Lessons From Marine Mammals: Editor’s Letter & TOC

Minnesota Women’s Press publisher and editor Mikki Morrissette

In a lovely collection of essays, “Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals,” Alexis Pauline Gumbs literally goes deep, drawing wisdom from animals that use echolocation, travel in schools, and — as is the mysterious habit of spinner dolphins — leap into the air to rotate multiple times before returning to the water.

Gumbs writes about underwater mammals who see through clouded waters and across distances with their voices. She notes that these species — our ancestral foremothers — collaborate with other species for safety and health. “Out here on the open ocean, mothering is an emergent strategy.”

In contrast, the human species seems to have become much less fluid since emerging from the ocean, trapped inside nets we cast ourselves.

“Legally and narratively,” Gumbs writes, “our society encourages small, isolated family units and an anti- social state reluctant to care. So, care becomes the unsustainable work, the massive unpaid labor that breaks backs, hearts, and the visionary will of multitudes on a regular basis.”

She asks us to consider how we can organize ourselves intentionally to combat the isolation of capitalism and to listen across species, across extinction, across harm. “Marine mammals [have] much to teach us about the vulnerability, collaboration, and adaptation we need in order to be with change at this time.”