November 25, 2020 • 44 mins
Point of Origin friends this is our last episode of the season and a very special one to capstone the season. Today we’re talking about justice in food systems, its absence within those systems and the circumstances that lead to lacking. Now, maybe you've heard heard of the term “food desert” as a means of describing these circumstances, but food apartheid is more forceful, more succinct and frankly, more accurate language.
To discuss the importance of language specificity when discussing food justice, we have just the right guest to speak on it, the same person who coined the term, Bronx resident and activist Karen Washington. We also chat with Mr. Bryant Terry, award-winning author, chef in residence of the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, and long-time food justice activist. And finally we close with author, educator and anthropologist, Dr. Hanna Garth. We compare and contrast food systems in the US and Cuba, and the ways in which each system undermines their respective constituents, and how, ultimately, systemic racism endures in both.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back to Point of Origin. This is our very
last episode of the season and it is a special
one to capstone a recurring theme not just from this season,
but ultimately our entire podcast series. Today we're talking about
justice within the food system, it's absence and the circumstances
that lead to lacking. Now, you might have heard of
(00:25):
the term food desert as a means of describing these circumstances,
but food apartheid, which is the title of today's episode,
is more forceful, it's more succinct, and frankly, it's just
a more accurate term. So we will discuss the importance
of specificity and language when talking about food justice, and
to do so we have exactly the right person. It
happens to be the same person who coined the term.
(00:47):
In fact, that is the Bronx resident and activist, the
legend Karen Washington. We also chat with Mr Bryant Terry
bat my brother, an award winning author and chef and
residence of the Museum of African Diaspora in San Francisco
and longtime food justice activist. Finally, we close with Dr
Hannah Garth, author and anthropologist whose first cameo was so
(01:10):
strong this season, we're having her back again. Today she
and I will compare and contrast food systems in the
U S and Cuba, the ways in which each of
the systems fails its constituents, and how ultimately systemic racism
endures in both today on point of origin, its food apartheid.
(01:38):
You know, the bullions down Bronx went at Brooklyn. We
are the other big the Bronx. That's Karen Washington, you know,
I mean, I think that's what makes the Bronx so
strong because of the fact that for years we've always
gone without limited resources, has always turned to our community
for strength and resili see. Karen has been an activist
(02:01):
for decades, promoting urban farming as a means of accessing
fresh and locally grown food, at first for her family
and subsequently her entire community and the New York borough
of the Bronx. Karen has turned empty lots into community
gardens for years. In two thousand tens, she co founded
the Black Urban Growers, and she is the co owner
and farmer at Rising Root Farm in Chester, New York.
(02:24):
Well during the late nineteen sixties and seventies, when on
New York and so many our urban cities were going
through financial and fiscal crisis. The Bronx literally was burning,
and it wasn't because of the community. The truth is
is that a lot of landlords, you know, touched the
(02:44):
building to get insurance money, and as a result, there
was a huge movement they called white flight, people fleeing
the Bronx and going to the suburbs, and those that
could not leave just was there in devastation. But again,
those people that couldn't that move got together from the actions,
(03:04):
rebounded and worked on fighting for affordable housing, fighting for
green space, fighting for jobs, fighting for better education overcrowning school,
fighting to get the drugs out of their communities when
crack cocaine was prevalent. And so now you see a
vibrant community again. You know, when you talk about New
(03:27):
York City and you talk about the history of of
of New York City and the Bronx, the Bronx is
always a step child. And so what we're trying to
do is really come together and really let people know
that the Bronx has survived, has come out of those ashes,
(03:48):
and has come out a better borrow because of the
fact of the resiliency that we have in our people.
As you know, hip hop originated from the bronx. Music
of the current era originate from the Bronx. And again
that was a call for salvation. That was a call
of reckoning for for people again who are left behind
(04:09):
but have come out swinging and become more powerful. So
I'd like to ask you a question about language. I
think it was in the early two thousand tens in
which I began to hear an evolving language within food
justice circles, where previously we used to talk about places
or environments that lacked access to food as food deserts,
(04:31):
and then shortly thereafter we started to discourage the terminology
because it didn't accurately address the origins of those conditions.
And even though I'm not exactly sure when it first
came on my radar, I do have a clear memory
that your name is the first one that I heard
associated in making the shift in language. So can you
talk to us about the linguistic distinction between food desert
(04:54):
in favor of the more apt terminology food apartheid. So
when I heard the term food deserts, it was like,
first of all, I was like, first of all, we
live in a desert? And then realizing that was an
outsider term, really designating the fact that these are places
(05:15):
we have limited access to food or grocery store. And
it's like, you know, I had to reach out to
all my friends Detroit, Baltimore's, Chicago, Oakland and say, like,
what's what's up with this term? And then to put
more salt on the wound, they change it from food
desert to food swamps. I mean, come on, you know
(05:36):
you know what I'm saying. I mean, give give us
a break. And so I I coined the term food
aparthei because I wanted to shake shake up because when
you said food desert the food swamp, you're not you're
talking about a location. You're not talking about the social
impact that that is having a food is having the
(05:57):
injustices the food is having in low and neighborhood and
neighbors of color. So when I coined the term food apartheid,
all of a sudden, eyes open, ears open. You know,
it's like, because we need to have those difficult conversations
around race, difficult conversations about wealth and economics, and different
and difficult conversation where people live. And so by saying
(06:21):
food apartheid, it brings into all those social elements that
people don't want to talk about. What we need to
talk about in order to move the food system more
close to being just an inclusive which is not and
talk about the racism that's that continues to infiltrate our
food system. Okay, we're gonna pause here for one second
(06:44):
to let Karen's extremely perceptive and nuanced analysis sinking to
reiterate food deserts imply a naturally occurring landscape, a place
absent of vegetation but also absent of life. And though
she doesn't say it explicitly here, there's another slight within
this phrase, which is that it doesn't originate from within
(07:06):
the impacted community. And so the people who come up
with this terminology, white researchers and organizations, calling it food
apartheid becomes not just a more accurate term, but away
for activists within these communities to reclaim agency and how
they talk about the disparity, well, the whole history and
(07:31):
how how the food system was built. Let's start with
that number one, you know, because for you, first of all,
the right now seven point five being in people on
this planet, and only a handful of people control our
full system, which are predominantly white men. When you look
at food, especially in this country, and look at farming
and food, it's the pitch is always a white male.
(07:54):
If you look at the agricultural system globally, it's dominated
by women, especially with men of color alone. And so
start peeling back this negative, incorrect narrative around our food system. Well,
the food system was built on the backs of enslave
people and indigenous people, and that the reason why we
(08:17):
were broad here was because of our knowledge of agriculture
seas in our head, we were the foundation when it
came to food, when it came to farming practices, um
instruments that were made, we were the ones. And so
it's not about us picking cotton, it's about us really
starting the whole framework of agriculture which was denied in
(08:38):
history books, which continues to be denied today. And so
again right now trying to really built in the whole
truth and narrative around food and farming here in these
United States, and as a result, talking about the history
of land grabbing, talking about the history of racism which
(09:00):
prevented us to have our forty acres and a mule,
the fact that farms who are being ransacked are taken
away both physically with with the consequences of death by
this lies and so looking at how a system has
been in place of sol so many years continues to
(09:23):
exist today. Whereby if you look at the food system,
a food system of subsidized fool system, a charity based
food system of food have no nutritional value at all
being dumped into low income neighborhoods and neighborhoods upcome. This
is pretty crucial, I think, because a lack of access
(09:44):
to healthy food isn't merely an inconvenience. It also means
that the inhabitants within these communities are at a greater
risk of diet related conditions like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases.
