Examining Race, Climate, and History-- Tao Leigh Goffe's Dark Laboratory

 Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis by Tao Leigh Goffe

Dark Laboratory book cover

Author and Scholar Tao Leigh Goffe (photo credit Elena Siebert)

Coral reef at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge by Jim Maragos CC BY NY 2.0

Soufriere Hills Volcanic Aftermath (Montserrat, 2007) by Andrew Shiva CC BY-SA 4.0

“Freedom for everyone requires a confrontation with the capitalist greed upon which Western society was founded.”

“May we live to unlearn the American kind of love, which is a dangerous kind of love. It is a possessive love. It is a colonizing love, greedy love.”

Many thanks to Doubleday Publishers and NetGalley for the advanced copy of Tau Leigh Goffe’s important and timely book Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis. This was a monumental work, building on Dr. Goffe’s work of her Dark Laboratory. I wasn’t familiar with the lab, but it is an important research lab, using an interdisciplinary approach to interrogate history and literature while examining the role colonialism, discrimination, and inequality have had on the environment and climate. This is a book I am going to need to revisit over time because there were so many ideas and important points throughout the book. As Dr. Goffe explains in the introduction “My lab is a space for research on climate, race, and technology, and more importantly, it is a philosophy. We at the lab understand that climate crisis cannot be solved without solving racial crisis. The two are inseparable.” I loved this approach to examining climate and race, and showing how the two are inseparable. This kind of approach to environmental justice is what Dr. King was advocating prior to his death, but Dr. Goffe’s analysis and critical inquiry (as well as her advocacy and fight) extends beyond America’s continental shores and looks at the colonialization of the Caribbean, as well as other islands (Hawaii in particular) to show how economic exploitation and forced implementation of American/European methods and naming conventions have threatened the natural order as well as the lives of many. Goffe’s questioning of colonialism’s impact reminded me of some other books I’ve recently read, including The Seven Circles by Chelsea Luger and Thosh Collins, that advocates for returning to indigenous ways of eating, health, and care to bring about more balance, and Reclaiming the Black Body by Alishia McCullough, who also advocates for a return to balance by nourishing more traditional and culturally relevant ways of diet and exercise. While Dr. Goffe’s examination of history, literature, and the climate crisis is vaster and more expansive, there’s a shared focus on the recognition that certain ideas, approaches and cultures have been forced upon us, limiting our perspectives and our voices. Dr.  Goffe’s approach seeks to resurrect many of these voices, in a manner that reminded me of Toni Morrison’s “re-memory”—using stories and generational knowledge, shared experiences, to keep culture and the self alive. It was not a surprise, then, to learn that Dr. Goffe was one of Morrison’s last students at Princeton and has adapted Morrison’s pedagogy and methods of inquiry for her lab. I recognize many similarities between the themes and concerns of both thinkers.

Beyond being an important book that challenges our assumptions about the nature of the climate crisis, Dr. Goffe incorporates her own experiences and family into the narrative, since she was born in England, descended from Chinese Jamaicans. Tracing her family history and sharing her experiences of visiting family across the globe, from Hong Kong to Surinam and Jamaica, Dr. Goffe’s own story helps to explore how colonization has both created new cultures and also eliminated others, forcing a kind of assimilation towards the dominant culture. I knew a little about the Chinese in Jamaica (and other islands like Hawaii), but I didn’t realize there was also a move to return Jamaicans of Chinese descent to Hong Kong and other areas in China, despite not being initially from China. Dr. Goffe explained how her family members probably were not easily assimilated into either Jamaica or China, being somewhat outcasts in both societies. Her analysis helps to show how this colonial mentality ends up being more exclusionary and problematic, causing confusion and identity issues. I really appreciated how Dr. Goffe challenges many assumptions about the current climate crisis by re-evaluating its origins at Columbus’s landing in the Caribbean. It makes sense since his initial landing in the Caribbean completely shifted the culture and landscape from one of living in harmony with nature to one that exploited the people, environment and resources for profit making. While Dr. Goffe does note how many people from other lands (African, Chinese, Indian), brought their own culture, ways, and knowledge with them, it is also sad to think about how much was lost along the way.

One of the most amazing aspects of Dr. Goffe’s book is the different subjects she examines throughout the chapters. The beginning of the book looks at islands as colonial laboratories, but also examining the resistance to colonialism, specifically by looking at the Maroons of Jamaica, as well as the origins of the climate crisis with Europeans arrival in the Caribbean, bringing her argument about the exploitation of these lands for profit to the forefront. Her other chapters look at some of the results of colonialism—I’m not sure what else to call them—but many of them touch our lives, and I didn’t always think about the colonial implications of these. One of the most powerful and relevant chapters was on museums and how they often remove the life from the native lands to preserve a kind of death of animals, plants, and sometimes people for study and entertainment. Dr. Goffe explored the University of Pennsylvania’s acquisition of the remains of the children of MOVE, who died from a police bombing of their home in 1985. I’ve been to that museum many times, and I was shocked to learn about this. However, in the larger context of the collection, it makes sense. This museum and others like it routinely house the remains and sacred artifacts from other cultures in the name of science and entertainment. Understanding the process of acquisition and the purpose of exhibiting artifacts like these is really important, and something I will think more about when visiting museums. Dr. Goffe also explores coral and sea life, connecting it to her own experiences of learning to swim (and nearly drowning) as a young Black girl. I loved learning more about coral, and how it is an animal of the sea, and not a plant. I also didn’t know that coral makes noise and am more interested in the kinds of sounds that coral produces. Another chapter delves into the shit—literally looking at the exploitation of guano, bat waste, to examine how colonialism has impacted the well-being of bats, as well as examining how Chinese and African workers and lands around Haiti and other areas of the Caribbean were exploited and appropriated for the power of guano. Other chapters look at animals—including birding and the mongoose, exploring how naming conventions moved away from indigenous practices of naming based on the sound or color to name them after people, oftentimes with questionable backgrounds. The introduction of the mongoose to Jamaica was another interesting chapter that shows how imposing European thinking in Caribbean culture often leads to destructive and exploitative outcomes. Dr. Goffe also explores how the introduction of marijuana to Jamaica from India serves as a model for other methods of botany, and often altered the landscape and environments of other countries and cultures, oftentimes causing an imbalance from invasive species. While ganja helped to create more cultures of resistance in Jamaica and recognize the medicinal qualities of plants, it also led to more carceral practices in relation to plants, frequently causing arrests and imprisonment for the use of plants.

The end of the book examines plate tectonics, looking at volcanic activity in Montserrat to further analyze the kind of inequality that colonialism produces. I was actually reading this book while visiting Hawaii for the first time. Although we didn’t get to the Big Island of Hawaii, there was a volcanic eruption there. People were able to visit, but Dr. Goffe’s examination of the cases of Montserrat showed how oftentimes indigenous people are at the mercy of the volcano, while others like tourists or those who have more prestige or power are often able to escape. It was an important reminder for me about my own privilege and an important history lesson that showed how some people are not as lucky to escape the destructive forces of nature, further highlighting the kind of climate justice and environmental inequality that often occurs, but that we don’t always hear about. I’m so glad that this book will be available. Although it is not an easy read, I can see this as being an important book to use in the classroom. Any of the chapters would work well to challenge students’ assumptions about the nature of culture, the environment, language, music, or literature. Furthermore, it can also help to highlight or provide context and validation for the experiences of other students whose voices are not always celebrated or elevated in the classroom or curriculum. I’m also really excited for the work of Dr. Goffe and the Dark Laboratory. I’m sure there will be more to learn from them, and I look forward to further publications, studies, and advocacy from this great organization.