Good Food=Just World

HEAL Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative

2015-09-17T16:07:00.001-05:00

Explore how we can better grow food and justice within ourselves and communities!

2015 Growing Food and Justice for All Gathering

This year's Gathering in Chicago, IL in partnership with Growing Power Inc. is offering exciting opportunity to explore this year's theme, "H.E.A.L. Our Food System," with a variety of local groups and growers.The workshops and activities will be hands-on, interactive and will showcase the work being done locally in the Chicago area as well as nationally and internationally.

Iron Street Farm

3333 S. Iron Street

Chicago Il, 60608

H.E.A.L Our Food System Gathering

September 25-27, 2015

Dismantling Racism ILFT Training

September 23-25, 2015

Purchase Tickets at:

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/2015-growing-food-and-justice-for-all-gathering-tickets-17431928367

For Schedule of workshops:
http://growingfoodandjustice.org/events/gathering/2015-gathering/schedule/

773-376-4882 |gfji@growingpower.org

Community Violence does the Good Food movement play a role?!

2012-02-22T16:11:00.000-06:00

Last night I watched three excerpts from the film,
The Interrupters at an event hosted by the Mayor of Chicago.
http://interrupters.kartemquin.com/
Each bookended with a panel discussion with the filmmakers, leaders of Cease Fire! the Commissioner of Public Health for the City of Chicago and Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. What amazed me about these conversations, was the level of understanding about the need to connect our youth with the belief and to create pathways to the distant view of downtown Chicago. You can see the skyline from most of the communities that are devasted by violence, Black on Black crime. Our youth do not see themselves downtown and being part of the city as a whole.

Ameena, she's pictured above, one of the stars of The Interrupters of violence, talked about driving youth to a summit downtown, packed in her car and when they hit Lake Shore Drive, began to ask her what ocean was that? The teens shared that they had never seen the lake or had been downtown. She talked about them skipping rocks on the water and letting all that guard down.

This broke my heart. Just thinking about it and having experienced this often with the youth who have expressed similiar experiences.

Oh and by the way, have not eaten well and are often hungry and not well cared for.

Many of us work and live in communities that struggle with violence, youth who are in gangs, have been in prison, and all who know someone who has been murdered. Our youth witness systemic violence on almost a daily basis, PTSD, and other tramua induced mental health issues that our communities face.

This community based manifestation of internalized oppression, much like the other mechanisms of structural racism, we perpetuate the conditions that breed violence and subjugate one another.

"It can be tough to acknowledge just how bizarrely violent some big-city neighborhoods have become. There are places in Chicago and many other cities where the norms of civilized behavior have been driven all but completely underground."

“I would characterize parts of this city as under siege,” said the Rev. Autry Phillips, who is the point person for a number of local antiviolence efforts. “It’s sad when people are afraid to come out of their homes to walk the dog or wash the car because they feel they might get shot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/opinion/08herbert.html?scp=1&sq=bloody%20urban%20landscapes&st=cse#

How can urban agriculture become the new peace keeping tool?

How can we align our efforts with groups like Cease Fire and other community based violence intervention strategies?

I will be talking about this for a few days.....

e.

DNA and a Just World?

2012-02-20T12:55:00.000-06:00

Let's just claim spring... its a time of renewal and rebirth. With that said.... Do we really need to be tweaked by black holes somewhere in space sending vibes our way. So we behave?

Seriously?

I just want to grow good food in my community, make art and not have oppression, hatred and racism be the rule of the day.

Now, I am a firm believer in the web of the universe, and do believe in the closed loop of life... but not sure on this extra strands of DNA hypothesis. It does trigger my creative curiosity.

Regardless, the word is out and folks are in tune for some kind of significant happening..
What are we doing to harness this 2012 energy? This is the big year of transition, end of the current cycle and the beginning of a new way of moving through the world, and hopefully manifesting the changes to our worlds that we have been dreaming of... some think its at the DNA level... who knows maybe the last time this happened we looked like dinosaurs. (smile !)

