“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.” 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Why We Can’t Wait, 1963

genocide the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.

ecocide destruction of the natural environment, especially when willfully done.

Genocide is usually about what happened in the past. Sometimes what is happening in the moment.

What comes to me this morning is our current refusal to significantly implement changes to address climate change, i.e. ecocide, will lead to the genocide of future generations. Actually millions are dying now from environmental chaos.

Future genocide

Is this a message that might help create change now to avoid genocide in the future?