As Karen says, these are not deserts. They are thriving
communities who are living with a lack of local resources
(10:04):
that have been manipulated and withheld with intention not happenstance.
I'm glad you mentioned the importance of not just speaking
in terms of deficit, because so often that is the
single perspective that emanates from our stories, when in fact,
our story as black people is a multifaceted one. So
(10:27):
especially in talking about resilience. It's equally important that we
name this in the ways that we tell the stories
about ourselves. What we were talking about in the beginning
is doom and gloom. But baby, it's a wake up call.
It's an awakening of these young people, these young black
and brown people that understand their power, that understand is
(10:50):
going back to the land. We have been brainwashed about
going away from the land, and we have realized the
land is our power. The land is our power. Is
so now so many black and brown young men and
women get it. They no longer believe that narrative around slavery.
They know exactly why we were brought here. They know
(11:11):
the history of agriculture here in this country, and so
what they're doing now and they're demanding justice. There's so
many I go across the country, so many young people
that want to go back to the land, you know,
and I tell them, not going to go back to
the land. But you know, get those stories from Grandpa
and Grandma about how they would never sick a day
(11:32):
in their life. They never went to a grocery store.
You know, they had their own subsistence. They were able
to maintain our household, feed their family, and so many
young people are are doing that. So many young people
and there also are being very very vocal about the
government and not relying on the government for help. For instance,
(11:55):
right now here and and I we're gonna sort of
toot my home. But right now here in New York,
you know, we've got gathered together and we have formed
this Black Black Former Fund what black form of fund
that is formed by black people to help black people
move on because you know what we have to understand
(12:18):
as a people, we always have been brainwashed and think
of ourselves in terms of deficits. But people, we are
black people, we are proud people, and coming together collectively
we are powerful and start to teach that within our
communities that you may be designating at poor, but there's
nothing poor about you. Coming together collectively, we can move mountains.
(12:43):
For so long we've been taught to take money because
of the capitalistic society, to take money and go out
of our community. Now we're talking about base building, community wealth,
social capital within our community, coming together, putting our dollars
together and making sure our doll us together are producing
black businesses, black ownership. Um with a Black farm of
(13:07):
FUMD we're now creating an opportunity whereby we collectively get
money and with that money help farmers and black owned
businesses get a start. And that comes from the essence
of understanding what communal wealth and social capital looks like.
How do you invest in the community and not think
about getting monetary return, but that return is building a
(13:32):
whole way of living where by your supporting the you're
supporting infrastructure, and you're supporting black businesses, black owned businesses. Again,
this is this is language and that talked in our community.
But now that is starting to change as people now
afforming cooperatives, they're coming together collectively, they're doing the so
(13:54):
called sus suits are bringing their money collectively and using
that money to build a community from the ground up
and making people understand the value, the true value of
our community lies within ourselves. Take away those two starting
ideas about us being always on the downside, always in
(14:16):
terms of deficits, and bring it to our community, the
wealth of resilience, of being strong and coming together to
base build our community so that at the end of
the day, our community has our faces, our values, our
businesses and instead of always looking from behind and having
outsiders come in and push I'm not talking I'm talking
(14:39):
about gentification, push us out of our own communities. We
have to now be able to stand foot within our communities.
And it's our base building and look at the unique
power that we have as a community together. And that's
what's happening. And that's why the politicians white, a lot
of white politicians, sis and people have started to to,
(15:02):
you know, get a phrase, it's yeah. You start seeing
these all of a sudden, these narratives about yeah, you know,
they're gonna come into your they're gonna come into the suburbs,
or the violence and stuff like that. Don't believe the hype.
We're base filling within our communities. Karen, this has been
(15:22):
obviously a hell of a year, but also a year
I think in some ways that you are uniquely qualified
to absorb because a lot of the ways in which
we've seen our communities protecting ourselves not only from the virus,
but protecting each other. Um, it's something that you've been
committed to for a long time. I'd like to ask you,
(15:45):
do you think that we are at a kind of
social tipping point? Have we learned something from this COVID
era that we might be able to take with us
going forward. Let's start talking about a group of society
out that's on the brink, on the brink of resistance.
I don't want to say revolution yet because a little
(16:07):
too harsh, but it's on the brink of resistance in
such a way that they are going to stand their
ground and fight back. And how they do that, hopefully
will be in a way that we come together and
demand change and stand our ground and say we will
not be moved. We're not going to be pushed out
(16:28):
of our houses. We're not going to see our children
not being fed. We're gonna stand our ground and make
sure that whoever is in that office, the political people,
that they hear our voices, that they hear our plead.
When you have means and means of people that can't
pay their right or care feed their family, that is
(16:49):
a strong That is a strong of a sentence, a
strong group of powerful people standing together to man to
demand change, and you demand change by standing your ground
and prevent yourself from being moved until change happens. And
that's what's gonna happen. That's what's gonna happen. You can't
(17:13):
take away the basic needs of people, which is food
and shelter, and expect them to just sit back and
and just take it. It's not going to happen. One
of the things that's so central to my work is
bringing in art and culture and music as a way
(17:35):
to help us think more deeply about these issues and
just be human and connect and kind of bridge this
chasm that our industrial food system is created, where you
have food on one side, and it's this commodity and
all the things that have been traditionally very central to food,
like community and culture, that they're so disconnected. So much
(17:56):
of my work is about been about bringing those things together.
Our second guest today is Bryant Terry Bryant is a
James Beard Award winning chef, educator, scholar, cookbook author, and
renowned for his activism to create healthy, just, and sustainable
food systems. He's currently the Chef in Residence at the
(18:16):
Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, where he
creates public programming that celebrates the intersection of food, farming, health, activism, art, culture,
and the entire African diaspora. His fifth book, Vegetable Kingdom,
was published earlier this year. He's someone that I'm happy
to call a friend and someone who has been in
the food justice work for a very long time. Man,
(18:40):
as you'll soon hear from him, it is his love
of Black people and black culture that has remained a
constant throughout his career. For me to recognize that there's
a thread of black lead food and health activism throughout
the twentieth century, and I'm standing on the shoulders of
many of the ancestors who have driven much of that work.
But then we could think about type the black panthers.
(19:01):
We can think about, you know, activists like did Gregory.
We think about hip hop artists like Carreras One and
others who have you brought these issues to the fore
and and force us to think about them in ways
that I think we should all be thinking about them.
Can you talk about the impetus to specifically send her
black health in your food justice work? Yeah, I'll put
(19:22):
it like this. I always say that food is simply
like lack of access to healthy, fresh, affordable and culturally
appropriate food is simply one indicator of material deprivation in
our communities. Right, And let's just talk about systemic racism
and like the daily effect that that has on our mind,
body and spirit, and you know, the release of cortisol
(19:46):
and like the the energy that it takes just dealing
with being a black person in this country. And so,
you know, I just want to say that because I
don't think you could just talk about food and expect
that even if you know, we were to create an
abundance of options for healthy, fresh, affordable and culturally appropriate
food and communities that somehow, you know, all these other
(20:10):
um issues that our community members are facing in terms
of you know, health crisis would be fully addressed. Typically
when you go to a community that doesn't have you know,
access to healthy, fresh, affordable food, good food. These are
the same communities that are also dealing with you know,
a number of barriers to just living a healthful, good life.
