FOOD JUSTICE
A BETTER WORLD IS POSSIBLE ISSUE 01 / FALL 2020
about the author Annabelle Chapman | she/they
Reflecting on what led me into activism and organizing, food justice has always been at the center. As a kid, my parents encouraged me to package food for the hungry and when I got older, I began to volunteer with an organization that created art pieces to raise money for local food-based nonprofits. These experiences were clearly focused more on charity rather than uprooting food insecurity, yet they still pushed me to realize that food access is not distributed equally. Eventually, I started to get more involved with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)—a Florida-based organization led by farmworkers fighting to improve their wages and working conditions—through the Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA). The CIW and SFA organize specifically for farmworker justice, but they are also working toward a transformation of the food system as a whole. Being a part of this movement introduced me to the larger idea of food justice. It helped me see the connections between the many struggles against oppression. And, most importantly, it taught me that a better world was possible. Liberation took on a new meaning to me. As I created my schedule for my first semester at FSU, I was immediately drawn to Radical Visions. I am so grateful that I enrolled. This course has expanded my understanding of liberation movements so much. With this zine, I hope to connect what I learned through organizing with what I have now learned through academia, maybe inspiring readers to fight for food justice, too.
A Movement of Movements: Food Justice Food justice is liberation. It means that everyone has access to healthy, sustainable, and ethical food. It considers how oppressive structures deprive food access and not only resists these structures, but also allows us to imagine a world without them. It is about justice for people and the land. Though food justice has been reduced to a fight against food insecurity, agricultural pollution, and food waste, its roots go much deeper than these issues alone. It is a movement of movements, as the cultural artifact from the Food Plug Project shows. Prison abolition, animal liberation, anti-militarism, LGBTQIA & gender justice, farmworker rights, land sovereignty, racial justice, and community-building are all central to food justice. Yet, they are often marginalized within the mainstream. This zine is meant to re-center some of the food justice movement’s most obscured roots. Using cultural artifacts from these movements, Issue 01 (hopefully followed by more) will delve into racial justice, farmworker rights, land sovereignty, and community-building and their connections to food justice, liberation, and radical visions for the future.
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CONTENTS Land Acknowledgement 0 4
Racial Justice 0 6
Farmworker Rights 0 8
Food Sovereignty 1 0
Community-Building 1 2
2 5 5 6 7 8 9 11 11 12 13
Food Justice Movement(s) 1885 Bird's Eye View of Tallahassee "Skywoman Falling" "A Small Needful Fact" Food Apartheid A New Day for Farmworkers El Maíz Es Nuestro Turtle Island Mercado Mastica Arise Together! Excerpt of Emergent Strategy
Along with this index of cultural pieces, all art and text not created by the author will be fully cited (and linked) in the Acknowledgements section at the end of this zine on pages 14-15.
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Land Acknowledgement “I acknowledge that Tallahassee, a Muscogee word meaning “old fields” or “old town”, is the ancestral and traditional territory of the Apalachee Nation, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida, and the Seminole Tribe of Florida. I pay respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to their descendants and to all Indigenous people. I recognize that this land remains scarred by the histories and ongoing legacies of settler colonial violence, dispossession, and removal. In spite of all of this, and with tremendous resilience, these Indigenous nations have remained deeply connected to this territory, to their families, to their communities, and to their cultural ways of life. I recognize the ongoing relationships of care that these Indigenous Nations maintain with this land and extend my gratitude as I live and work as a humble and respectful guest upon their territory. I encourage you to learn about and amplify the contemporary work of the Indigenous nations whose land you are on and to endeavor to support Indigenous sovereignty in all the ways that you can.” Adapted from Dr. Kristen Dowell, Director of the FSU Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies Florida State University is located on Indigenous land. It is a PWI that uses Indigenous imagery, language, and culture despite condemnation from the Seminole Tribe of Oklahoma. The university misrepresents and makes no efforts to educate students or faculty about the culture it exploits. Any land acknowledgement or decolonizing efforts at the university are the result of individual effort—including from Decolonize FSU and certain departments—that has been resisted by those with institutional power. Even during my short time here, our Student Body President and Vice President for Student Affairs vetoed a bill that would mandate a reading of the above Land Acknowledgement before official Student Government conduct. In all of these ways and likely many more, Florida State University is complicit and actively engages in settler colonial violence. As a student here, I want to acknowledge the history of this land and to condemn my university’s actions. I hope that including this in my course project encourages other students, professors, departments, and programs to do the same. Resources for further learning can be found in the Acknowledgements section of the zine. On the next page is a cultural artifact—a Native creation story shared by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Citizen Potawatomi Nation member and environmental science professor— that seemed perfect to start the zine. In Kimmerer's life and novel, she combines "Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants", demonstrating that Indigenous and academic ways of knowing can be intertwined in beautiful ways.
