Colette Pichon Battle Quotes (2019-)

“now the land is perpetually saturated, because the water is rising, the water table is rising, the lake is rising”

“our coastal location and low-lying land also makes the Gulf South ground zero for this nation's climate disasters.”

“I work at the community level to make sure that Black folks and poor folks and Native folks are part of this climate movement.”

“we know that if the victims of the original sins of this country can get together and form a united front, we can actually change this country.”

“This is not about greenhouse gas reduction. This is about do we value people equally? And if we do, we’ve got some recalibrating to do, as a planet.”

“The ocean commons belong to us all. A Blue New Deal must end attempts to industrialize the ocean through factory fish farms and large-scale aquaculture.”

“Creole people were free people of color, and they could own land before many Black folks could. And so my family had been there before it was America, before it was the U.S.”

“We must subsidize healthy crops and farm biodiversity instead of monocultures. Our food system must be rooted in principles of community-based agroecology and food sovereignty.”

“people ask me all the time, if you know your land is going to go, why are you still fighting?...I don’t know what they’re expecting, you know? We going down swinging if we going.”

“And that was a moment where you sort of have this — it’s surreal. You don’t — who can believe your land won’t be there anymore? Most people still can’t conceptually understand that.”

“Love leads to joy...The joy comes from love. To combat this thing, to combat the oil industry’s fear of losing profit, I have got to help to bring joy of the community’s love of everything that they are.”

“we’re going to need that level of creativity to get out of this thing, and I am hopeful that the next generation, that has a lot of challenges, also has enough creativity to get out of it, to get to the next level.”

“Our firsthand experiences in the Gulf South-Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida-affirm the call of scientists to rapidly address climate change and make frontline communities more resilient in the process.”

“The real moment of noticing that change was Katrina...our vye, our old people...the first words out of their mouths were, the water has never been this high...And that is when I started learning about the loss of our barrier islands due to oil and gas drilling.”

“I think that’s the part that scares me the most. We’re losing generations of people who know the anatomy of these things. And we’re getting new people into our space who have no clue what a hurricane is, and the hurricanes that we know to describe are not the ones we’re facing now.”

“The British Petroleum oil drilling disaster of 2010, when the BP-leased and Transocean-owned Deepwater Horizon exploded, releasing nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, is remembered for its ecological impact, but less remembered are the eleven oil rig workers who perished.”

“that land, for people like me, was tied to our freedom. You know, that land, the land and the right to be there was tied to — it was the difference between being enslaved and not. It was — it is a culture that has birthed a lot of people. And to lose that — it felt in that moment that we would lose everything.”

“there are all of these researchers who were looking at South Louisiana before Katrina, many people concerned about sea level rise and all of these things for a very long time, but it wasn’t common knowledge. It wasn’t information brought to the communities. The universities knew it, but the communities didn’t know.”

“the FEMA regulations aren't meant for the most vulnerable communities. The disaster process of this country are meant for the middle class...it sounds strange, right?...except the truth of it is that all of the laws in this country are meant for the middle class at best. There is a large swath of people who are never included.”

“a constant reality of Gulf South life that may be invisible to many outsiders is the centrality of the military to our economy and culture. We must honor the historic significance of the military in Gulf South communities while transitioning investment away from the military and toward job creation in regenerative local economies.”

“We’re going to lose everything, and my last name is Battle. What am I supposed to do? I’m supposed to fight. I’m supposed to fight, but I’m supposed to fight with tools that build people up, not tools that take people down and take them out. And that’s love. That’s patience. That’s all of those things that they taught you in Sunday school. They were right.”