đ Civil Disobedience To Be *Fonda*
Famous silver foxes put their rich white bodies on the line in DC
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TOPLINE
Jane Fonda (81!) moved to D.C. to repeatedly, purposely get arrested to protest climate change
Famous, rich, white people have privilege/resources to demand EJ (and provide needed cover for marginalized communities)
Direct action (bodies on the line; skin in the game) gets the goods
đ Civil Disobedience To Be *Fonda*
Thereâs a lot going on in our country at the moment, so you could be forgiven for not realizing that Jane Fonda keeps getting her 81 year-old ass arrested on purpose to call attention to the climate crisis. But sheâs been giving it quite a run:
Fonda, who is 81, moved to Washington in September to highlight the urgency of the climate crisis by staging protests at the Capitol, where, wrapped in a bright red coat, she has been arrested every Friday for the past four weeks, often with a famous friend or two in tow: Sam Waterston, Ted Danson and, on Friday, Catherine Keener and Rosanna Arquette.
Fonda has been arrested four times so far as part of Fire Drill Fridays, a civil-disobedience movement she created to âdemand that action by our political leaders be taken to address the climate emergency we are in.â She says sheâs ready to spend her 82nd birthday in the slammer, and that the red coat, which cuts an unmistakable figure and has already spawned a lot of speculation as to where it came from, is the last article of clothing sheâll ever buy.
Seeing Fonda get arrested again and again reminded me of something Cherri Foytlin said at the Climate Reality Leadership Conference in Atlanta. The latter activist, an Indigenous woman and Louisianan, has been battling against energy and petrochemical companies in the Bayou State ever since the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. In that time sheâs endured death threats from oil company operatives and armed standoffs with the police. Someone fucking poisoned her cat, for chrissakes.
In Atlanta, she had one very pointed question for the crowd:
What I want to know is, when are white people going to start putting their bodies on the line to protect the rest of us?
The cops are not going to draw down on Jane Fonda and Ted Danson and the D.A. from Law & Order. Theyâre not going to tackle these immaculately-coifed artistes to the ground and press blades to their throats and poison their house cats. After all, Fonda et al. are rich, famous, and most importantly, white.
The same power structure putting its boot on Foytlinâs neck is the one that endows Fonda with privilege. The actor and her friends are embracing the responsibility that comes with that privilege, and putting their bodies on the line. That shit is important.
(For anyone working themselves into a lather about âHanoi Janeââhi Dad!âplease note that the old conspiracy theory that she aided the enemy during the Vietnam War has been thoroughly debunked. Also sheâs repeatedly apologized for the bad optics. Also that was 47 years ago. Moving on!)
Look, no one should treat these silver foxes as a silver bullet. An Oscar-winning actor in a $500-ish crimson topcoat on the streets of D.C. is not directly keeping a gun out of Foytlinâs face in the Louisiana bayous. Octogenarian celebrities arenât going to save us from global warming simply by showing up to get carted away in zip-tie handcuffs.
But their actions are a powerful, prominent counterpoint to a pair of toxic narratives swirling around the climate crisis:
That the older generations have categorically sold out the younger ones into carbon apocalypse. Thatâs not true across the board⊠although some of them really do seem delighted to do so!
That you can simply donate money/call your senator/put one of those signs in your front yard that says âIn this house we believe science is realâ/et cetera and make it out of this alive.
All that shit is good, and you should do it when you can, but thereâs no substitute for taking it to the streets. The problem is that marginalized communities that bear the brunt of the climate crisisâ burden also have the most to lose at the barricades. As history/current events/using your eyes and ears on a casual walk down the street/et cetera has proven time and again, the American justice system is not a particularly just one for poor people, people of color, and other minority groups.
Celebrity activism like Fondaâs can help bridge that gap: elevating marginalized voices, creating safe public spaces to build coalition, and then taking the fall when the cops show up. To borrow a rallying cry from the labor movement: direct action gets the goods. Come get some, Jane Fonda.
TAKE ACTION: Fondaâs Fire Drill Fridays coordinates protests every Friday in Washington D.C. If you canât be there, put the orgâs demands into action in your own community.
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EDITORâS NOTE: The Heat Beat is a newsletter about climate change, politics, and taking action, written for non-experts by noted non-expert Dave Infante (it me.) If you enjoyed this story, please share it with someone you love. Or someone you hate, I guess. Whatever youâre into, really.