"Skywoman Falling" from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Adapted from oral tradition and Shenandoah and George, 1988. "She fell like a maple seed, pirouetting on an autumn breeze. A column of light streamed from a hole in the Skyworld, marking her path where only darkness had been before. It took her a long time to fall. In fear, or maybe hope, she clutched a bundle tightly in her hand. Hurtling downward, she saw only dark water below. But in that emptiness there were many eyes gazing up at the sudden shaft of light. They saw there a small object, a mere dust mote in the beam. As it grew closer, they could see that it was a woman, arms outstretched, long black hair billowing behind as she spiraled toward them. The geese nodded at one another and rose together from the water in a wave of goose music. She felt the beat of their wings as they flew beneath to break her fall. Far from the only home she’d ever known, she caught her breath at the warm embrace of soft feathers as they gently carried her downward. And so it began. The geese could not hold the woman above the water for much longer, so they called a council to decide what to do. Resting on their wings, she saw them all gather: loons, otters, swans, beavers, fish of all kinds. A great turtle floated in their midst and offered his back for her to rest upon. Gratefully, she stepped from the goose wings onto the dome of his shell. The others understood that she needed land for her home and discussed how they might serve her need. The deep divers among them had heard of mud at the bottom of the water and agreed to go find some. Loon dove first, but the distance was too far and after a long while he surfaced with nothing to show for his efforts. One by one, the other animals offered to help—Otter, Beaver, Sturgeon— but the depth, the darkness, and the pressures were too great for even the strongest of swimmers. They returned gasping for air with their heads ringing. Some did not return at all. Soon only little Muskrat was left, the weakest diver of all. He volunteered to go while the others looked on doubtfully. His small legs flailed as he worked his way downward and he was gone a very long time. They waited and waited for him to return, fearing the worst for their relative, and, before long, a stream of bubbles rose with the small, limp body of the muskrat. He had given his life to aid this helpless human. But then the others noticed that his paw was tightly clenched and, when they opened it, there was a small handful of mud. Turtle said, “Here, put it on my back and I will hold it. Skywoman bent and spread the mud with her hands across the shell of the turtle. Moved by the extraordinary gifts of the animals, she sang in thanksgiving and then began to dance, her feet caressing the earth. The land grew and grew as she danced her thanks, from the dab of mud on Turtle’s back until the whole earth was made. Not by Skywoman alone, but from the alchemy of all the animals’ gifts coupled with her deep gratitude. Together they formed what we know today as Turtle Island, our home. Like any good guest, Skywoman had not come empty-handed. The bundle was still clutched in her hand. When she toppled from the hole in the Skyworld she had reached out to grab onto the Tree of Life that grew there. In her grasp were branches—fruits and seeds of all kinds of plants. These she scattered onto the new ground and carefully tended each one until the world turned from brown to green. Sunlight streamed through the hole from the Skyworld, allowing the seeds to flourish. Wild grasses, flowers, trees, and medicines spread everywhere. And now that the animals, too, had plenty to eat, many came to live with her on Turtle Island."