(20:34):
So you know, most of these communities have crumbling infrastructure, underfunded,
segregated public schools, very little safe green space for people
to be active in for their physical health, very few
jobs that pay a living wage. When we focus on food,
we need to think about the bigger issues that also
(20:56):
intersect with food. And that's why you know, this this
whole idea of talking about food aparthei and kind of
like abandoning of this archaic term food desert is important
because I think what it does is that it puts
the issues of economic inequality and systemic racism squarely in
front of us and and helps us to really understand
(21:18):
the way in which we have to deal with, you know,
these issues as well as the range of material issues
that people in communities that are dealing with food insecurity
or food injustice have to confront. People kind of move
away from this idea that you know, just focusing on
what we're consuming is somehow going to address the chronic
(21:38):
illnesses that many of our family members and community members
are facing. You know, these are systemic issues, and food
is certainly central to it. But I would say, you know,
at least and and and in the framing of their
approach and the way in which black lives matters, UM
movement generation are really encouraging, encouraging us to think about
(22:01):
kind of a pathway forward. I truly in my work
have striven and and you know, just really encouraging others
to come from a place of of of genuine love
and care for communities, right, And I think that what
that means is putting our ego aside What that means
is not feeling like we have to be right and
(22:22):
that we have two answers, and most important, meeting people
where they are definitely, definitely and speaking to this intersectional analysis,
can you talk about your work and focusing on the
maternal mortality crisis, specifically among black and Native women. What
brought this crisis into your consciousness and what is the
(22:42):
relationship to food. Yeah, well, there are a couple of things.
Um One, I had worked on this book Between Meals
that was a project of Refugee Transitions in Oakland, which
is a NGL that worked with newly arrive immigrant women
and they actually produced a book that was a cookbook
(23:03):
along with essays that allowed these women to kind of
talk about their traditional foods, talk about the way in
which you're adjusting to their new homeland, and share their
culture and so just you know, working on that project
helped me understand the immense issues that that women are
facing in our society and being more sensitive to them.
(23:25):
The second thing was actually having a child and we
my wife is Chinese American and we had a lot
of conversations with my mother in law about the role
of traditional postpartum foods and postpartum traditions that we often
um and and you know American culture, you know, we
just don't have these things like the thirty day period
(23:47):
after having a child, and like the specific foods that
you need to eat to help with kind of providing
nutrient density for the the healing mother and the child
and ensuring that they're you know, nursing well and all
these things. And so I started getting involved with this
project Mothers to Mothers, which you know, similar to the
(24:07):
food justice movement, doesn't look at the maternal health crisis
um that mostly impacts African American and Native women in isolation,
but understands that the fundamental causes of this maternal mortality
crisis is sexism. It's racism, both the historical, institutional, cultural,
and interpersonal. It's individualism, it's a for profit health care system,
(24:30):
and it's the abandonment of traditional postpartum wisdom. And so
I see this just kind of like part and parcel
of this larger food justice work that I do, because
if you think about taking care of mothers, when you
take care of mothers, you take care of the women
who ideally are providing the first food that children will
actually receive, right you know, they call like the breast
(24:54):
milk is liquid gold and it has everything that are
developing child needs. In my mind, something that the food
movement I don't think privileges, it puts a lot of
energy into is the reality that food justice is. It's
driven by the people who are most impacted by the issues.
(25:16):
Right These are the people living in communities. They recognize
the issues that they're facing, and oftentimes they have brilliant solutions,
but what they need are resources shifted, power shifted, and
then actually giving them the ability to be self determined
and address these issues and not having this kind of
paternalistic relationship where you have you know, the all knowing
(25:37):
uh snow caps uh ngo coming in and arguing that
they know the best way that these communities should be,
you know, kind of addressing the problems. I'll be the
first to say that if one has resources, the social capital,
you know, whatever you feel like you could bring to
communities to help improve conditions, I think that's a noble thing.
(25:58):
But I think the problem is that so many of
these organizations that are supposedly working towards the liberation of
these communities, they're further exploiting them. Again, it is really
hard to ignore the echo of Karen's frustration with this
exact dynamic talking about the not for profit and industrial
complex and the way in which it often reproduces harm
(26:20):
in these kind of very exploitative relationships with the communities
that they work in. And I say, if you have
like a white CEO or executive director of an organization,
or a person you know, frankly a person of color
that may not come from that community. Because it was
something that I had to really confront is understanding that
they're the racial dynamics around people coming into communities and
(26:42):
supposedly doing good work, as we've seen both here and abroad.
But then there's also the class dynamics. And I recognized that,
you know, when I was working with young people, there
was very little that I had in common with a
lot of these young people outside of the fact that
we were brown skinned, because you know, I grew up
with a lot of priv religes, and these were young
people who are dealing with not just you know, how
(27:03):
could I get some organic fruits and vegetables, but where
with my next meal coming from? And so I think
that you know, organizations that aren't actively planning to train
and bring people in the community into leadership so that
they can then run the organization. People are just playing games,
they're just you know, they're they're they're they're doing this work.
(27:23):
But you know, it really hearkens back to the origins
of the social work, the field of social work in
the United States in the early twentieth century, and we
needed to ensure that people who are most impacted by
these issues are the ones who are in the room.
You know. One of the one of the things that
really informed my thoughts about this this food justice work
(27:46):
was the second scholarly monograph that my graduate school advisor,
Robin D. G. Kelly wrote, This book called Race Rebels,
And in Race Rebels he looks at the mid twentieth
century and many of the ways in which black people
resistant capitalism and white supremacy outside of organized labor movements,
and he talked about things such as theft and breaking
(28:10):
equipment and tools, and quitting on the spot and sabotage
and how these were like these everyday acts of resistance
that we need to re examine. And so, you know,
that helped me kind of reimagine these seemingly a political
acts such as cooking and guardening and building community around
the table. And you know, reframing them is highly political,
(28:32):
dare I say radical? In the food system that's largely
controlled by a handful of multinational corporations. These corporations don't
want you cooking. They don't want you making things from scratch.
The don't want you to buy in their ready made
food and stuffing it down your face in the car
to your next job, because the one that you don't
have done pay a living wage. They don't want you
to building community around the table, then want you isolated.
(28:54):
And you know, I just think for me, we all
need to see these as as political acts alongside the
more organized movement building through organizations and through on the
ground grassroots activity. So when you lack food and it
(29:21):
becomes something you cannot take for granted, then it becomes
an important object of study or inquiry. We heard from
Dr Hannah Garth earlier this season on our Anthropology episode.
Today will be drawing from her excellent book which came
out earlier this year. It's called Food in Cuba, The
Pursuit of a Decent Meal, and she's back with us
this week to talk about her research in Cuba, to
(29:43):
talk about food rationing, ways of acquiring and really a
socialist food system. More broadly, here's Dr Garth so understanding
how groups of people are able to basically shift everything
about the way that they live, so shifting from being
subsistence agriculturalists to being people that work and live in
(30:07):
cities where you know you can't grow all of the
food that you consume and you have to rely on
a food system. I've been interested in thinking through how
people experience those forms of inequality and how people understand that.
And one of the things that is really compelling and
interesting about Cuba is that it has a food rationing
(30:30):
system where everyone is guaranteed a basic amount of food
to be able to survive, and that that food ration
has been around for over fifty years and every single
Cuban is eligible for the ration, and it originally provided
more food than it does today. They've slowly been reducing
(30:51):
the amount of food that's available in the ration, and
so this is a place where although people are provided
with the minimum that they need to survive, they're still
experiencing a sense of lack or a sense of food
scarcity because they can't it's very difficult for them to
access food. On top of that food ration body body body.
