Laila Collman

“Under capitalism, goods can go across borders but human beings cannot. It’s not a weird coincidence, it's a violent political strategy to bar people and privilege some over others. We need to envision a borderless world. Imagining a borderless world is one of the ultimate acts of decolonization because colonialism told us arbitrability there are lines here for you to cross, it is connected to capitalism, exploitation and racism, so challenging capitalism and colonization fundamentally challenges borders. If we are trying to challenge capitalistic structures that are destroying this planet, that means challenging the structures that are continuing to dehumanize human beings and designating people as legal bodies. No one is illegal on stolen lands. If we reject colonization and put ourselves in solidarity with indigenous sovereignty, then we reject that someone can be illegal and discarded.

Getting involved in climate justice work involves everything, it’s not as simple as recycling, or buying local. It's everything from deciding not to be a border enforcer in your community, to being in solidarity with complex indigenous movements all over the world. Capitalism individualizes our suffering. It’s an empowering act to move away from individualizing hardship and instead collectivizing our struggles. Go out into your communities and join collectives, collective movements are the way we fight individualism and capitalism--that we are in this together as opposed to doing this on our own.”
― Lucy Diavolo, No Planet B: The Teen Vogue Guide to the Climate Crisis