Last year I heard Angela Davis speak at Macalester College. While always thought provoking, this talk stuck with me more than others. During this particular event, Angela Davis focused on the discipline of (and I am paraphrasing here) learning how to ‘think things through together.’ The general idea being the need to adopt more flexibility in our thinking, particularly when confronted with things that appear unrelated or in opposition.
Today I was reminded of this practice of ‘thinking things through together’ as I sat at a meeting with folks from the Indigenous Peoples Green Jobs Task Force. Admittedly I don’t know much about Green Jobs. However, I learned that The Minnesota Green Jobs Task Force recently unveiled a list of legislative recommendations to retain and grow more than 70,000 jobs in Minnesota. In addition to the Green Jobs Task Force recommendations, there are several provisions included in the recently passed Federal Stimulus Bill related to energy efficiency that will benefit Minnesota. The federal stimulus included $170 million for Minnesota’s Weatherization Assistance Program, 
to help families reduce their energy costs by weatherizing their homes. Under the weatherization program, families of four making about $40,000 annually are eligible to receive a variety of services. Since it’s the part of the stimulus package, these weatherization projects are designed to put people back to work immediately. With the possibility of stimulus funding—hundreds, if not thousands of homes across the state of MN could be weatherized.
Just as people all over the country are readying themselves for the Green Jobs possibilities from the stimulus package. Media Justice activists and organizers are in conversations around the broadband stimulus package which provides for a $7.2 billion investment in broadband services. We know that Internet communication is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity.
Communication plays a central role in politics, economics and culture in our society. Increasingly broadband will play one of the central roles in our communications infrastructure.
Seemingly separate, home weatherization and broadband build-out provide an opportunity to ‘think things through together.’ Rather than looking at Green Jobs and Broadband as separate and unrelated aspects of the stimulus package, we could instead challenge ourselves to be more flexible in our thinking and problem solving. What if for example, every home in MN that received Weatherization also had a new router or antenna placed on it? What if the new Green Jobs hires also studied digital inclusion? What if our commitment to ecology generally included broadband ecology and environmental ecology specifically together?
What if…?
