This article was the editor’s letter from “Decolonizing Permaculture“, issue #98 of Permaculture Design Magazine that I guest-edited in winter 2015.

Let’s start with the obvious: from Bill and David on down, the most influential personalities in the permaculture movement have been charismatic middle- aged white males. And, well, so what? That’s the way things were in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. If the message had come from people that looked or talked any differently, who knows if the world would have listened?

But that was then. In today’s world of Dreamers and #blacklivesmatter, any radical movement led largely by the same demographic as the 1% risks marginalizing itself. Indeed, I’ve met many intelligent, talented changemakers that have long known about permaculture—and rejected it for its apparent tone-deafness to issues of race, class, and gender.

And I can’t blame them. Around the globe, it’s the first nations, people of color, women, poor people, and other marginalized voices that have formed the bedrock of practice upon which permaculture rests. And yet, like most institutions in our society, permaculture has repeatedly minimized, romanticized, belittled, fetishized, or altogether ignored their contributions. Although we have some brave, brilliant exceptions to the rule, permaculture remains to this day a movement led by relatively educated white guys.

How has permaculture, a movement that prides itself on being so radical, ended up in this rut? In an article I wrote for the Permaculture Voices conference a couple of years ago, I presented the hypothesis of “founder bias”: the tendency of an institution to reflect the personality of the people who started it:

Nearly 40 years after Permaculture One, the culture of our movement largely flows from the examples set by Mollison and Holmgren. And rightly so: these two did a brilliant job sowing the seeds of a global paradigm shift. But as white, college-educated, land-owning men, they did so with a certain lens that the majority of our population doesn’t share. In theory, the core concepts of permaculture have relevance to any community: rich or poor, urban or rural, white or black or brown. Indeed, our own ethics of peoplecare and fair share would suggest that it’s our obligation to focus first on those communities that are most vulnerable. But founder bias has meant that—at least here in the US—permaculture has mostly been applied in situations that benefit those with privilege.

In other words, as much as Mollison scorned the government, academia, and other oppressive institutions, he couldn’t escape his upbringing. The ways in which permaculture was first expressed—the eloquent lecture, the recitation of statistics as a claim to truth, the pithy phrases, the certification course as rite of passage—all of these were clear markers of Mollison’s upbringing as a white male. They were, and remain, artifacts of one specific culture rather than a universally effective means of communication. And they might be extraordinarily persuasive and useful in certain contexts, with certain populations. For many others, though, they speak loudly and clearly as the voice of The Man.

Permaculture, in other words, has found itself in a rhetorical monoculture. Building a truly diverse movement will mean embracing a polyculture of ways to arrive at what’s actually important: nurturing compassionate, skillful stewards of human and non-human communities. “Until the lions have their own historians,” as novelist Chinua Achebe says, “the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” And until we allow our society’s marginalized voices to articulate permaculture on their own terms, we’ll continue to reinforce age-old stories of oppression.

Thankfully, that’s starting to happen. In the last few years, a new wave of permaculture practitioners has emerged—one that’s as adept at calling out micro-aggressions as they are in selecting dynamic accumulators. Inspired by pioneers like Rafter Sass Ferguson and Starhawk, these leaders aren’t afraid to call out the permaculture establishment (to the extent that there is one) for its patriarchal ways. As anyone present at last year’s North American Permaculture Convergence can attest, the voice of this crowd has become too loud to ignore. And thankfully so, for their words speak a profound wisdom.

The pages of this issue of Permaculture Design are an attempt to document some of these voices on their own terms. You’ll find critiques, anecdotes, and several thoughtful lists of ways each one of us can take action. In line with the values of the issue, I’ve done my best to foreground the stories of women, people of color, queer folks, and others from non- traditional permaculture backgrounds. At the same time, it seemed important and necessary to include a few takes on decolonization from white male perspectives, as well.

If your first reaction to these articles is defensiveness and incredulity, that’s normal. And if, once those first reactions pass, their content makes you squirm—well, that’s a good thing. It means you’re at the margins of your personal comfort zone, which, as Holmgren’s 11th principle reminds us, is something to use and value. Keep in mind that nothing in this issue is a personal attack; to paraphrase Starhawk, none of us as individuals need be de ned by our privilege or our lack thereof. Instead, our identities are forged by how we choose to respond to our positions within an unequal social landscape. Sure, we can choose to avoid the harsh light of reflection on our own unearned opportunities, and instead follow the path to power that our society has laid out for us. Similarly, we can choose to play the role of victim for our undeserved setbacks, enacting a feedback loop of frustration and despair.

Or, we can use the problem as the solution. We can wield the privilege we have to create institutions that dismantle it from within. We can use our past experiences of injustice as fuel for change, bringing others together around a shared vision of a better world. We can hand the proverbial megaphone to the voices of the unheard, honoring their contributions as valid and valuable, even if—especially if—they sound different than ours.

On a macro scale, our choice as a movement is much the same. Permaculture’s very relevance to our swiftly changing society may depend on how effectively we can respond to the challenges posed in this issue. Are we willing to reframe our approach to make permaculture feel more welcome to those without college degrees, land, or immigration papers? Can we learn to apply our pattern-literate minds to issues like mass incarceration, police brutality, and gentrification as skillfully as we apply them to rural land stewardship? Can we be successful advocates for indigenous peoples to have a meaningful seat at the table? Can we accept being a supporting agent in social change rather than the hero of the story? Can we white dudes finally learn to practice some humility and share the spotlight?

Of course we can. My conviction is that by the time Permaculture Design revisits a similar theme, these pages will be filled with case studies of PDCs taught in Spanish and American Sign Language, of white permaculturists assisting allied social movements, and of wildly successful permaculture projects led by people of color. What’s more, it’s my hope that every issue has a set of authors as diverse at this one.

Until then, I hope the amazing articles in this issue inspire you to take the next step in your own journey of decolonization. I look forward to continuing the dialogue about these issues in the months and years to come.