I, a white female, went to my first Black Environmental Thought conference this weekend. The conference was wonderful, and the people extraordinary; I honestly cannot thank them enough for the opportunity, but also for their acceptance and embracement of me that they were in no way were obligated to do (for once). I want to back up a little bit, to before the wonderful people here made me feel so comfortable. I am a student with the Nelson Institute of Environmental scholars program. Some jargon that basically says I am in an environmental program that gives us some awesome real world opportunities. I received an email inviting me to write a short paper on what "community engagement" meant to me in order to get the opportunity to go to an expenses paid environmental conference with one of our new (excellent) professors. I thought, fabulous, I couldn't be more excited. I saw the conference and it was the "Black Environmental Thought Conference II", I balked a