(31:30):
Unlike the United States, Cuba provides a minimum dietary sustenance
for all of their citizens in the form of food rations.
The system is still fraught and there is a racial
hierarchy in terms of who gets what which. Dr. Garth
will soon explain, but still with over thirty five million
people in the US who are food and secure, hungry
and unsure where their next meal will come from, Cuba's
(31:52):
food rationing system is a deeply imperfect, but still enviable
option that ensures none of its residents are left art body.
Although Cuba is socialist and the state does a good
job of distributing basic needs to everyone, it's still tied
(32:18):
to capitalist systems. So Cuba imports most of its food
ranges from sixty eight of the food that's consumed on
the island, and those imports are made almost exclusively in
capitalist countries, so the bread basket of Cuba is really
coming from the global industrial food system. Their rice is imported,
(32:42):
for the most part, imported. A lot of their meats
are important. When I was in Cuba, I was eating
Tyson chicken that had been raised in the United States,
had been exported to Russia and then had been imported
into Cuba UM. So so it's it's Cuba US not
UM and the government. The Cuban government definitely feels accountable
(33:06):
for providing basic needs for people. The problem that the
Cubans that I do research with faces that they feel
that the government does not address their needs and does
not sort of take into consideration other elements of what's
necessary in food beyond basic nutrition. So they want to
(33:30):
be able to make the foods that they connect with
on a cultural level, on a social level, UM on
a familial level. They want to make the things that
their grandma they're made, and the ingredients for those foods
that they view as central to who they are as
people are not available. The difference between our programs here
(33:52):
and programs in Cuba is that our programs are tied
to UM particular UH, like you have to apply for
them and you have to follow certain criteria in order
to be able to get your food benefits, whereas in Cuba,
every single person gets them, regardless of their work history,
(34:14):
how many children, they have, any other element about themselves.
So it's really available for all people in Cuba since
everyone is getting the same rationing from the government. It's
a socialist food system. Is there racism in Cuba in
a socialist food system? So in Cuba, it's important to
(34:40):
also consider that they have free socialized healthcare for everyone,
So thinking about health and food together, it's really important
to include that in the context. Thank you for that. Agree.
Although the Cuban government has done a lot to eliminate
forms of institutionalized discrimination and forms of racism, there's still
(35:05):
a lot of ongoing racism, racialized discrimination, and forms of
white supremacy that happened on the island. So there's institutionalized
discrimination that happens against black Cubans in general. There's institutionalized
racism against black Cubans that live outside of Havana or
on the eastern side of the island, who are seen
(35:26):
as country folk in a in a derogatory way. They
mean that in a directory way. So people view certain
categories of black Cubans as not sophisticated enough to eat
certain kinds of food, and therefore it's unnecessary to distribute
those kinds of foods to them. Um. So these are
(35:47):
some deeply racist understandings that Cubans have of black Cubans.
A very long standing race based problem is resource distribution.
People inherit their homes and they live in the same
neighborhoods that their parents lived in and their grandparents lived in,
(36:07):
and those neighborhoods have been racially segregated and continue to
be racially divided, and lower income neighborhoods tend to have
disproportionately high amount of Black Cubans and wealthier neighborhoods have
a disproportionate number of white Cubans. We still see very
similar patterns to what we have in the United States. Um,
(36:30):
but I do think they shake out a little bit
differently because of free socialized healthcare UM, free access to
the food ration, free education, and subsidies for things like electricity, transportation,
housing that help lower income Cubans to sort of have
(36:50):
a basic quality of life that a lot of lower
income United people in the United States do not share. So, Hannah, Um,
what we've seen in our coverage is what we would
classify as a global food movement, and specifically a movement
that is tightly bound to food and identity. So often
we see stories of reclamation, reclamation of land, reclamation of
(37:14):
ingredients of recipes, and in some cases even ideas, So
do you have any sense if there is a similar
reclamation movement happening in Cuba right now? And secondly, as
a scholar, would you mind sharing with us your hopes
for a healthier and more vibrant food system in Cuba.
I find that among certain Cuban families it's really common
(37:39):
to aspired towards eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and
fresh herbs, and people talk a lot about how they
have a conceptualization that that's how people ate before, and
people were healthier before. And so if we could get
back to, you know, not adding any processed seasoning to
(38:03):
our foods and we could use all fresh herbs and
fresh fruits and vegetables, that we would be healthier. And
then recently, with economic problems tied to COVID nineteen, the
Cuban government has been encouraging people to grow their own
vegetable gardens in any plots of land that they may have,
(38:25):
and I think people are some people are grasping onto
this as a collective way of moving towards sustainability as
a nation and being less reliant on the global food system.
So this crisis has really underscored for people how important
(38:45):
it is to improve Cuba's national food system. I mean
to just put it into one word. I think capitalism
is the problem with most food systems. It's it's the
problem with cuba food system, even though it's socialist. It's
the problem with our food system. And so if we
I mean it's quite aspirational, but if we could untether
(39:09):
profit and capitalism from food and make food into something
that is not something that corporations profit off of, we
would all be better off. I don't know exactly the
steps for moving into that direction, because you know, we're
pretty well in that direction. If you're interested in learning
(39:36):
more about Dr Guarth's work in Cuba, you can check
out her newly released book Food in Cuba, The Pursuit
of a Decent Meal, which is a perfect encapsulation of
our scholarship on the many ways in which marginalized communities
struggle to overcome structural inequalities to satisfy their most basic needs. Okay,
this is the last episode of the season. It is
(39:58):
hard to believe the many episodes down. Wow. I would
like to thank each and every single person who has
listened not only to this episode, but especially if you've
listened to multiple episodes because they keep track of those
sorts of things. You really really appreciate it. It It helps
us a lot, and we are so grateful, so thank you,
and especially to everyone who has left a review of
(40:20):
the show that is also major, so we thank you
for that as well. We are always trying to improve
not only on this podcast, but with our magazine, which
is our flagship, and with our w journal, which I
must say has been the most pleasant surprise of the year.
The stories have been tremendous and there have been no
(40:40):
shortage of them, so our foray into digital publishing, I'm
happy to say, has gone really, really well. We are
seriously overjoyed that we get to find ways to continue
to work with and learned from so many brilliant scholars, chefs,
activist journalists from all over the world, all view that
(41:00):
we get to work with who are so steeped and
whatever the thing is that you're sharing, it is contagious
and much appreciated. And it is because of you that
we get to exist, because without you, wet Stone would
just be an idea. So thank you guys all so much.
We are working on many, many more ways that we
can collaborate and Although this is our last show of
(41:22):
the year, there's still plenty of wet Stone to be
had by way of our print magazine or the aforementioned
journal on our site wet Stone Magazine dot com backslash journal.
