I’ve been wanting to post about this for a while, but kept forgetting to. In light of the total screw up of the gay community on how to organize with and across different community boundaries, I remembered and now I am posting!

From RAN comes the really important story about how two groups that seemingly have little in common, anti-ICE Latino organizations and a pro-environment organization, managed to come together and stand in alliance with each other:

But before describing the day, one may ask, what does this have to do with the climate?
(aside from bad puns about melting the ICE…)

Yesterday I felt the power of youth, and the moral legitimacy of young people speaking truth to power – of being bold and not letting injustices stand; of offering leadership; of youth organizing for a better world. A Youth Climate Movement holds this same power, and as young climate activists strive to integrate a deep understanding of power, race, class, and gender into our movement, we would do well to explore the links between our work and the struggles of immigrant youth and their families across the country.

Far too often, mainstream organizations will throw their hands up in frustration and whine about, “We’re not supposed to save everybody, we’re an organization that focuses on X!”

What alliances like the anti-ICE and pro-environment alliance does is show that you don’t have to give up your organization’s center in order to connect your fight to the fight of other social justice centered organizations. But you do need to be willing to extend yourself to people you don’t normally talk to and extend yourself to people you normally may not feel inclined to hook up with.