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RACIAL JUSTICE Eric Garner was choked to death by the NYPD in 2014 for selling cigarettes. His last words, “I Can’t Breathe”, became a rallying cry by protestors and the basis of this poem. In “A Small Needful Fact”, Ross Gay twists the rhetoric used by the media to demonize victims of police brutality—“perhaps”, “most likely”, “in all likelihood”. He juxtaposes the image of Garner’s “very large hands” with the act of growing plants that create food and oxygen to sustain us. His writing transforms assumptions and implications of guilt into assumptions of humanity, of good. Like the plants that Eric Garner may have planted, Ross Gay’s poem makes it “easier for us to breathe”.
Though Ross Gay is most well-known as a poet and author, he is also involved in community food justice work. I wanted to include his piece “A Small Needful Fact” in the zine, not only because it is beautiful and healing, but also because it introduces the issue of racialized violence. Though they are obscured by the whitewashing of this movement, the connections between racial and food justice are deep. White supremacy has many methods of violence. As author and professor George Lipsitz explains in his article “From Plessy to Ferguson”, racialized violence is both sudden and slow. Eric Garner’s murder, like nearly all instances of police brutality or hate crimes, was sudden and extremely visible. Yet the slow perpetuation of “unemployment, educational
educational inequality, environmental racism, housing and food insecurity” (Lipsitz 123) that reduces the life expectancies of people of color is just as violent. White supremacy does not just result in isolated murders of Black people. White supremacy manifests in the concentration of 'food deserts' in largely Black and Indigenous areas. Lack of access to food is not a random, natural process whereby some places simply lack food the way deserts lack rain. It is an intentional deprivation of one of the most basic needs for survival. Thus, it is more accurately referred to as 'food apartheid'.
The same systems that caused Eric
oversaturation of harmful food options,
Garner’s murder also starve communities
resulting in much poorer health in these
of color. Less than ten percent of Black
communities.
Americans have a grocery store in their census
area.
Most
Indigenous
Access to food is clearly not a colorblind
reservations are at least ten miles away
issue, so our movements should not be
from grocery stores and some are as far
colorblind either. There can be no food
as 100 miles away. Black, Hispanic, and
justice without racial justice.
Indigenous Americans are around two times more likely than white people to experience poverty. As a result of all of these factors and more, they are two times more likely than white people to
with
so-called
'food
deserts',
researchers also point to the existence of food
swamps
or
areas
that
are
overflowing with fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and liquor stores. Unsurprisingly,
food
swamps
the
most
vulnerable
among us are free.
suffer from hunger or food insecurity. Along
None of us are free until
are
disproportionately positioned in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Lack of access to nutritious food is coupled with
The illustration below is by Daniel Chang Christensen. He created this piece for an interview with a food justice activist named Karen Washington, who argues that the phrase 'food desert' does not accurately describe racial disparities in food access. I chose this piece because it shows a radical vision of what freedom from food apartheid could look like.
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FARMWORKER RIGHTS Farmworkers’ struggles are rooted in many axes of oppression—white supremacy, the prison industrial complex, patriarchy, and capitalism—and thus, require an intersectional analysis.
slavery, child labor, wage theft, poverty wages, violence, and many other abuses runs rampant in the fields where our food is produced. The history of agriculture in America is intertwined with the history of slavery and the prison industrial complex. After chattel slavery was abolished with the 13th Amendment, the “punishment for crime” loophole was immediately exploited. As Jim Crow cemented itself in American culture, Black men were incarcerated on petty charges and forced to work again as slaves in the fields under the convict-lease system. The expansion of agriculture in the twentieth century, though, made prison slave labor obsolete. Instead, the industry turned to Hispanic immigrants as a new vulnerable labor force to exploit. Now, though, as immigration policy becomes stricter, agriculture is increasingly relying on prison slavery. More prisoners are currently working on farms than at the height of Jim Crow, and the majority are Black and Brown men receiving low to non-existent wages.