There is always more on the way there. I'd like
to thank our guests today, the legendary Karen Washington BT,
my brother Bryant Terry, and the endlessly genius Dr Hannah Garth,
(41:44):
socio cultural and medical anthropologist, author of Food in Cuba,
The Pursuit of a Decent Meal and along with Ashanti Rees,
editor of the fabulous compilation Black Food Matters, Racial Justice
in the Wake of Food Justice and according to her Twitter,
Bio will be joining Princeton University next fall as an
(42:04):
assistant professor, So congrats to her and congrats to Princeton,
who is very lucky to have her. Finally, I'd like
to give a special shout out to our production assistant
Quentin LeBeau. If you'll have been following us on i G,
you know that for each of these episodes there is
a really stellar accompanying series of illustrations both on our
i G page but also on our website. Quentin has
(42:26):
been responsible for those illustrations and has done such a
beautiful job. They are so additive. We love having them
go with each episode. Quentin, so thank you for blessing
as Q. We really appreciate the artwork. Finally, you can
learn more about this episode and our guest on our
website wet Stone Magazine dot com, Backslash Podcast, or as
always on I G at wet Stone Magazine. That's w
(42:49):
h E T S T O n E. I'm your host,
Steven Sadderfield will be back sometime in the meantime. We'll
see you online. Piece. We'd also like to thank our
incredible podcast producer Selene Glazier. Selene, you are the best.
(43:10):
To our editor and Whetstone partner and director of video
David Alexander in London. I appreciate you, Dave. Thanks to
our wet Stone production intern Quentin le Beau, and last
but not least, my business partner Mel She who makes
all things at Whetstone possible. Thank you Mel. We'd also
(43:30):
like to thank our partners in production at I Heart
Radio to Gabrielle Collins, our supervising producer and executive producer
Christopher Haciotis. We'll be back next week with more from
the world of food worldwide Point of Origin listeners. As
(43:53):
you know, rating and reviewing our podcast is the very
best way for more p Aple to find out about
our very important work at Whetstone, So please, if you're able,
we would really appreciate a positive review in rating on
Apple podcast that will help others like yourself find out
(44:14):
about Point of Origin
Welcome back to Point of Origin. This is our very
last episode of the season and it is a special
one to capstone a recurring theme not just from this season,
but ultimately our entire podcast series. Today we're talking about
justice within the food system, it's absence and the circumstances
that lead to lacking. Now, you might have heard of
(00:25):
the term food desert as a means of describing these circumstances,
but food apartheid, which is the title of today's episode,
is more forceful, it's more succinct, and frankly, it's just
a more accurate term. So we will discuss the importance
of specificity and language when talking about food justice, and
to do so we have exactly the right person. It
happens to be the same person who coined the term.
(00:47):
In fact, that is the Bronx resident and activist, the
legend Karen Washington. We also chat with Mr Bryant Terry
bat my brother, an award winning author and chef and
residence of the Museum of African Diaspora in San Francisco
and longtime food justice activist. Finally, we close with Dr
Hannah Garth, author and anthropologist whose first cameo was so
(01:10):
strong this season, we're having her back again. Today she
and I will compare and contrast food systems in the
U S and Cuba, the ways in which each of
the systems fails its constituents, and how ultimately systemic racism
endures in both today on point of origin, its food apartheid.
(01:38):
You know, the bullions down Bronx went at Brooklyn. We
are the other big the Bronx. That's Karen Washington, you know,
I mean, I think that's what makes the Bronx so
strong because of the fact that for years we've always
gone without limited resources, has always turned to our community
for strength and resili see. Karen has been an activist
(02:01):
for decades, promoting urban farming as a means of accessing
fresh and locally grown food, at first for her family
and subsequently her entire community and the New York borough
of the Bronx. Karen has turned empty lots into community
gardens for years. In two thousand tens, she co founded
the Black Urban Growers, and she is the co owner
and farmer at Rising Root Farm in Chester, New York.
(02:24):
Well during the late nineteen sixties and seventies, when on
New York and so many our urban cities were going
through financial and fiscal crisis. The Bronx literally was burning,
and it wasn't because of the community. The truth is
is that a lot of landlords, you know, touched the
(02:44):
building to get insurance money, and as a result, there
was a huge movement they called white flight, people fleeing
the Bronx and going to the suburbs, and those that
could not leave just was there in devastation. But again,
those people that couldn't that move got together from the actions,
(03:04):
rebounded and worked on fighting for affordable housing, fighting for
green space, fighting for jobs, fighting for better education overcrowning school,
fighting to get the drugs out of their communities when
crack cocaine was prevalent. And so now you see a
vibrant community again. You know, when you talk about New
(03:27):
York City and you talk about the history of of
of New York City and the Bronx, the Bronx is
always a step child. And so what we're trying to
do is really come together and really let people know
that the Bronx has survived, has come out of those ashes,
(03:48):
and has come out a better borrow because of the
fact of the resiliency that we have in our people.
As you know, hip hop originated from the bronx. Music
of the current era originate from the Bronx. And again
that was a call for salvation. That was a call
of reckoning for for people again who are left behind
(04:09):
but have come out swinging and become more powerful. So
I'd like to ask you a question about language. I
think it was in the early two thousand tens in
which I began to hear an evolving language within food
justice circles, where previously we used to talk about places
or environments that lacked access to food as food deserts,
(04:31):
and then shortly thereafter we started to discourage the terminology
because it didn't accurately address the origins of those conditions.
And even though I'm not exactly sure when it first
came on my radar, I do have a clear memory
that your name is the first one that I heard
associated in making the shift in language. So can you
talk to us about the linguistic distinction between food desert
(04:54):
in favor of the more apt terminology food apartheid. So
when I heard the term food deserts, it was like,
first of all, I was like, first of all, we
live in a desert? And then realizing that was an
outsider term, really designating the fact that these are places
(05:15):
we have limited access to food or grocery store. And
it's like, you know, I had to reach out to
all my friends Detroit, Baltimore's, Chicago, Oakland and say, like,
what's what's up with this term? And then to put
more salt on the wound, they change it from food
desert to food swamps. I mean, come on, you know
(05:36):
you know what I'm saying. I mean, give give us
a break. And so I I coined the term food
aparthei because I wanted to shake shake up because when
you said food desert the food swamp, you're not you're
talking about a location. You're not talking about the social
impact that that is having a food is having the
(05:57):
injustices the food is having in low and neighborhood and
neighbors of color. So when I coined the term food apartheid,
all of a sudden, eyes open, ears open. You know,
it's like, because we need to have those difficult conversations
around race, difficult conversations about wealth and economics, and different
and difficult conversation where people live. And so by saying
(06:21):
food apartheid, it brings into all those social elements that
people don't want to talk about. What we need to
talk about in order to move the food system more
close to being just an inclusive which is not and
talk about the racism that's that continues to infiltrate our
food system. Okay, we're gonna pause here for one second
(06:44):
to let Karen's extremely perceptive and nuanced analysis sinking to
reiterate food deserts imply a naturally occurring landscape, a place
absent of vegetation but also absent of life. And though
she doesn't say it explicitly here, there's another slight within
this phrase, which is that it doesn't originate from within
(07:06):
the impacted community. And so the people who come up
with this terminology, white researchers and organizations, calling it food
apartheid becomes not just a more accurate term, but away
for activists within these communities to reclaim agency and how
they talk about the disparity, well, the whole history and
(07:31):
how how the food system was built. Let's start with
that number one, you know, because for you, first of all,
the right now seven point five being in people on
this planet, and only a handful of people control our
full system, which are predominantly white men. When you look
at food, especially in this country, and look at farming
and food, it's the pitch is always a white male.
