Kaleigh Swift: How Joining a Political Community on Twitch or Asking a Neighbor for a Cup of Sugar Is Environmental Justice

Kaleigh Swift, an environmental activist and 2018 graduate from the University of Minnesota, entered the virtual political sphere to push back against the overwhelmingly moderate, white, and male space that is Twitch politics. Twitch.tv is an online platform that has historically been for video game streaming, but more recently has become an avenue for political and justice-oriented organizing.  The “politics” tag on Twitch.tv has 47,900 followers as of December 2020, but the content available to those viewers isn’t necessarily reflective of the full political spectrum. Hoping to offer a channel that delves deeper into politics than federal electoralism, Swift draws upon Black radical tradition, political thought, and theory and applies those frameworks to current organizing efforts while bringing a radical perspective to an intensely homogenous arena.

In addition to streaming, Swift, along with other Black political thinkers, journalists, writers, and streamers, runs a multi-platform collective which includes a Twitch, a patreon (a membership-based platform where people pay to consume content), and a podcast. These all come together to form something of an indie media network. Their podcast, Afrogyn Revolt, aims to uplift the voices of non “liberal” left Black women and femmes as they discuss their lived experiences, emphasizing sisterhood and empowerment while acknowledging the struggle and trauma of living in this place and time. Swift also has been working as the Program Coordinator for the CREATE Initiative at the University of Minnesota, which researches the relationship between greening (developments lauded as being “environmental” ) and gentrification. Add to that list her membership on the MN Pollution Control Agency’s Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, which was established to provide feedback and suggestions to the MPCA on their implementation of their environmental justice framework. On top of her activism, she also works retail part-time. It’s a lot, but for Swift, social and environmental justice are inherently connected, so to address one she must address both. She believes that environmental justice is inseparable from other divisions of justice, so you can’t just reduce your waste or donate a couple bucks; you have to examine the issues within your own community and make those your driving force.

Swift’s dedication to environmental justice came to fruition during college, where her major combined natural and social sciences to focus on environmental justice, but Swift says that “Environmental justice has been a part of my life for a very long time, even though I definitely didn’t have the language to speak about it as such until college.” Though Swift had always loved the environment (at this point she acknowledges that she’s zooming in from a room covered in tapestries of trees), she says she didn’t understand how narrow and racialized our conception of the environment really was until college. Welfare programs work in conjunction with other systems of oppression and are therefore “designed to keep you subservient.”Swift theorizes that an interest in sustainability or concern about climate change can radicalize people who, in digging a bit deeper, begin to understand that the roots of the problems are systemic. Her radicalization was only natural as she has been aware of these systemic injustices since childhood, as her single mother struggled with housing, food, and the welfare system. Swift critiques the welfare system as it, in her personal experience, cuts people off from benefits as soon as they start making anything near living wage and categorizes this as yet another way that systemic oppression operates. Welfare programs work in conjunction with other systems of oppression and are therefore “designed to keep you subservient.”

Once Swift recognized the interconnections throughout injustices in college, she became involved in environmental justice work. Her work with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Environmental Justice Advisory Committee began in college as an internship, and after graduation she went on to work for University of Minnesota through the CREATE initiative, coordinating the program’s research into the relationship between greening, or developments of parks or spaces presented as environmentally friendly, and gentrification. Through this work, Swift connected with environmental justice organizers in the Twin Cities, especially those working against the Upper Harbor Terminal (UHT) development, a plan to turn 48 acres of riverfront, previously a shipping barge, into homes, businesses and green space. Her connection though, is not one of support, but of strong apprehension and frustration, as is the case with many other organizers.

While at a glance, the UHT appears strong as the City of Minneapolis claims to approach this project with racial justice at the forefront of the plans, unfortunately their actions at every step of the way have been contrary to that statement. The developers behind the UHT have failed to be transparent and instead plan to give this public land in a predominately Black community over to private and white-owned companies. This will continue the extractive relationship, taking money from those who live there now to benefit people who don’t actually live in the area.