On the previous page is a photograph from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). I chose this piece because it highlights a movement meaningful to me and food justice alike. Because of their lived experience as farmworkers, the CIW has a unique understanding of the food system. Much of what I wrote in this spread of the zine I learned from them. The New Deal era of the 1930s was supposedly revolutionary for workers, but its legislation intentionally excluded two sectors of the economy: agriculture and domestic work. These sectors were composed mainly of Black workers, who were left out of basic protections like a minimum wage. These sectors have their roots in white supremacy, originating from chattel slavery. And, though I will focus on agriculture, both are still racialized and unprotected today. Most farmers are white while most farmworkers are Hispanic immigrants, and exploitation including modern
Although the majority of farmworkers are men, women still make up over a quarter of the workforce. In the fields, women do the same work as men. Yet, when they return home, they are also burdened with the largest share of domestic work. Gender-based violence is also extremely widespread in farms. Eighty percent of farmworker women experience workplace sexual assault or sexual harrassment. This is the reality of our food system. Farmworkers are some of the poorest, least powerful workers. The burden of food production is placed largely on their shoulders, yet their labor and lives are devalued by capitalism. While farmworkers feed the world, they often struggle to feed their own families. Food justice movements that exclude these workers are meaningless. As Audre Lorde says, they reproduce the systems of oppression they attempt to dismantle because they are using the master’s tools. The cultural artifact on the top left is a piece by Favianna Rodriguez, a political artist and organizer. It says “¡El Maíz es Nuestro!” or “The corn is ours!” Though focused on transgenic corn in Mexico, this piece also reflects the idea that— because they produce it—farmworkers’ voices should be centered in decisions about food. A truly just food system must center the voices of the people who put food on our tables.
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LAND SOVEREIGNTY
Leah Penniman is a Black farmer and food justice activist based in New York. In her writings, she argues that food and land have always been an important tool of state oppression—like when the U.S. government prevented Black people who voted or were involved in the Civil Rights movement from accessing farm credit. Yet, she also argues that food and land have always been central to movements for justice—from the Black Panthers free breakfast programs to the creation of the United Farm Workers union. Penniman says that “without good land and good food, we cannot be truly free”. Today, most of us are disconnected from our food and the land. Under food apartheid, rich white communities have access to abundance while poorer communities of color are deprived. And, regardless of their community, few people have to think about where their food comes from, who is producing it, and how those people are being treated. People are also detached from the land, which has been turned into a capitalist commodity that only the privileged can afford. The land
land is exploited for economic growth for the rich rather than taken care of for the growth of our communities and the richness of our futures. Land (and food) sovereignty is about changing our relationship with our food and the land. Sovereignty is “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems” (Nyeleni). It means that those who care for the land and those who cultivate and consume food, rather than corporations or the market, should have the most power within food systems. Land sovereignty movements demand a shift in the current understanding of land to include Indigenous ways of knowing, emphasizing the commons and communal ownership over corporate privatization of the land—which is a colonial concept. Land sovereignty is a radical framework for understanding food systems and justice.
"Without good land and good food, we cannot be truly free." - Leah Penniman On the top left is a cultural artifact created by political artist Eric. J Garcia. As readers may recall from the “Skywoman Falling” creation story shared by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Indigenous nations know North America as Turtle Island. “Take Back Turtle Island” refers to Landback, the Indigenous land sovereignty movement for the so-called United States and Canada. I included this artifact because I believe that the idea of land sovereignty is deeply rooted in Indigenous resistance, and land sovereignty movements must thus center this resistance in their efforts. Land sovereignty means transforming our relationship with the land. This transformation requires changing the language we use to describe the land we’re on. According to Indigenous researcher Steven Newcomb, saying that Indigenous nations are in North America implies that they are “subject to the jurisdictions of those two political constructs called ‘states’”. However, these constructs are in Turtle Island. The piece on the bottom left was created by Chilean artist Luisa Rivera. It is part of a series called "Mercado Mastica", which was inspired by a food festival in Santiago, Chile of the same name. I chose this piece because I believe that it represents beautifully a future with land sovereignty.