: Everyone has one double helix of DNA. What we are finding is that there are other helixes that are being formed. In the double helix there are two strands of DNA coiled into a spiral. It is my understanding that we will be developing twelve helixes. During this time, which seems to have started maybe 5 to 20 years ago, we have been mutating. This is the scientific explanation. It is a mutation of our species into something for which the end result is not yet known. The changes are not known publicly, because the scientific community feels it would frighten the population. However, people are changing at the cellular levels. I am working with three children right now who have three DNA helixes. Most people know and feel this. Many religions who have talked about the change and know it will come about in different ways. We know it is a positive mutation even though physically, mentally, and emotionally it can be misunder-stood and frightening.
http://www.angelreading.com/dnachanges.html

Regardless of the changes and how they manifest, its not the end of the world. But an opportunity to harness our collective consciousness to do things differently. I am admittedly a bit of a drama queen, so a sci-fi display would be awesome.

While all this is going on we still have some global issues that humanity has not been able to solve. Why we still have poverty and violence? Is frankly shameful.

How can we harness this time to transmit to our people and the universe that we do want to change and be at peace and harmony with the natural world?

What are you going to do with your extra DNA?

e-

Bringin' Back the Love

2012-02-15T14:23:00.000-06:00

How do we bring the love back to our communities? As women of color, we have almost been conditioned to compete with each other over men, hair, style, etc. At the same time, rely on one another for survival to to co-parent our children.

Can this good food movement begin to mend our hearts toward one another?

We manifest the bad stuff with the 'good hair' - 'bad hair' thing and we heal ourselves with emerging groups, like Sisters Grow, started by Farmer Micheline Brown, who craved a space for women from the African Diaspora to come together and share, support and I think heal.

Through our reclaimation of our food soveriegnty we really are also re-integrating our cultures and relations with one another, as we heal our food system and move back toward our original soul foods, lots of greens, fresh fruits and root starches... that are not overly cooked, and grease-ified.

Women, we can heal our selves and our communities, ultimately the world.

Food can be our medicine or our poison.... It never ceases to amaze me that this movement continues to touch on so many unexpected areas.

How can you bring the love today?

Ase-O!

e.

How do you make Art in this unhealed world?

2012-02-13T15:55:00.000-06:00

I've had artist's block for about a decade... coinciding with my entry into the community food systems field. It seemed natural to channel my energy into farm design and construction, policy debates and the overall use of the life force to get things rolling here in Chicago, but also nationally.

Occasional paintings, drawings, mural designs have emerged, and been integrated into my food work, but not to the degree, that I had planned on. Studio time, nil-ch. And this after two years of graduate work in art psychotherapy, making a lot of work.

Somehow this movement, tapped all my juice.....

I concede that plenty of art and aesthetics are used in the projects I design, or community mural making that I facilitate. But its not the same as working on a painting or sculpture alone, losing a sense of time and feeling inspired, in that solitary space of creative energy production.

What's my problem? Why can't I get back there again?

I ask myself and make excuses that.....

In a world with so many problems to solve, Isn't best to use one's creative energy to solve them? Instead of making reflective images that can't actually be used to feed someone or change social conditions.

I wonder if other artists/activists/farmers...etc. have this dilemma?

How do you find balance between making your 'art' and changing the world?

Thank God for learning to crotchet... it's been a bridge back to my practicing artist self!!

e.

The Power of Image: food as a tool for perpetuating racism

2012-02-10T13:13:00.000-06:00

We are constantly impacted by visual language and icons. In relation to food we see icons that are based on graphics that represent enslaved people, and the commodization of culture, while at the same time denigrating the people of the racialized group.

Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, Chiquita Bananas, Land o Lake Butter… Eskimo Pies. These products are marketed using racial stereotypes and perpetuate the idea that People of Color are part of a servant or entertainment class. It is subtle and full frontal at the same time.

The term "Aunt Jemima" is sometimes used colloquially as a female version of the derogatory label "Uncle Tom". In this context, the slang term "Aunt Jemima" falls within the "Mammy archetype", and refers to a friendly black woman who is perceived as obsequiously servile or acting in, or protective of, the interests of whites.^[12] The 1950s television show Beulah came under fire for depicting a "mammy"-like black maid and cook who was somewhat reminiscent of Aunt Jemima. (wikipedia)

I think these images affect all of us, and need to change.

When I entered high school, all-girls catholic, we were given big sisters for orientation. Part of the tradition was under a theme to costume us up. Our theme was food products. My sister dressed me up as Mrs. Butterworth. Except I was dressed as Aunt Jemima....red head tie and all.

At the time, I was not happy with the costume choice, but didn’t understand fully why. It seemed harmless enough. But in a Freshman class of 120 girls and only 2 Black girls, 2 Mexican, this was a pretty horrible manifestation.

