Silica Mag
Racism is a Climate Emergency
A planet that's sustainable for the few is not, in fact, a sustainable planet.
At Silica Magazine, it has always been our mission to examine unexplored waypoints, tell untold stories, and approach environmentalism with fresh and urgent perspectives.
However, we realize that our magazine, like a lot of environmental publications, needs to do better. Environmentalism is historically riddled with racist rhetoric and POC erasure and we are committed to becoming more proactive in helping to dismantle these structures.
We stepped back earlier this week in an effort to regroup post-launch, re-assess what we could do, and encourage people to focus on the crisis at hand. It was imperative for us to use our time not to issue a generic PR statement, but to personally engage in direct action—to show up, donate, get ourselves out there, and most importantly, learn and listen.
Now is not the time for reactionary statements or performative gestures. It's about coming up with a long-term plan for making lasting change, far after the attention wanes and the protests stop. Black lives matter. The systemic violence of racial inequity must cease; to this, we are unequivocally committed.
As a volunteer-run organization, our platform is by no means large, but it's growing. We'd like to use it and our connections and our privilege to actively grow, change, and amplify the movement beyond the white-washed narrative that's dominated environmentalism for nearly 40 years. A planet that's sustainable for the few is not, in fact, a sustainable planet.
Moving forward we will:
+ Actively center upcoming outreach on POC writers, artists, and essayists; work to establish more long-lasting connections with POC journalist networks; search out and engage a more inclusive editorial/creative roster.
+ Hire on a new editor to advise on each issue, from concept to brainstorming to commissioning to editing.
+ Prioritize news coverage and aggregation on work created by non-white environmental journalists to better draw attention to and amplify their work.
+ Incorporate direct action links in every Silica Newsletter to organize and encourage advocacy from our followers (from donation drives to volunteer days, skillshares, workshops, etc.)
+ Begin publishing a new series on the Silica Dispatch that regularly profiles organizations that are helping to change the environmental narrative.
+ Maintain a more regular social cadence that's less focused on us, shares more resources, and actively highlights the voices of non-white writers.
We also promise that as we continue to grow, fund, and advance our magazine, we will always be searching out new ways to give back, continue to fund independent artists and creators, and change the narrative.
Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any suggestions about these or any further actions we should consider. Our inbox is always open.
Read more on Silica Magazine.