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COMMUNITY-BUILDING
While clearly not a movement of its own, community-building is an integral part of the food justice movement as a whole and for each movement, or root, of food justice. As prison and police abolitionists know, our approaches will fail if our communities are not ready for them. Building capacity will allow us to imagine and fight for liberation. Building capacity will allow us to "Arise Together!" as the above art piece by Dave Loewenstein says. Building capacity will allow food justice to take root and grow. Transforming systems starts with transforming our communities.
"The role of organizers in an ecosystem is to be earthworms, processing and aerating soil, making fertile ground out of the nutrients of sunlight, water, and everything that dies, to nurture the next cycle of life. All that has come before is in the soil... Everything we attempt, everything we do, is either growing up as its roots go deeper, or it's decomposing, leaving lessons in the soil for the next attempt... Let's cultivate the movement we want, and leave space for others to do the same." - adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy
"they tried to bury us. they didn't know we were seeds." - Mexican proverb The cultural artifact above was written by adrienne maree brown, a Black feminist organizer, in Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. I chose this excerpt because it was very meaningful to me, and I hope it will mean much to my fellow food justice organizers and activists. Having studied regenerative agricultural practices and soil’s microbiome, her analogy resonates with me deeply. Author and Historian Robin D.G. Kelley shares a similar sentiment in his book Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination—movements should not be judged based on their ability to achieve but rather by their ability to inspire. Movements are powerful because their ideas last and become the basis for future generations of organizers and activists. With brown’s framing in mind, I found Kelley’s sentiments to be much more impactful. Reading piece after piece about oppression can make us feel overwhelmed with the burden of all of the world’s problems; it can make us feel like liberation is impossible. But thinking of organizers as earthworms, ideas as nutrients in the soil, and movements for liberation as the ever-going cycle of life can relieve us of this individualistic burden and remind us of the collective possibilities; it can make us feel like a better world is possible if we try.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” - MLK
acknowledgements I extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Christina Owens, the professor of Radical Visions, for creating an amazing course and giving me the freedom to create this zine; my peer editors, Hannah Fulk and Charles Phillips, for their helpful feedback; Justseeds, an artist cooperative, for the beautiful and radical graphics included throughout the zine; all of the artists, authors, and organizers whose work is featured; Decolonize FSU for inspiring the land acknowledgement; the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, for all that they have taught me; and you, for reading this zine.
references & resources 2-3: Food Plug Project. “Food Justice Movement(s).” Instagram, 18 Nov. 2019, instagram.com/p/B5Bne3yB7tO/. Peet, Roger. “Solidarity Sunflower in Color.” Justseeds, 1 Nov. 2019, justseeds.org/product/solidarity-in-color/. Mazatl. “Farmworker Justice.” Justseeds, Justseeds, 1 Apr. 2013, justseeds.org/product/farmworker-justice/. 4-5: Dowell, Kristen. “Land Acknowledgment" and "1885 Bird’s Eye View of Tallahassee.” FSU Department of Art History, Florida State University, 1 Sept. 2020, arthistory.fsu.edu/about/landacknowledgment/. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. “Skywoman Falling." Braiding Sweetgrass. Penguin Books, 2020. #HonorNativeLand — US Department of Arts and Culture The Champions of Racist Mascots Let's Talk About the Seminoles @DecolonizeFSU 6-7: Gay, Ross. “A Small Needful Fact.” 2015. Barry Moser Broadside Version, Scmashop, scmashop.smith.edu/products/copy-ofterrance-hayes-barry-moser.