This is not the first time Black communities in the Twin Cities area have been injured by major construction. In the 1950’s the Rondo neighborhood, which was the vibrant heart of the Black community in Saint Paul, compared to the likes of Beale Street and Lenox Avenue, was split in half by highway I-94. There were other proposed routes for the highway, but they were slightly longer and thus would inconvenience white business people, so the construction company once again favored profit and this demographic over the residents of Rondo. One in every eight Black Americans living in St. Paul lost a home due to the construction of I-94.

Similarly, the UHT will likely displace local residents as new businesses attract middle-class white people, one of the main symptoms of gentrification. These outsiders are statistically more likely to call the police on their Black neighbors and will drive rent prices upwards, forcing those who can’t afford to own property to leave. Gentrification might at first seem like more of a social justice issue than an environmental one, however, as Swift sees it, environmental justice is connected to everything from housing security to policing to labor. Involvement in even seemingly disparate projects furthers her ultimate goal of environmental justice. Housing insecure people have a higher risk of living in unhealthy or unsafe conditions, and as such, get sick more frequently. Historically, EJ advocates and research have approached housing in terms of surface-level issues like increasing energy efficiency, reducing air pollution, and removing toxins (like lead paint), but this framework completely misses the root cause, and has yet to address why Black and Brown people are disproportionately impacted by housing insecurity.

But housing insecurity in BIPOC communities is not only a problem in the Twin Cities. We see this pattern globally, especially during the current global pandemic. It’s no secret that Black and Brown people are being disproportionately evicted and experiencing worse health impacts from COVID-19. The history of redlining— when the government refused to grant loans or subsidized housing based on whether an area was deemed risky or stable based on the community’s racial or ethnic makeup— means that today these communities have less access to greenspace, are more likely to exist in food deserts, and are more likely to be in close proximity to extreme pollutants like factories. But racism isn’t the only structural inequity that many of these people are fighting against because intersectionality also plays a role in these issues. Intersectionality describes the ways in which an issue puts disproportionate pressure on those with multiple disenfranchised identities and how these identities come together and intensify the impact. So, things like sexism, homophobia, and transphobia interact with racism and create problems like intensified homelessness for LGBTQIA+ youth of color.

One commonality between many of the projects she works on is, unfortunately, that Swift’s push for radical change often must confront a system that claims that it is indeed on her side while its actions show otherwise. In the same way that Twitch politics were overwhelmingly moderate despite claims to the contrary, hypocrisies run rampant and actions speak louder than words. The UHT claims it will create jobs, keep rent affordable, and increase Black residents’ access to green space, but Swift fears that it will gentrify the North side, displacing many while “taking publicly owned land and putting it in the hands of private developers who are white and billionaires and inheritors of their wealth.” Whether or not those claiming to do the right thing genuinely believe that they are (with the system directing their beliefs), their actions can cause real harm if they don’t listen to the people actually being affected.

Likewise, Swift describes how the “non-profit industrial complex” can take away from grassroots momentum for change. Nonprofits serve as a link between institutional and movement spaces. While introducing institutions to movement goals and ideas seems productive, Swift warns that it can often backfire. Nonprofits can not only hire organizers away from movements, co-opting their energy, but they also contribute to the co-optation of movement language. By using the same language as progressive movements, institutions can present a facade of concern without changing their harmful actions. Think of corporate greenwashing, where oil companies talk about carbon footprints and green technologies while still producing and profiting off of fossil fuels.

Swift has experienced firsthand a local example of this co-optation of movement energy and language through her time on the MN Pollution Control Agency’s Environmental Justice Advisory Board. Swift was on the EJAG board for less than a year before resigning along with eleven of the seventeen other members in protest of the MPCA’s approval of the Line 3 oil pipeline, which would cause prodigious harm to both people and the environment. The MPCA cited the work of the EJAG as pivotal in their decision, despite the fact that the EJAG has always been vocally opposed to the pipeline. Swift says that she and the rest of the EJAG has “known this entire time that the MPCA was most likely to approve it anyway. But then they turned about and used our work to cosign that decision.” MPCA used the concept of being advised on environmental justice, if not the actual advice, to excuse their actions as being “the least harmful for the most people,” which EJAG of course never said, all while falsely claiming to the EJAG  to be in a legal bind that forced their approval.