Think about our First African American President, we saw Obama Waffles and Obama Fried Chicken … I don’t recall Bush Beans or Reagan Cherry Pop.

Check your pantry, your relatives, friends… and see how many of us have racialized food products in our midst, and do not think about it. Much like the insidious nature of racism, often around and working actively in our lives, institutions and organizations but often not called out or identified as such.

Time to put the chomp on it!

Aunt Jemima is a trademark for pancake flour, syrup, and other breakfast foods currently owned by the Quaker Oats Company of Chicago. The trademark dates to 1893, although Aunt Jemima pancake mix debuted in 1889. The Quaker Oats Company first registered the Aunt Jemima trademark in April 1937.^[1] Aunt Jemima originally came from a minstrel show as one of their pantheon of stereotypical African American characters. Aunt Jemima appears to have been a postbellum addition to that cast.^{[2](wikipedia)}

More to think about .........

Uncle Ben's Rice

(Reprinted from Race Relations)

The image of an elderly black man has appeared in ads for Uncle Ben's Rice since 1946. So, just who exactly is Ben? According to the book Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Ben was a Houston rice farmer known for his superior crops. When Texas food broker Gordon L. Harwell launched a brand of commercial rice cooked to preserve nutrients, he decided to name it Uncle Ben's Converted Rice, after the respected farmer, and use the image of an African-American maitre d' he knew to be the face of the brand.

On packaging, Uncle Ben appeared to be a menial type, as suggested by his Pullman Porter-like attire. Moreover, the title "Uncle" likely derives from the practice of whites addressing elderly African Americans as "uncle" and "aunt" during segregation because the titles "Mr." and "Mrs." were deemed unsuitable for blacks, who were regarded as inferior.

In 2007, however, Uncle Ben received a makeover of sorts. Mars, the owner of the rice brand, debuted a website in which Uncle Ben is portrayed as the chairman of the board in a posh office. This virtual facelift was a way for Mars to bring Ben, an outdated racial stereotype of the black man as sharecropper-servant, into the 21st century.

Chiquita Bananas

Generations of Americans have grown up eating Chiquita bananas. But it's not just the bananas they remember fondly--it's Miss Chiquita, the comely figure the banana company has used to brand the fruit since 1944. With a sensual swagger and flamboyant Latin American attire, the bilingual Miss Chiquita makes the men swoon, as vintage advertisements of the bombshell demonstrate.

Miss Chiquita is widely thought to have been inspired by Brazilian beauty Carmen Miranda who appeared in ads for Chiquita bananas. The actress has been accused of promoting the exotic Latina stereotype because she achieved fame wearing pieces of fruit on her head and revealing, tropical clothing. Some critics argue that it’s all the more insulting for a banana company to play into this stereotype because the women, men and children who worked in banana farms toiled in grueling conditions, often falling gravely ill as a result of pesticide exposure.

Land O' Lakes Butter

Make a trip to the dairy section of your grocery store, and you'll find the Native American woman known as the Indian maiden on Land O' Lakes butter. How did this woman come to be featured on Land O'Lakes products? In 1928, officials from the company received a photo of a Native woman with a butter carton in hand as cows grazed and lakes flowed in the background. Because Land O' Lakes is based in Minnesota--the home of Hiawatha and Minnehaha--the company reps welcomed the idea of using the maiden's image to sell its butter.

In recent years, writers such as H. Mathew Barkhausen III, who's of Cherokee and Tuscarora descent, have called the image of the Land O' Lakes maiden stereotypical. She wears two braids in her hair, a headdress and an animal skin frock with beaded embroidery. Also, for some, the maiden's serene countenance erases the suffering indigenous peoples have experienced in the United States.

"Like the hoary fantasies of 'Indians' and 'Pilgrims' sharing with quiet reverence the first 'Thanksgiving,' the Land O' Lakes butter maiden helps white Americans sidestep and repress the horrific realities of what white Americans have done to Native Americans," posits blogger Macon D.

Eskimo Pie

Eskimo Pie ice cream bars have been around since 1921, when a candy shop owner named Christian Kent Nelson noticed that a little boy couldn’t decide whether to buy a chocolate bar or ice cream. Why not have both available in one confection, Nelson figured. This line of thinking led him to create the frozen treat known then as the “I-Scream Bar.” When Nelson partnered up with chocolate maker Russell C. Stover, though, the name was changed to Eskimo Pie and the image of an (presumably) Inuit boy in a parka was featured on packaging.

