Sorry, but I’m really sick of hearing about women’s empowerment and overpopulation.

The argument goes, as I’ve heard it repeatedly as if it were truth descended from the heavens, that if you educate and empower women, they will have fewer children, which is how we will solve the overpopulation problem.  Want to reduce the population? “Teach a girl to read,” they say. 

First of all, the problem of overpopulation is directly correlated to the level of consumption.  Is it not blatantly racist to be considering the population levels of third world countries while the rich in developed countries continue to have children that use up most of the world’s resources?  If we’re going to talk about population as an environmental issue, start where it counts the most – at home!  Last I checked, most women in the West can read, but that doesn’t seem to stop them from having children.  And it is their children who are doing the most environmental damage.  Though the current U.S. birthrate is close to replacement levels, at the current standard of living, the United States population has far exceeded the carrying capacity of the entire planet. 

Second of all, what do we know about women’s “empowerment” in the West?  It is possibly the most central power of the females of all animal species on this planet to possess the amazing ability to bring forth life.  Is empowerment defined as being educated in a system that promotes irresponsible capitalism, racism, and imperialism?  Does empowerment mean being gaining value as a cog in an earth-destroying machine?   Does empowerment mean having exactly the same roles and activities as men?  I would argue, as many non-Western feminists have, that divisions of labor along gender lines are not intrinsically disempowering until one form of labor is valued more highly than another.  Many cultures have time-honored traditions about the sacred responsibilities of being born into a particular gender, which are aligned with their cosmological story of the creation of life.  Having lost any sense of the sacred in life, sex, work, and birth, are we really in any position to determine what gives a woman her power? 

I am genuinely perplexed by how readily the premise that women’s "empowerment" will reduce population is accepted without any accompanying analysis or explanation.  It particularly enrages me because of the way Westerners are so quick to perceive women of color as being in need of rescuing so they can be initiated into their version of womanhood.  For example, it has been documented that Muslim women were deliberately portrayed as oppressed by politicians and businessmen at the turn of the century to rally the American public to colonize the Middle East when it was discovered to be rich in oil.  Not much has changed since then.  Misogyny and overpopulation are our dark shadows that Westerners joyfully project onto others to avoid looking in the mirror. 

All that is wild and innocent and true, both inside our own hearts and throughout our beautiful planet, is being annihilated.  Please cry with me so I don't cry alone. 

Chief Raoni is a chief of the Kayapo people of Brazil, whose survival is under threat due to the plans to construct the Belo Monte Dam.  During his travel in France, he publicly announced that he would go to war with all the indigenous tribes against the dam project, if it were to be eventually authorized.  On June 2011, the Brazilian environmental institute IBAMA, the last defense against the construction of the Belo Monte Dam Complex, granted the final authorization to the consortium of Brazilian companies Norte Energia. Following this decision, Raoni Metuktire has intensified his opposition and said that he will fight to his death if there is no other way to stop the construction.

"I realize that if I wait until I’m no longer afraid to speak, act, write, etc., then I will be sending messages on a ouiji board, sending cryptic messages from the other side."

I’m very interested in the forces and powers that remain in human capacities to move energy in the world.  I hope it isn’t presumptuous to share my opinions about a community of which I am not a part, but I feel it is very clear that for the past three hundred years, Black people have been the heart and soul of America.  They fuelled the Industrial Revolution, they essentially birthed democracy in America through the civil rights movement, and they innovated most of the central cultural forms that exist in the US today.  And what community could speak more courageously than Black people about the results of antisocial, anti-nature, and abusive Western values and practices, they who were robbed from their homes and families living sustainably on the Earth, and after hundreds of years of slavery and being cut from their roots, managed to thrive and shine their beauty in the world in spite of all that was done to destroy their spirits?  They have raised themselves up, repeatedly reinvented themselves, and established their greatness as a people from which the entire world draws inspiration.  I don’t know what direction Black people will take American society, but I sense their gifts have a major role to play in the fate of the world.  Their unique position between East and West and their capacity to preserve the strengths of their past while creating impossible futures make them the most powerful and fascinating force in America. 

One of my great heroes is Minister Louis Farrakhan, and though I'm not 100% aligned with everything he says, I marvel at the distinction between those who fight for freedom and those who are already free.  Minister Farrakhan’s fearlessness and charisma is a model for how to wield the power of truth to start fires aimed at regenerating a sick society.  He admirably embodies the brilliance of mind, depth of character, and creativity of speech that is the hallmark of American Black leaders.

I can't tell you how much I love this woman.  Yes, I said love.  I don't say this lightly.  She may the the only person whose name I can confidently utter when I need to remember that there is someone out there who is a human being.  I strongly recommend the two books of hers I have read, Solar Storms and Power.  Here is a short clip of her reading two of her poems.