Something about Bidder 70 rubbed me the wrong way, and I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure out what it is. While I was watching the film, I was initially confused about why Tim DeChristopher’s actions were such a big deal. I wasn’t sure what he even did, or why it mattered, or how that was illegal at all after the auction was declared invalid. To me, it seemed like the only reason that it became such a big deal is the way that DeChristopher handled the aftermath. He was given an inch of attention and took a mile, and as he did so, it felt like he was missing the point. Maybe this was just how it seemed from the perspective of a documentary about him, but I was uncomfortable with the level of personal devotion to a single person rather than dedication to a cause or a set of principles. Yes, they staged environmental protests, but underlying all of those was the sense that DeChristopher was running the show according to his vision and his priorities rather than truly focusing on a community movement like he described. Even Peaceful Uprising’s murals, signs, posters, and protests used the image of “Bidder 70,” and while having a leader is certainly fine and good, turning DeChristopher into a martyr after a confusing and ultimately pretty useless “protest” seems like overkill.
But this strange focus on a single individual misses the mark on a larger scale, and it leaves both Peaceful Uprising and DeChristopher himself vulnerable to severe missteps as they try to build a community-based movement.
First, there was a rather obvious faux pas that made me cringe during the film, although I’m sure they meant no harm by it: their use of the raised fist symbol. Although it has taken on many forms and meanings throughout the years, it nearly always represents “unity or solidarity, generally with oppressed peoples.” Wikipedia further explains that in the United States, “the black fist, also known as the Black Power fist, is a logo generally associated with black nationalism and sometimes socialism. Its most widely known usage is by the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.” This is also what came to my mind first – among activists today, a raised fist is synonymous with black and/or working class (socialist) solidarity. So when I first saw this symbolism being used in Bidder 70, I started paying attention to the context of the movement that accompanied the gesture. What did I see? One black person in the entire film, and no discussion whatsoever of the effects of climate change on people of color and low income or otherwise disadvantaged populations. Granted, the population of Utah is over 90% white, but this is no excuse for an environmental movement to not make an effort to be inclusive, accessible, and thoughtful about for whom it is advocating. Seeing a group of white people giving the raised-fist salute before getting arrested at a protest and then basically patting themselves on the back for their heroism and courage was simply cringeworthy, and I’m saying that as a white person. I can’t say how I would feel about it if I was black, but either way, they should have thought more carefully before co-opting a powerful symbol within the black community for their own purposes.
However, failing to create a more diverse and intersectional movement is only one way out of many that Peaceful Uprising and Tim DeChristopher’s actions seem disappointing to environmental advocates today. I was actually shocked at how outdated many aspects of their movement appeared despite taking place less than a decade ago. Much of their rhetoric focused on scientific and technical aspects of climate change — fossil fuels, emissions, pollution, carbon dioxide and parts per million. Today, although these are undoubtedly still huge problems facing the world, many environmentalists have shifted away from these big picture, apocalyptic scenes that seem to big to change, and are instead starting to tell stories about the more personal impacts that climate change and humans can have on each other. Instead of talking about parts per million or oil spills, which seem insurmountable and distant to ordinary citizens, climate change is becoming a story of water, health, biodiversity, food, and small actions that can add up to have a big impact. Certainly, there are numerous problems that will likely only change if approached on regulatory, governmental, industrial, or corporate levels, but there are far more actions worth taking — and imperative to take — on the individual level, and the environmental movement will fall short of its goals if it is not personal enough or targeted at the appropriate solutions for its audience. It is all well and good to be realistic, but it is also necessary to be optimistic.
To be fair, I will give credit to Peaceful Uprising and Tim DeChristopher for the things that they got right. It is absolutely necessary to hold governments, corporations, and industries responsible for the damage they have done and are doing to the environment, and they have worked extremely hard to expose corruption and shed light on the environmental damage being done at the institutional level. It can also be tremendously difficult to mobilize popular support for climate action due to the long-term, global nature of the problem, but they have clearly galvanized a large group of people that support holding these powerful entities accountable and creating change within their community. Although a short amount of research on both Peaceful Uprising and DeChristopher failed to turn up any significant publicity for either party following his incarceration, I hope that they are still working to create change in their communities, and I hope that in the years since Bidder 70 was produced, they have found ways to be more inclusive, diverse, thoughtful, relevant, and hopeful in their activism.
Information about the raised fist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_fist
Utah census data: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/UT
