“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

― Margaret Mead.

And then it happened. The Minneapolis City Council, in a veto-proof majority, voted to defund the MPD. After years of #BlackLivesMatter organizing, after decades of Black movements, after centuries of racist abuse of African heritage people in the US. The lynching of George Floyd will be remembered as the tipping point, the moment we started to win decisive victories.

And everyone loves a winner. Shady white people are lining up to get their picture taken for Black Lives, as if they’ve been “woke” from the beginning. From Mitt Romney marching in a mask and Tweeting Black Lives Matter (is he rebranding for a rogue presidential run in November?) to Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever whose company peddles skin lightening cream worldwide. Now that a particular brand of racism is going out of fashion, everyone wants to be seen wearing the latest white ally accessories.

At the start of the pandemic, I was on a zoom call with a group of mostly white climate activists. Many folks were trying to figure out how to keep the issue of climate in the news. Obviously, there were tremendous implications for the climate emergency in both the pandemic itself and the disastrous response in capitalist societies. But it seemed tone deaf or inappropriate or some sort of bandwagonism to say it at that moment. Nobody wants to be the asshat saying “I told you so” when people are dying. Of course, since then many articles have been written about the connections between the COVID crisis and the climate crisis. Because they are very much connected.

Just like the climate crisis is connected to the crisis of police violence in the US, and the larger worldwide crisis of white supremacy. Given the history of racism in the environmental movement, it might seem shady if a white climate activist tried to use this as a stepping stone for their cause. But as a Black activist for both climate justice and the Movement for Black Lives, who is part of a lineage of fighting police brutality, who was out in the street over the weekend with my Black family in my Sunrise Movement and Green New Deal shirts, I’ll gladly be the one to say it.

This first Defund the Police victory has momentous implications for the Green New Deal. These institutions that our culture accepts as fixed and given, and the bullies who populate, enable and benefit from them, can be broken. Everything is up for review.

The movement to Defund Police demands that we STOP investing in supposed solutions that endanger us. Toxic cops, like fossil fuels, are sold to us as a necessary evil. Police forces have bloated budgets in the billions, just like fossil fuels have massive subsidies. They aren’t cheaper. They aren’t better. They’re just bullies with powerful, well-funded cudgels to keep the corporate and cop welfare dollars coming.

Crime is the problem that police are supposed to be solving. But we see how police departments have become the most well-financed and protected group of domestic violent criminals our society has ever known. They must be defunded. And when we divest from the problem we can begin to invest in the solution. It also brings into question where we should be investing in order to create healthy, non-violent communities. These root cause questions are critical. Wouldn’t public safety be improved if large segments of the community weren’t incarcerated and subjected to further violence and trauma? Can we become a society that is better able to interrupt cycles of trauma and violence? Would people be willing to ask for help if they received relevant and well-funded assistance when they called the authorities for help with sexual assault, domestic violence, mental health crises? If they didn’t have to worry about being arrested, deported, beaten, or killed? How would crime be impacted if people weren’t economically desperate to survive? If, for example, there was a jobs guarantee and everyone had access to work in a WWII-level mobilization of transforming our infrastructure to renewable energy?

The City of Minneapolis is embarking on the the bold adventure of transformational leadership. Black Lives Matter and Black Futures MN are showing us what is possible when movements refuse to accept business as usual.

The Green New Deal has the potential to address some of the economic inequality in the US, which is another brutal force slowly killing Black people, while the climate crisis looms over all of us. The Green New Deal’s predecessor, The New Deal, had many provisions that were designed to exclude Black people and labor traditionally done by women. But in the Green New Deal, no one gets left behind.

There are already climate organizations with strong Black leadership, like Youth vs. Apocalypse in Oakland. And as Black communities have more room to breathe, we can begin to mobilize even more around issues that are beyond our immediate survival–including climate. And as we have seen other movements rally behind us in this moment (like the Sunrise Movement), we can imagine possibilities for greater solidarity.

As Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement put it so perfectly in response to the news about Minneapolis:

“When movements start winning, it’s time to step on the gas.”

Above all, this victory buoys us all in terms of our hope for change. The climate crisis–at its root–is a crisis of hope. The science is there. The people want climate justice. But fossil fuel corporations spent decades running out the clock, and now are telling us that it’s too late. We should just give up. But it’s not too late. It’s never too late for the people to rise up and transform our society. Yet we don’t have a lot of time, and we need a clear plan that can make these changes at scale. The Green New Deal is that plan.It works beautifully in tandem with defunding police. And the people need to increase the pressure so that we can realize these connected visions. As many have said, the pandemic has changed everything. The old way is never coming back. Another world is not only possible, it’s on its way.