‘Stay Humble, Embrace Conflicting Viewpoints, and Love Your People Fiercely’

The environmental movement needs to learn how to better engage young folks and people of color

Anisha Desai

Editor’s Note: Brower Youth Awards Director Anisha Desai gave such a powerful call to arms to the environmental and social justice community at the awards ceremony in San Francisco on Tuesday evening, that we decided to run it pretty much as is for those who weren’t present at the Herbst Theater that evening.

My name is Anisha Desai and I’m the Director of the Brower Youth Awards at Earth Island Institute.

The Brower Youth Awards, named for one of the most incredible environmental visionaries — David Brower — are an amazing environmental prize awarded to six exceptional young leaders every year, ages 13-22, who reside in North America. They apply to the awards, go through rigorous application and selection process, and then are treated to a week of activities in the Bay Area — including wilderness hike, camping, skills training on how to tell their personal stories, media and networking opportunities. And then we get to celebrate with all of you — and a whole lot of young people too, who are in the audience, and who these awards are really dedicated to.

Photo by Amir Aziz

A big part of our week together is about storytelling and preparing the winners to tell their stories publicly. We give advice every year about avoiding those packaged stories. The stories that we tell about ourselves that we know by heart and yet often lack heart.

We give advice about saying the difficult. About stepping in to the spotlight for just a moment to say what needs to be said.

And yet, every year, I personally have a really hard time taking that advice myself.

So I’m going to exercise tonight a tiny fraction of the courage that I ask BYA winners each year to summon. And I’m going to ask for your good energy to give me that courage.

I am a woman of color who was not raised in the Bay Area — I was raised in Florida — a place that is the (sometimes) rightful subject of many a joke. I lead what is considered to be the most prestigious environmental prize in North America for young leaders. I work every day in an environmental leadership field that most of the time does not have folks in it that look like me, or share my experiences. Being the shepherd of an environmental prize and standing in the shadows of a larger-than-life environmental icon, who I very sadly never had the honor to meet, sometimes it feels like I am wearing clothes that are two sizes two small. It’s a tremendous yoke to bear.

In spaces and places I work and play — there are questions some times about who I am and what I could possibly bring to the table. There are subtle and not-so-subtle hints about whether I know enough or whether I am enough to be here. There are assumptions made about what I am about, or what I am supposed to be interested in or have knowledge about.

And I realize that many of the same frustrations that weigh on me — are very similar to those that are made about young folks.

I watch the same people who praise the spirit and tenacity of young people repeatedly leave them out of critical conversations on the environment and well being of our communities.

I see young leaders get invited to speak at sustainability conferences, and who are never offered payment for their time and talent, much less a meal or transportation to the venue.

I see policies and laws that are supposedly designed with young people’s wellbeing in mind, but systems that do not provide for accessible, engaging and real ways for young folks to make their voices heard.

Young folks must smile in the face of offense. They must “behave” when they see injustice. They must not take up too much space, but sign their name to processes and plans that they didn’t even agree to.

It’s a lot y’all. And to be honest, it has really been weighing on my spirit.

And then the Brower Youth Award winners arrive. And they give me life. Brower Youth Award winners are the greatest teachers in my work.

And I was prepared to tell you today about three very important lessons on environmental leadership that I learned from these winners.

But then this really cool thing happened.

I opened up to David Brower’s lecture he gave upon receiving the Blue Planet Prize in 1998 — a prestigious international honor. The same prize that allowed him to plant the seeds for the Brower Youth Award honors, which has now funded and supported 96 BYA alumni and seeded the dreams of hundreds more. The famous speech where he declared the imperative that CPR was needed to literally revive the fragile state of the planet: Conservation, Preservation and Restoration.

And it is in his message of restoration that I found everything that I needed. And so I offer to you three important values of David Brower, as transmitted and reimagined through this year’s Brower Youth Award winners.

Lesson One: Stay humble. Bay Area, stay humble. We don’t know everything! Lessons about theories of social and environmental change come from everywhere — from Stockton, from the Bronx, from the American South, from the universities, from elementary school children, from the artist, and from the musician. Listen. Ask questions. As he talked about restoration in his lecture, David Brower said: “We must learn humility. We are relative newcomers to creation. Must it end with us?” He believed that humans are here to learn, not to teach.

Lesson Two: Strident doesn’t always equal better. Louder and more entrenched in your perspective doesn’t always equal better either. I’ve heard all week from our Brower Youth Award winners some incredible wisdom on how to connect the dots between folks who “get it” and those who may “get something else.” I’ve heard about unique and graceful ways of building movements and bridges.

More from David Brower on prescription of restoration: “Even if we come together to solve our global problems, we will not always agree on everything. We must foster the ability to disagree and to share our disparate views without the need to dominate and disrespect those who dissent. For the sake of innovation and diversity, we need disagreement; but for the sake of cooperation and stability, we need to have respect for one another.”

And finally, lesson three: Love your people fiercely. Your family, your siblings, your friends, your community. Allow them to ground you when things are chaotic and confusing. Allow them to center you when the woes of the planet seem insurmountable. The group this year fell in love faster than any other group I have seen. They were long-lost family members that found each other, and that sustained them this week, and it will beyond.

David Brower said: “though I have been involved in many important environmental successes in my life, the joy those success brought me cannot compare with the fulfillment I have experienced from my friends, my children, my grandchildren, and my dear wife of 55 years. Here is a kind of growth that we must have — the growth of love and relationships. This is the growth that inherently increases the beauty of all those involved.”

So tonight, friends, I invite you to find your inner Brower, whether it is channeling the words of David Brower’s famous speech, or living the lessons of humility, nuance and love through the winners before you tonight. Stay humble, embrace nuance and conflicting viewpoints, and love your people fiercely.

I want to encourage you to ask young folks what you don’t know, avoid assumptions and treat young folks how you would have wanted to be treated when you were young — with respect, with dignity, with radical inclusion.