Today, some indigenous peoples from the artic regions of North America and Europe object to the name “Eskimo” in the use of the frozen pies and other sweets, not to mention in society generally. In 2009, for example, Seeka Lee Veevee Parsons, a Canadian Inuit, made newspaper headlines after publicly objecting to references to the Eskimo in the names of popular desserts. She called them “an insult to her people.”

“When I was a little girl white kids in the community used to tease me about it in a bad way. It’s just not the correct term,” she said of Eskimo. Instead, Inuit should be used, she explained.

Cream of Wheat

When Emery Mapes of the North Dakota Diamond Milling Company set out in 1893 to find an image to market his breakfast porridge, now called Cream of Wheat, he decided to use the face of a black chef. Still on promotional packaging for Cream of Wheat today, the chef—who was given the name Rastus, has become a cultural icon, according to sociologist David Pilgrim of Ferris State University.

“Rastus is marketed as a symbol of wholeness and stability,” Pilgrim asserts. “The toothy, well-dressed black chef happily serves breakfast to a nation.”

Not only was Rastus portrayed as subservient but also as uneducated, Pilgrim points out. In a 1921 advertisement, a grinning Rastus holds up a chalkboard with these words:“Maybe Cream of Wheat aint got no vitamines. I dont know what them things is. If they’s bugs they aint none in Cream of Wheat…”

Rastus represented the black man as a child-like, unthreatening slave. Such images of blacks perpetuated the notion that African Americans were content with a separate but (un)equal existence while making Southerners of the time feel nostalgic about the Antebellum Era.

Aunt Jemima

Aunt Jemima is arguably the most well known minority “mascot” of a food product, not to mention the longest lasting. Jemima came to be in 1889 when Charles Rutt and Charles G. Underwood created a self-rising flour that the former called Aunt Jemima’s recipe. Why Aunt Jemima? Rutt reportedly got the inspiration for the name after seeing a minstrel show that featured a skit with a Southern mammy named Jemima. In Southern lore, mammies were matronly black female domestics who doted on the white families they served and cherished their role as subordinates. Because the mammy caricature was popular with whites in the late 1800s, Rutt used the name and likeness of the mammy he’d seen in the minstrel show to market his pancake mix. She was smiling, obese and wore a headscarf fit for a servant.

When Rutt and Underwood sold the pancake recipe to the R.T. Davis Mill Co., the organization continued to use Aunt Jemima to help brand the product. Not only did the image of Jemima appear on product packaging, the R.T. Davis Mill Co. enlisted real African-American women to appear as Aunt Jemima at events such as the 1893 World’s Exposition in Chicago. At these events, black actresses told stories about the Old South which painted life there as idyllic for both blacks and whites, according to Pilgrim.

America ate up the mythical existence of Aunt Jemima and the Old South. Jemima became so popular that the R.T. Davis Mill Co. changed its name to the Aunt Jemima Mill Co. Moreover, by 1910, more than 120 million Aunt Jemima breakfasts were being served annually, Pilgrim notes.

Following the civil rights movement, however, black Americans began voicing their objection to the image of a black woman as a domestic who spoke grammatically incorrect English and never challenged her role as servant. Accordingly, in 1989, Quaker Oats, who’d purchased the Aunt Jemima Mill Co. 63 years earlier, updated Jemima’s image. Her head wrap had vanished, and she wore pearl earrings and a lace collar instead of servant’s clothing. She also appeared younger and significantly thinner. The matronly domestic Aunt Jemima originally appeared as had been replaced by the image of a modern African-American woman.

Wrapping Up

Despite the progress that’s occurred in race relations, Aunt Jemima, Miss Chiquita and similar "spokes-characters" remain fixtures in American food culture. All came to fruition during a time when it was unthinkable that a black man would become president or a Latina would sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Accordingly, they serve to remind us about the great strides people of color have made over the years. In fact, many consumers likely buy a pancake mix from Aunt Jemima with little idea that the woman on the box was originally a slave prototype. These same consumers likely find it difficult to understand why minority groups object to President Obama’s image on a box of waffles or a recent Duncan Hines cupcake ad that seemed to use blackface imagery. There’s a long tradition in the U.S. of using racial stereotypes in food marketing, but in 21st century America patience for that kind of advertising has run out.