(07:54):
If you look at the agricultural system globally, it's dominated
by women, especially with men of color alone. And so
start peeling back this negative, incorrect narrative around our food system. Well,
the food system was built on the backs of enslave
people and indigenous people, and that the reason why we
(08:17):
were broad here was because of our knowledge of agriculture
seas in our head, we were the foundation when it
came to food, when it came to farming practices, um
instruments that were made, we were the ones. And so
it's not about us picking cotton, it's about us really
starting the whole framework of agriculture which was denied in
(08:38):
history books, which continues to be denied today. And so
again right now trying to really built in the whole
truth and narrative around food and farming here in these
United States, and as a result, talking about the history
of land grabbing, talking about the history of racism which
(09:00):
prevented us to have our forty acres and a mule,
the fact that farms who are being ransacked are taken
away both physically with with the consequences of death by
this lies and so looking at how a system has
been in place of sol so many years continues to
(09:23):
exist today. Whereby if you look at the food system,
a food system of subsidized fool system, a charity based
food system of food have no nutritional value at all
being dumped into low income neighborhoods and neighborhoods upcome. This
is pretty crucial, I think, because a lack of access
(09:44):
to healthy food isn't merely an inconvenience. It also means
that the inhabitants within these communities are at a greater
risk of diet related conditions like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases.
As Karen says, these are not deserts. They are thriving
communities who are living with a lack of local resources
(10:04):
that have been manipulated and withheld with intention not happenstance.
I'm glad you mentioned the importance of not just speaking
in terms of deficit, because so often that is the
single perspective that emanates from our stories, when in fact,
our story as black people is a multifaceted one. So
(10:27):
especially in talking about resilience. It's equally important that we
name this in the ways that we tell the stories
about ourselves. What we were talking about in the beginning
is doom and gloom. But baby, it's a wake up call.
It's an awakening of these young people, these young black
and brown people that understand their power, that understand is
(10:50):
going back to the land. We have been brainwashed about
going away from the land, and we have realized the
land is our power. The land is our power. Is
so now so many black and brown young men and
women get it. They no longer believe that narrative around slavery.
They know exactly why we were brought here. They know
(11:11):
the history of agriculture here in this country, and so
what they're doing now and they're demanding justice. There's so
many I go across the country, so many young people
that want to go back to the land, you know,
and I tell them, not going to go back to
the land. But you know, get those stories from Grandpa
and Grandma about how they would never sick a day
(11:32):
in their life. They never went to a grocery store.
You know, they had their own subsistence. They were able
to maintain our household, feed their family, and so many
young people are are doing that. So many young people
and there also are being very very vocal about the
government and not relying on the government for help. For instance,
(11:55):
right now here and and I we're gonna sort of
toot my home. But right now here in New York,
you know, we've got gathered together and we have formed
this Black Black Former Fund what black form of fund
that is formed by black people to help black people
move on because you know what we have to understand
(12:18):
as a people, we always have been brainwashed and think
of ourselves in terms of deficits. But people, we are
black people, we are proud people, and coming together collectively
we are powerful and start to teach that within our
communities that you may be designating at poor, but there's
nothing poor about you. Coming together collectively, we can move mountains.
(12:43):
For so long we've been taught to take money because
of the capitalistic society, to take money and go out
of our community. Now we're talking about base building, community wealth,
social capital within our community, coming together, putting our dollars
together and making sure our doll us together are producing
black businesses, black ownership. Um with a Black farm of
(13:07):
FUMD we're now creating an opportunity whereby we collectively get
money and with that money help farmers and black owned
businesses get a start. And that comes from the essence
of understanding what communal wealth and social capital looks like.
How do you invest in the community and not think
about getting monetary return, but that return is building a
(13:32):
whole way of living where by your supporting the you're
supporting infrastructure, and you're supporting black businesses, black owned businesses. Again,
this is this is language and that talked in our community.
But now that is starting to change as people now
afforming cooperatives, they're coming together collectively, they're doing the so
(13:54):
called sus suits are bringing their money collectively and using
that money to build a community from the ground up
and making people understand the value, the true value of
our community lies within ourselves. Take away those two starting
ideas about us being always on the downside, always in
(14:16):
terms of deficits, and bring it to our community, the
wealth of resilience, of being strong and coming together to
base build our community so that at the end of
the day, our community has our faces, our values, our
businesses and instead of always looking from behind and having
outsiders come in and push I'm not talking I'm talking
(14:39):
about gentification, push us out of our own communities. We
have to now be able to stand foot within our communities.
And it's our base building and look at the unique
power that we have as a community together. And that's
what's happening. And that's why the politicians white, a lot
of white politicians, sis and people have started to to,
(15:02):
you know, get a phrase, it's yeah. You start seeing
these all of a sudden, these narratives about yeah, you know,
they're gonna come into your they're gonna come into the suburbs,
or the violence and stuff like that. Don't believe the hype.
We're base filling within our communities. Karen, this has been
(15:22):
obviously a hell of a year, but also a year
I think in some ways that you are uniquely qualified
to absorb because a lot of the ways in which
we've seen our communities protecting ourselves not only from the virus,
but protecting each other. Um, it's something that you've been
committed to for a long time. I'd like to ask you,
(15:45):
do you think that we are at a kind of
social tipping point? Have we learned something from this COVID
era that we might be able to take with us
going forward. Let's start talking about a group of society
out that's on the brink, on the brink of resistance.
I don't want to say revolution yet because a little
(16:07):
too harsh, but it's on the brink of resistance in
such a way that they are going to stand their
ground and fight back. And how they do that, hopefully
will be in a way that we come together and
demand change and stand our ground and say we will
not be moved. We're not going to be pushed out
(16:28):
of our houses. We're not going to see our children
not being fed. We're gonna stand our ground and make
sure that whoever is in that office, the political people,
that they hear our voices, that they hear our plead.
When you have means and means of people that can't
pay their right or care feed their family, that is
(16:49):
a strong That is a strong of a sentence, a
strong group of powerful people standing together to man to
demand change, and you demand change by standing your ground
and prevent yourself from being moved until change happens. And
that's what's gonna happen. That's what's gonna happen. You can't
(17:13):
take away the basic needs of people, which is food
and shelter, and expect them to just sit back and
and just take it. It's not going to happen. One
of the things that's so central to my work is
bringing in art and culture and music as a way
(17:35):
to help us think more deeply about these issues and
just be human and connect and kind of bridge this
chasm that our industrial food system is created, where you
have food on one side, and it's this commodity and
all the things that have been traditionally very central to food,
like community and culture, that they're so disconnected. So much
(17:56):
of my work is about been about bringing those things together.
Our second guest today is Bryant Terry Bryant is a
James Beard Award winning chef, educator, scholar, cookbook author, and
renowned for his activism to create healthy, just, and sustainable
food systems. He's currently the Chef in Residence at the
(18:16):
Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, where he
creates public programming that celebrates the intersection of food, farming, health, activism, art, culture,
and the entire African diaspora. His fifth book, Vegetable Kingdom,
was published earlier this year. He's someone that I'm happy
to call a friend and someone who has been in
the food justice work for a very long time. Man,
(18:40):
as you'll soon hear from him, it is his love
of Black people and black culture that has remained a
constant throughout his career. For me to recognize that there's
a thread of black lead food and health activism throughout
the twentieth century, and I'm standing on the shoulders of
many of the ancestors who have driven much of that work.
But then we could think about type the black panthers.
(19:01):
We can think about, you know, activists like did Gregory.
We think about hip hop artists like Carreras One and
others who have you brought these issues to the fore
and and force us to think about them in ways
that I think we should all be thinking about them.
