There's a free sample of the first like 30 ish pages. If you go to the books, the press website, I want to say it's Duke University Press, but I could
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 49:26
Yeah, I'll definitely link it in the show notes.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 49:29
Definitely link it. But I've been reading that I'm related kind of to this. I've been I do a lot of like, do a lot of Torah study, and I've been doing kind of like a side project on like natural pigments and the sourcing of colour in the Old Testament. Just kind of like for fun. I just think it's interesting to kind of trace you know, because I feel like colour is one of those things that you know, it's kind of just kind take for granted often, when it's really something that just tells a much larger story, a bigger story a longer story deeper.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 50:09
Yeah, I know an Old Testament scholar who did that with birds in the Old Testament. And obviously, we lots of birds that don't exist anymore.
Jesi Taylor Cruz 50:19
And the same is kind of true for colour, because there are some specific colours where, you know, they were sourced from, like a specific gastro pod that may no longer exist, or they can't actually find the source. And it's like, just all of these beings, you know, what I've been doing a lot of just thinking about this idea of multi species collaboration. And like, I think composting is one of those things. There's this essay that was on, I think, it was like the New York Times the stone philosophy section. And it was about Bell Hooks, talking about how this idea of composting anger, and taking all of these, like, his feelings that you have and composting them, and that's beautiful. I look in Yeah, it's beautiful, but it's incomplete. And what I've been thinking more about is like, so for composting, it's like, composting isn't just people in the food scraps, you know what I mean? There are billions of microbes, making it possible for composting to happen, period. And so I think it's one of those examples where it's like, just because you can't see a helper, or just because, you know, you can't really visualise all of the beings that are playing a role and making this beautiful, incredible change happen, doesn't mean they're not there. And so to bring it back to this, like anti colonial composting paper that I'm working on, it's okay to acknowledge that this is a big project that doesn't just involve people, you know?
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 52:00
And where can people find you and your work on the internet?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 52:05
On the social medias, you can search @moontwerk.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 52:08
And Common Ground Compost dot com.
Unknown Speaker 52:11
Yeah, Common Ground Compost dot com. Yeah.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 52:15
Wonderful. And so if any listeners are in New York City, go visit that website and see, are you taking volunteers or drivers or riders, I should say, at the moment?
Jesi Taylor Cruz 52:27
Oh, we're always interested in drivers for micro hauling! Absolutely, yes. But also just get in touch. If you live wherever you live, and you want to learn more about any of the things I talked about. I would love to point you in the direction of resources. Yeah, when I'll share with you a waste and equity resource list that me and my team made that just got books and podcasts on it to learn more.
Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril 52:56
Great. Well, thank you so much for talking to me and giving me your time. It's was really fascinating. And I hope you have a nice day. Thank you to be safe. Thank you. Bye
Thank you very much for joining me and Jesi, this was a fascinating conversation. I hope you will agree. And I hope you will check out all of Jesi's links that I will put in the show notes. If you want to follow more philosophy casting call you can follow at Philo CC pod on Instagram and Twitter and Tik Tok. I'm gonna try and make an effort to put things there. You can also email me at Philosophy Casting Call pod@gmail.com Please rate and review the podcast this will help other people find that if you want to support the podcast and become a monthly subscriber, you can donate to my ko-fi.com page. Otherwise you can find me @ElainaGMamaril on Twitter and on my website elainagauthiermamaril.com. If you want a book review podcast please check out Bookshelf Remix and if you feel like listening to me discusse Gilmore Girls, please listen to Women of Questionable 'orals. Until next time, bye!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai