As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock Paperback – March 31, 2020

This book reveals the dearth of literature on the subject of Ecological Justice. As a result Public Officials in the US depend on Federal Indian Law to administer American Indians.

This is a must-read for anyone who is fighting for environmental (in)justice and climate change. Dina Gilio-Whitaker examines the past and present, as well as contemplates ways to move forward. The atrocities against Native Americans and the Indigenous population are inextricably linked to environmental justice. I recommend reading with a friend because this book will hit on so many different levels. I plan to read again so that I can unpack more of what was discussed.

Good for today's youth who are still dealing with this abuse of our environment

It's exactly what my cousin was looking for.

This book, by Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes), combines some more “academic” chapters on history with some more “journalistic” chapters telling stories about current events. The more first group includes a chapter on the theory of environmental justice, arguing that its focus on individual people and communities does not adequately capture how settler colonialism continues to reinforce great environmental injustices. The next two chapters apply this critique to settlement, genocide, westward expansion, and the Industrial Revolution. Together, these chapters offer an accessible introduction to scholarship in Indigenous Studies on these topics, and they will resonate with any reader interested in environmental history or Indigenous history.The next four chapters provide an overview of environmental injustice in connection with public health, the challenges of working with non-Native environmental groups, the role of Indigenous women’s groups, and giving sacred sites the protection they deserve. If you’re not familiar with the issues, sacred sites may offer the biggest eye-opener of the group—the United States simply does not believe that Indigenous sacred sites are sacred, though it might be willing to protect them as historic sites or part of the nation’s cultural heritage. Gilio-Whitaker’s Indigenous perspective comes through most strongly here.This second gorup of chapters collect journalistic stories, in the way that many books by journalists do. They don’t make an overall argument or new contribution but do bring together small case studies from around North America introducing important examples of environmental justice. They have loose connections to her critique of the theory of environmental justice, using them as a journalistic theme and not in support of an academic argument.Throughout this review, I have returned to the terms “journalistic” and “academic” as descriptions and not as criticisms—I very much value both. Moving between the two is a strenth of Gilio-Whitaker’s book, and it reflects her personal history. She left graduate school after earning an M.A. but before completing her dissertation, after which she worked for a policy center, conducted research, and engaged in journalism and commentary on Indigenous matters.As a result, this book draws on her academic training and research, including her master’s thesis on the Panhe controversy near San Clemente, while she generally writes in an engaging long-form journalism style. If that mix of perspectives sounds good to you, you will definitely appreciate the book. If you strongly prefer one style or the other, you might see this book as following between two stools. For whatever it’s worth, the book worked well for me.

Disclaimer: I won a copy via a Librarything giveaway.I suppose I could just say that I was reading this on the way back from work and when I looked up, somehow, the trolley had gotten to one stop from mine without me knowing. It was that absorbing. Gilio-Whitaker makes what might have been a somewhat dull topic and engages the reader.But I suppose you want more than that.When I mentioned I was reading this book to my friend who teaches in the Urban Studies department and who has worked one various community environmental projects, he admitted he wasn’t sure about the term environmental justice. He believes that justice somewhat confuses the issue and prefers the term morality.In the opening section of the book, Gilio-Whitaker does take the time to defend what she means by environmental justice as well as statistics that show the impact on minority groups. Donald Trump JR’s inane comment aside, if you have read anything about cities and neighborhoods, you must know the truth of those statements. Gilio-Whitaker then separates Indigenous populations from other minority groups because, quite correctly, she deals with the issues of being dispossessed, broken treaties, and so on.What is more important is that for those not of Indigenous heritage or lack of knowledge, she clearly shows not only differences in belief systems, but also how Indigenous populations are more closely tied to the environmental – an environmental that they manipulated long before the arrival of European settlers. The section of the book that traces the history of the environmental movement as well as the development of national parks tying it to the issues of racism and white supremacy.There is a very good discussion about the devices used to terminate and move Indigenous populations – slavery, starvation far more than dieses. Particularly gutting wrenching is when the Federal government decided who and who wasn’t an Indigenous tribe, allowing them to take away even more and wrecking more destruction upon the culture.Gilio-Whitaker set out and wrote a good about environmental justice and the Indigenous population, but she also damns the education system in American that does not go into depth about the injustices committed to Indigenous populations. Most schools just mention the land stealing. But there is so much more.If Coates put forward an eloquent reason for reparations, Gilio-Whitaker puts forward an equally compelling one for Environmental Justice.

As Long as Grass Grows is a comprehensive look at our environment and what we are doing to it. The Earth is our home and yet we treat it like a huge trash dump. From the desecration of our lakes, rivers, streams and oceans to the devastation of the very trees that keep us breathing, we have to act now or lose our planet.From the view of Native Americans, environmentalists and other experts, this book shows us just how close we are to losing everything. It's a sad and deadly road we travel, and if you want to help do something about it, this book is a MUST READ! A grass roots movement needs to start now, all over the world.