Can you talk about the impetus to specifically send her
black health in your food justice work? Yeah, I'll put
(19:22):
it like this. I always say that food is simply
like lack of access to healthy, fresh, affordable and culturally
appropriate food is simply one indicator of material deprivation in
our communities. Right, And let's just talk about systemic racism
and like the daily effect that that has on our mind,
body and spirit, and you know, the release of cortisol
(19:46):
and like the the energy that it takes just dealing
with being a black person in this country. And so,
you know, I just want to say that because I
don't think you could just talk about food and expect
that even if you know, we were to create an
abundance of options for healthy, fresh, affordable and culturally appropriate
food and communities that somehow, you know, all these other
(20:10):
um issues that our community members are facing in terms
of you know, health crisis would be fully addressed. Typically
when you go to a community that doesn't have you know,
access to healthy, fresh, affordable food, good food. These are
the same communities that are also dealing with you know,
a number of barriers to just living a healthful, good life.
(20:34):
So you know, most of these communities have crumbling infrastructure, underfunded,
segregated public schools, very little safe green space for people
to be active in for their physical health, very few
jobs that pay a living wage. When we focus on food,
we need to think about the bigger issues that also
(20:56):
intersect with food. And that's why you know, this this
whole idea of talking about food aparthei and kind of
like abandoning of this archaic term food desert is important
because I think what it does is that it puts
the issues of economic inequality and systemic racism squarely in
front of us and and helps us to really understand
(21:18):
the way in which we have to deal with, you know,
these issues as well as the range of material issues
that people in communities that are dealing with food insecurity
or food injustice have to confront. People kind of move
away from this idea that you know, just focusing on
what we're consuming is somehow going to address the chronic
(21:38):
illnesses that many of our family members and community members
are facing. You know, these are systemic issues, and food
is certainly central to it. But I would say, you know,
at least and and and in the framing of their
approach and the way in which black lives matters, UM
movement generation are really encouraging, encouraging us to think about
(22:01):
kind of a pathway forward. I truly in my work
have striven and and you know, just really encouraging others
to come from a place of of of genuine love
and care for communities, right, And I think that what
that means is putting our ego aside What that means
is not feeling like we have to be right and
(22:22):
that we have two answers, and most important, meeting people
where they are definitely, definitely and speaking to this intersectional analysis,
can you talk about your work and focusing on the
maternal mortality crisis, specifically among black and Native women. What
brought this crisis into your consciousness and what is the
(22:42):
relationship to food. Yeah, well, there are a couple of things.
Um One, I had worked on this book Between Meals
that was a project of Refugee Transitions in Oakland, which
is a NGL that worked with newly arrive immigrant women
and they actually produced a book that was a cookbook
(23:03):
along with essays that allowed these women to kind of
talk about their traditional foods, talk about the way in
which you're adjusting to their new homeland, and share their
culture and so just you know, working on that project
helped me understand the immense issues that that women are
facing in our society and being more sensitive to them.
(23:25):
The second thing was actually having a child and we
my wife is Chinese American and we had a lot
of conversations with my mother in law about the role
of traditional postpartum foods and postpartum traditions that we often
um and and you know American culture, you know, we
just don't have these things like the thirty day period
(23:47):
after having a child, and like the specific foods that
you need to eat to help with kind of providing
nutrient density for the the healing mother and the child
and ensuring that they're you know, nursing well and all
these things. And so I started getting involved with this
project Mothers to Mothers, which you know, similar to the
(24:07):
food justice movement, doesn't look at the maternal health crisis
um that mostly impacts African American and Native women in isolation,
but understands that the fundamental causes of this maternal mortality
crisis is sexism. It's racism, both the historical, institutional, cultural,
and interpersonal. It's individualism, it's a for profit health care system,
(24:30):
and it's the abandonment of traditional postpartum wisdom. And so
I see this just kind of like part and parcel
of this larger food justice work that I do, because
if you think about taking care of mothers, when you
take care of mothers, you take care of the women
who ideally are providing the first food that children will
actually receive, right you know, they call like the breast
(24:54):
milk is liquid gold and it has everything that are
developing child needs. In my mind, something that the food
movement I don't think privileges, it puts a lot of
energy into is the reality that food justice is. It's
driven by the people who are most impacted by the issues.
(25:16):
Right These are the people living in communities. They recognize
the issues that they're facing, and oftentimes they have brilliant solutions,
but what they need are resources shifted, power shifted, and
then actually giving them the ability to be self determined
and address these issues and not having this kind of
paternalistic relationship where you have you know, the all knowing
(25:37):
uh snow caps uh ngo coming in and arguing that
they know the best way that these communities should be,
you know, kind of addressing the problems. I'll be the
first to say that if one has resources, the social capital,
you know, whatever you feel like you could bring to
communities to help improve conditions, I think that's a noble thing.
(25:58):
But I think the problem is that so many of
these organizations that are supposedly working towards the liberation of
these communities, they're further exploiting them. Again, it is really
hard to ignore the echo of Karen's frustration with this
exact dynamic talking about the not for profit and industrial
complex and the way in which it often reproduces harm
(26:20):
in these kind of very exploitative relationships with the communities
that they work in. And I say, if you have
like a white CEO or executive director of an organization,
or a person you know, frankly a person of color
that may not come from that community. Because it was
something that I had to really confront is understanding that
they're the racial dynamics around people coming into communities and
(26:42):
supposedly doing good work, as we've seen both here and abroad.
But then there's also the class dynamics. And I recognized that,
you know, when I was working with young people, there
was very little that I had in common with a
lot of these young people outside of the fact that
we were brown skinned, because you know, I grew up
with a lot of priv religes, and these were young
people who are dealing with not just you know, how
(27:03):
could I get some organic fruits and vegetables, but where
with my next meal coming from? And so I think
that you know, organizations that aren't actively planning to train
and bring people in the community into leadership so that
they can then run the organization. People are just playing games,
they're just you know, they're they're they're they're doing this work.
(27:23):
But you know, it really hearkens back to the origins
of the social work, the field of social work in
the United States in the early twentieth century, and we
needed to ensure that people who are most impacted by
these issues are the ones who are in the room.
You know. One of the one of the things that
really informed my thoughts about this this food justice work
(27:46):
was the second scholarly monograph that my graduate school advisor,
Robin D. G. Kelly wrote, This book called Race Rebels,
And in Race Rebels he looks at the mid twentieth
century and many of the ways in which black people
resistant capitalism and white supremacy outside of organized labor movements,
and he talked about things such as theft and breaking
(28:10):
equipment and tools, and quitting on the spot and sabotage
and how these were like these everyday acts of resistance
that we need to re examine. And so, you know,
that helped me kind of reimagine these seemingly a political
acts such as cooking and guardening and building community around
the table. And you know, reframing them is highly political,
(28:32):
dare I say radical? In the food system that's largely
controlled by a handful of multinational corporations. These corporations don't
want you cooking. They don't want you making things from scratch.
The don't want you to buy in their ready made
food and stuffing it down your face in the car
to your next job, because the one that you don't
have done pay a living wage. They don't want you
to building community around the table, then want you isolated.
(28:54):
And you know, I just think for me, we all
need to see these as as political acts alongside the
more organized movement building through organizations and through on the
ground grassroots activity. So when you lack food and it
(29:21):
becomes something you cannot take for granted, then it becomes
an important object of study or inquiry. We heard from
Dr Hannah Garth earlier this season on our Anthropology episode.
