“Resistance through existence,” said senior Isaac Alderfer, describing “Mossville: When Great Trees Fall.” The documentary is about the predominantly Black town of Mossville, Louisiana where a chemical company was offering buyouts to residents so that they might take over the land. One man, Stacey Ryan, chose to stay despite the terrible chemicals being pumped into the air. Stacey Ryan’s decision to stay, simply keeping his physical self in the town, is what Alderfer meant by “resistance through existence.”
The showing of “Mossville: When Great Trees Fall” was coordinated by Alderfer and sophomore Micah Buckwalter, who are both Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions (CSCS) student ambassadors. The documentary was shown right before Thanksgiving break on Friday, Nov. 20, and Sunday, Nov. 22. On Friday evening, there was a discussion after the showing.
“Both racial justice and climate justice are forever intertwined, and they’re both always going to be key issues until we do something serious about them,” Alderfer said. He spoke about how we are supporting these chemical companies by doing something as simple as purchasing gas for our car. “It’s kinda troubling to watch [Mossville] and feel like I’m a part of this problem because I’m complicit and I’m a customer of that product in some ways,” Alderfer said.
With the showing of the documentary being later in the semester, the turnout wasn’t quite what Alderfer or Buckwalter would have hoped, but both were quite pleased with the discussion. Buckwalter and Alderfer were scrambling to get funding for the documentary, and they achieved this in the last week that students were on campus. Buckwalter shouted out the library, Campus Activities Council, and CSCS for the financial support to help show the documentary.
Biology professor Douglas Graber Neufeld said this about the screening: “We were happy that this gave the campus an opportunity to think about the important intersection between racial justice and environmental issues. We [hopefully] look forward to more discussion around this issue in the spring.” Buckwalter and Alderfer hope to coordinate another showing in the spring.
