Kitsap Environmental Coalition recently received a communication from a community member who believes environmental issues are separate from social ones and took issue with our support of memorial activities for Stonechild Chiefstick.

We want to make our position 100% clear.

KEC stands firmly in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives, Black Lives Matter, and Native Lives Matter. We understand there can be no climate justice until there is racial justice and that these life and death issues are inextricably linked through centuries’ old systems of oppression, exploitation, and cruelty. Rampant racism today continues to cause great suffering to humans and every other part of the environment.

Kitsap Environmental Coalition stands humbly with the family of Stonechild Chiefstick and all indigenous people in their quest for justice. Further, we believe it is the responsibility of white people to educate ourselves and others on the histories of colonization and racism, the many ways that racism is manifest, and its affects on humans as well as the natural world. A safe and healthy environment is simply not possible without racial, social, and economic justice.