A participant at a major environmental conference recently asked the sincere question “What is a ‘white honky’ like him to do?” I told him to find his own motivation, his own path to mother earth and stop looking for easy answers from Indigenous people. The only meaningful advice I could offer was to remind him that we all breathe the same air, drink the same water and eat what comes from the same earth. His actions are not a matter of individual choice but a shared responsibility that we all must assume and share.
What is the ‘white honky’ in all of us to do to effect change in our degrading environment? I now firmly believe that what I’ve learned of the common sense and honesty of Indigenous thought is far more meaningful to the future of the planet than what is offered by modernization and westernization.
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