ABSTRACT
Creative futures cannot be built on a foundation of racial exclusion, violent exploitation, mass extinction, and extreme inequality. A reckoning must come, and that begins with acknowledging the ways some people have benefited from a long history of labor and land theft, and extraction and exploitation, enforced by terror and violence. Acknowledgment and apologies must be followed by repair and reparations for those who have suffered multi-generational exclusion and trauma. African-Americans and Indigenous peoples deserve apologies and reparations, and so does the natural world. Building creative futures begins with addressing this legacy at all societal scales. The good news is that this work will, itself, help build the foundation for creating futures founded in justice, inclusion, ecological sustainability, and community.