Soul Food

2012-02-09T13:12:00.000-06:00

"Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food."

-Hippocrates

We feast as part of our work in communities. The idea that soul food is part of the strategy of survival, comfort and connection has not been lost in our communities.

As we move forward how can we continue to build on our traditions and heal our selves and people. We need to care for one another and find ways to create spaces that intentionally serve us in this way.

Soon, I will be hosting these dinners, and will post on the sharing and learning that is generated from each gathering.

Because food is our most primal need and our common bond to the earth and one another, it can ground us as we stretch ourselves to draw in all the interlaced threads—so we can weave a whole, meaningful picture for ourselves. I still believe food has this unique power. With food as our starting point, we can choose to meet people and to encounter events so powerful that they jar us out of our ordinary way of seeing the world, and open us to new, uplifting, and empowering possibilities. – Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe, from Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet

Spring, a time to commit

2012-02-08T16:04:00.000-06:00

Peoples!!!

I am going to really commit to this site and blogging on the issues of the day. Its not clear if anyone is interested in this but I hope we can begin to have some of the challenging conversations with ourselves and communities around why we still do not have a balanced world. At the very least I will have created a record of thought and ideas for Ayokunle (my son).

I often meditate on the micro and macro worlds and how we are interconnected. If we make changes in ourselves, does that affect the world around us?

Perhaps committing to ourselves and focusing our vision will get us closer to our return to eden.....

hmmm.

thoughts?

2011-04-29T13:39:00.003-05:00

race, food, class and history

2011-04-29T12:51:00.000-05:00

I began work in community food systems in 2001 after Illinois’s first food security summit, attending at the time, as a manager of a family resource program that operated a food pantry and other emergency programs for families. At the conference, I began to see the potential of intersecting food security programs with economic development and sustainable agriculture, beginning to see the potential of impacting the lives of at-risk populations, youth and ex offenders at the forefront of this vision.

My father, a farmer and the Director of Growing Power (the organization I work for as projects manager) shared his vision for community food centers, places where people learn to grow, distribute and market healthy food in the community. Everything fell into place for me, the big light bulb, and I began to learn about this community food movement and the impacts it could have on the communities struggling for survival by working for his organization. While away at art school (SAIC – School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and graduate school in the 90’s, my father created a working model of the community food system, on a 2-acre farm, in inner city Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This achievement, aligned with my personal realization that this was the field that would allow me to fuse my talents, education and thirst for justice and equity was a surprising gift and legacy that was totally unplanned, and to this day still inspires me by how it all came together, a story I am eager to share with others of my generation who may miss the boat on their family legacy.

I plan to draw from my experience and that of others in the movement to give voice to issues of race and class and would like to do so in a framework that provides solutions and a fresh perspective, for those seeking to better understand the issue of food access and economic opportunity. I am also interested in better connecting those in the land conservation movement with those of us in food systems.

I believe this exploration of the history of institutionalized racism in agriculture history and the misuse of land and resources could be of use to others in parallel movements. This will be explored using public art in partnership with other artists, youth and elders and shared with the national community using this space.

These stories are important to capture, the stories of how communities have been isolated and controlled via food deserts and as a result are reflecting the devastating effects of poor diets – obesity, diabetes, blood pressure and overall lack of wellness, post civil war into the present day. This timeline fascinates me and deserves exploration, not from an overly academic perspective but from a rigorous, well-planned, folk anthropologic approach in the tradition of Zora Neale Thurston and other authors who infused culture, history and folklore. These stories of how disconnected people are from their cultural food heritages, ranging from traditional dishes, seasonal eating and food preparation are themes of interest and need to be told from the perspective of the community.

Broadening the voices sharing perspective and engaged in policy, ranging from the farm bill to how resources are allocated on the city level for new businesses, grocery stores, schools, etc. will also be a goal during this fellowship.

April 28, 2011 blog kick off day!

2011-04-28T16:34:00.000-05:00

It has taken me some time to get to this point of sharing my perspective in a public forum, but I am there.

I want to be accountable to folks for my perspectives and hopefully create a space where others can share their's as well.

I will be posting soon about food deserts, racism in food systems work and sharing cool links and food for thought.....

We all need inspiration to keep us rolling, and I am doing this to get some as well!

xo e