In part due to this experience, Swift says that she has no interest in doing any more work within any kind of institution, including government or the schooling system, as her time working at the University of Minnesota and CREATE is almost over. According to Swift, “working within institutions always relegates you to the institutional timeline, which is significantly slower than the timelines that happen outside of institutions because the reality is that our needs are immediate and emergent. We need things now. We have material conditions that are not being met now in the community. Institutions, though they may express a willingness to work towards meeting those, are really not interested in doing so at a speed that results in people not dying.”

More than questioning the speed of institutional progress, Swift also questions the direction: even as institutions co-opt movement language and claim to work towards progress, “these institutions have a vested interest in keeping things exactly how they are.” And though Swift believes that her and the rest of the EJAG’s work may have managed to reach some of the younger workers at MPCA that genuinely believed in the importance of environmental justice in their daily work, a larger cultural change could take five to ten years. This is time that we don’t have, especially since those who lie at the intersection of marginalization are struggling today.

A common thread throughout these environmental injustices is the fact that they continue to perpetuate harm on the historically marginalized. We see that with COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd. The pandemic has disproportionately impacted BIPOC communities, and while we are all dealing with the ramifications of the virus, the additional trauma of George Floyd’s murder was devastating for members of the Black community. Swift mentions that since his death, for her, there has been no time to process since immediate action is constantly needed. Organizers seem to have no other choice besides moving forward until there is actually space to give the feelings the recognition they deserve. In reality, Black people are dying disproportionately from two health crises, the COVID-19 pandemic and state-sanctioned violence enacted by the police. Both of these disasters deserve responses that center on safety for all people. An important element to emphasize when counteracting violence and moving towards true freedom for all people is the centering of Black liberation. To this end, Swift says that Black studies are the study of everything because of how interconnected and this is why she centers these studies in her own work. By focusing on Black studies, we find that anti-Blackness is at the center of all oppressive systems, including colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, so the Black struggle is also central to dismantling these systems. Many liberatory groups and organizers have used the phrase “we’re not free until we’re all free” which underscores that by placing the liberation and equity of the most disenfranchised people at the forefront of your justice, everyone else will become free with them.

It is possible that after learning all this, some might be jaded, or feel helpless, but Swift isn’t one of those people. She shared some ways in which an average person can get started. First and foremost, “We live in a world where we no longer feel comfortable asking our neighbors for a cup of sugar. That is such a clear indicator of how we’ve been completely separated from each other.” she emphasized that there is always a way to get started because so much work is happening constantly. Her initial suggestion was to start with non-profits as they connect you with others in your community who are interested in doing similar work, so get on their lists, go to their meetings, and move forward from there. Swift goes on to emphasize the importance of mutual aid in the future if we are to have non-extractive communities that look after one another, so that means meet your neighbors! “Part of mutual aid requires that we know the people around us… we live in a world where we no longer feel comfortable asking our neighbors for a cup of sugar. That is such a clear indicator of how we’ve been completely separated from each other.”

This separation has only been exacerbated by COVID-19, with people feeling more isolated, so meet your neighbors (safely of course) because those connections and that kind of care makes you more resilient. Mutual aid and community care is also deeply connected to the struggles for food sovereignty and security. Food connects people, so get involved with community gardens or make food for other people and your neighbors. Care work more broadly is revolutionary in Swift’s eyes, because you can’t pour from an empty cup, “it’s really important that we not only take care of ourselves but that we allow others to take care of us and take care of one another.” So, while fighting for the liberation of all Black people, make sure to treat yourself with kindness so you can sustain this fight.

Clearly environmental justice is a lot more complicated than planting a couple trees or composting, it requires you to look around your community and think about what problems need to be addressed. As soon as you do that, you’ll realize that the ways to get involved are almost never-ending! You could join a political community on Twitch, participate in a community garden, join a non-profit, or protest in the streets. Whatever you do, it’s important to acknowledge and research how different communities are being disproportionately impacted by whatever issue you choose and consider centering Black liberation in your work. While understanding the struggles and difficulties facing organizers, whether you choose to work within the systems or outside of them, remember to take care of yourself so that you can continue to care for others. Last but not least, understand that someone is probably working on any problem you identify, so look them up and get to work!