Chang Christensen, Daniel. “Food Apartheid.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 May 2018, theguardian.com/society/2018/may/15/foodapartheid-food-deserts-racism-inequalityamerica-karen-washington-interview. Lipsitz, George. “From Plessy to Ferguson.” Cultural Critique 90 (2015): 119-139. “Hunger Is a Racial Equity Issue.” Alliance to End Hunger, Bread for the World, July 2017, alliancetoendhunger.org/wpcontent/uploads/2017/07/Hill-advocacy-factsheet__HUNGER-IS-A-RACIAL-EQUITYISSUE_Alliance-to-End-Hunger.pdf. “Hunger and Poverty in the Indigenous Community.” Bread for the World Institute, Bread for the World, May 2019, bread.org/sites/default/files/downloads/hun ger-poverty-indigenous-community-may2019.pdf. 8-9: Coalition of Immokalee Workers. “New Day for Farmworkers.” Facebook, 5 Mar. 2019,ofacebook.com/CIWonFB/photos/10156 827853677860. Rodriguez, Favianna. “El Maiz Es Nuestro.” Justseeds, 1 July 2012, justseeds.org/product/el-maiz-es-nuestrothe-corn-is-ours/
Coalition of Immokalee Workers. “An Examination of the History and Evolution of Slavery in Florida’s Fields.” Florida ModernDay Slavery Museum, 2010, ciwonline.org/museum/booklet0811.pdf. Rice, Stian. “Farmers Turn to Prisons to Fill Labor Needs.” High Country News, High Country News, 12 June 2019, hcn.org/articles/agriculture-farmers-turnto-prisons-labor-to-fill-labor-needs. Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984. 110-113. 10-11: Garcia, Eric J. “Turtle Island.” Justseeds, 1 Apr. 2020, justseeds.org/graphic/turtleisland/. Rivera, Luisa. “Mercado Mastica.” Luisa Rivera,oluisarivera.cl/portfolio_page/mercad o-mastica/. Penniman, Leah. “Radical Farmers Use Fresh Food to Fight Racial Injustice and the New Jim Crow.” Yes! Magazine, Yes! Magazine, 5 Sept. 2015, yesmagazine.org/socialjustice/2015/09/05/radical-farmers-usefresh-food-fight-racial-injustice-black-livesmatter/. yèlèni. Declaration of Nyèlèni. 27 Feb. 2007,odrive.google.com/file/d/1wzogodC_Y_ ZOSsD0UsnwXJYo7BZ-JvEo/view.
In solidarity,
Newcomb, Steven. “'Canada' and the 'United States' Are in Turtle Island.” Indian Country Today, Indian Country Today, 30 Sept. 2011, indiancountrytoday.com/archive/canadaand-the-united-states-are-in-turtle-islandBuMvxVSitEG766jBQ2WplA. “Food Sovereignty and Land Sovereignty.” Climate Justice Alliance, 8 July 2020, climatejusticealliance.org/food-sovereigntyand-land-sovereignty/#Policy-Priorities. Borras, Saturnino M, and Jennifer C Franco. “A ‘Land Sovereignty’ Alternative? Towards Peoples’ Counter-Enclosure.” Agrarian and Environmental Justice Programme, Transnational Institute, July 2012, tni.org/files/a_land_sovereignty_alternative_. pdf. 12-13: Loewenstein, Dave. “Arise Together!” Justseeds, 1 Dec. 2016, justseeds.org/graphic/arise-together/. brown, adrienne maree. Emergent Strategy.: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017. 116. M4BL and Interrupting Criminalization. “10 Tips for Navigating the Pushbacks, Threats andChallenges to Defunding Police.” Defund Toolkit. 2020, 18-20. Kelley, Robin D. G. Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston: Beacon Press, 2002. ix-xii & 1-12.
Annabelle Chapman
amc20d@my.fsu.edu