Today will be drawing from her excellent book which came
out earlier this year. It's called Food in Cuba, The
Pursuit of a Decent Meal, and she's back with us
this week to talk about her research in Cuba, to
(29:43):
talk about food rationing, ways of acquiring and really a
socialist food system. More broadly, here's Dr Garth so understanding
how groups of people are able to basically shift everything
about the way that they live, so shifting from being
subsistence agriculturalists to being people that work and live in
(30:07):
cities where you know you can't grow all of the
food that you consume and you have to rely on
a food system. I've been interested in thinking through how
people experience those forms of inequality and how people understand that.
And one of the things that is really compelling and
interesting about Cuba is that it has a food rationing
(30:30):
system where everyone is guaranteed a basic amount of food
to be able to survive, and that that food ration
has been around for over fifty years and every single
Cuban is eligible for the ration, and it originally provided
more food than it does today. They've slowly been reducing
(30:51):
the amount of food that's available in the ration, and
so this is a place where although people are provided
with the minimum that they need to survive, they're still
experiencing a sense of lack or a sense of food
scarcity because they can't it's very difficult for them to
access food. On top of that food ration body body body.
(31:30):
Unlike the United States, Cuba provides a minimum dietary sustenance
for all of their citizens in the form of food rations.
The system is still fraught and there is a racial
hierarchy in terms of who gets what which. Dr. Garth
will soon explain, but still with over thirty five million
people in the US who are food and secure, hungry
and unsure where their next meal will come from, Cuba's
(31:52):
food rationing system is a deeply imperfect, but still enviable
option that ensures none of its residents are left art body.
Although Cuba is socialist and the state does a good
job of distributing basic needs to everyone, it's still tied
(32:18):
to capitalist systems. So Cuba imports most of its food
ranges from sixty eight of the food that's consumed on
the island, and those imports are made almost exclusively in
capitalist countries, so the bread basket of Cuba is really
coming from the global industrial food system. Their rice is imported,
(32:42):
for the most part, imported. A lot of their meats
are important. When I was in Cuba, I was eating
Tyson chicken that had been raised in the United States,
had been exported to Russia and then had been imported
into Cuba UM. So so it's it's Cuba US not
UM and the government. The Cuban government definitely feels accountable
(33:06):
for providing basic needs for people. The problem that the
Cubans that I do research with faces that they feel
that the government does not address their needs and does
not sort of take into consideration other elements of what's
necessary in food beyond basic nutrition. So they want to
(33:30):
be able to make the foods that they connect with
on a cultural level, on a social level, UM on
a familial level. They want to make the things that
their grandma they're made, and the ingredients for those foods
that they view as central to who they are as
people are not available. The difference between our programs here
(33:52):
and programs in Cuba is that our programs are tied
to UM particular UH, like you have to apply for
them and you have to follow certain criteria in order
to be able to get your food benefits, whereas in Cuba,
every single person gets them, regardless of their work history,
(34:14):
how many children, they have, any other element about themselves.
So it's really available for all people in Cuba since
everyone is getting the same rationing from the government. It's
a socialist food system. Is there racism in Cuba in
a socialist food system? So in Cuba, it's important to
(34:40):
also consider that they have free socialized healthcare for everyone,
So thinking about health and food together, it's really important
to include that in the context. Thank you for that. Agree.
Although the Cuban government has done a lot to eliminate
forms of institutionalized discrimination and forms of racism, there's still
(35:05):
a lot of ongoing racism, racialized discrimination, and forms of
white supremacy that happened on the island. So there's institutionalized
discrimination that happens against black Cubans in general. There's institutionalized
racism against black Cubans that live outside of Havana or
on the eastern side of the island, who are seen
(35:26):
as country folk in a in a derogatory way. They
mean that in a directory way. So people view certain
categories of black Cubans as not sophisticated enough to eat
certain kinds of food, and therefore it's unnecessary to distribute
those kinds of foods to them. Um. So these are
(35:47):
some deeply racist understandings that Cubans have of black Cubans.
A very long standing race based problem is resource distribution.
People inherit their homes and they live in the same
neighborhoods that their parents lived in and their grandparents lived in,
(36:07):
and those neighborhoods have been racially segregated and continue to
be racially divided, and lower income neighborhoods tend to have
disproportionately high amount of Black Cubans and wealthier neighborhoods have
a disproportionate number of white Cubans. We still see very
similar patterns to what we have in the United States. Um,
(36:30):
but I do think they shake out a little bit
differently because of free socialized healthcare UM, free access to
the food ration, free education, and subsidies for things like electricity, transportation,
housing that help lower income Cubans to sort of have
(36:50):
a basic quality of life that a lot of lower
income United people in the United States do not share. So, Hannah, Um,
what we've seen in our coverage is what we would
classify as a global food movement, and specifically a movement
that is tightly bound to food and identity. So often
we see stories of reclamation, reclamation of land, reclamation of
(37:14):
ingredients of recipes, and in some cases even ideas, So
do you have any sense if there is a similar
reclamation movement happening in Cuba right now? And secondly, as
a scholar, would you mind sharing with us your hopes
for a healthier and more vibrant food system in Cuba.
I find that among certain Cuban families it's really common
(37:39):
to aspired towards eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and
fresh herbs, and people talk a lot about how they
have a conceptualization that that's how people ate before, and
people were healthier before. And so if we could get
back to, you know, not adding any processed seasoning to
(38:03):
our foods and we could use all fresh herbs and
fresh fruits and vegetables, that we would be healthier. And
then recently, with economic problems tied to COVID nineteen, the
Cuban government has been encouraging people to grow their own
vegetable gardens in any plots of land that they may have,
(38:25):
and I think people are some people are grasping onto
this as a collective way of moving towards sustainability as
a nation and being less reliant on the global food system.
So this crisis has really underscored for people how important
(38:45):
it is to improve Cuba's national food system. I mean
to just put it into one word. I think capitalism
is the problem with most food systems. It's it's the
problem with cuba food system, even though it's socialist. It's
the problem with our food system. And so if we
I mean it's quite aspirational, but if we could untether
(39:09):
profit and capitalism from food and make food into something
that is not something that corporations profit off of, we
would all be better off. I don't know exactly the
steps for moving into that direction, because you know, we're
pretty well in that direction. If you're interested in learning
(39:36):
more about Dr Guarth's work in Cuba, you can check
out her newly released book Food in Cuba, The Pursuit
of a Decent Meal, which is a perfect encapsulation of
our scholarship on the many ways in which marginalized communities
struggle to overcome structural inequalities to satisfy their most basic needs. Okay,
this is the last episode of the season. It is
(39:58):
hard to believe the many episodes down. Wow. I would
like to thank each and every single person who has
listened not only to this episode, but especially if you've
listened to multiple episodes because they keep track of those
sorts of things. You really really appreciate it. It It helps
us a lot, and we are so grateful, so thank you,
and especially to everyone who has left a review of
(40:20):
the show that is also major, so we thank you
for that as well. We are always trying to improve
not only on this podcast, but with our magazine, which
is our flagship, and with our w journal, which I
must say has been the most pleasant surprise of the year.
The stories have been tremendous and there have been no
(40:40):
shortage of them, so our foray into digital publishing, I'm
happy to say, has gone really, really well. We are
seriously overjoyed that we get to find ways to continue
to work with and learned from so many brilliant scholars, chefs,
activist journalists from all over the world, all view that
(41:00):
we get to work with who are so steeped and
whatever the thing is that you're sharing, it is contagious
and much appreciated. And it is because of you that
we get to exist, because without you, wet Stone would
just be an idea. So thank you guys all so much.
We are working on many, many more ways that we
can collaborate and Although this is our last show of
(41:22):
the year, there's still plenty of wet Stone to be
had by way of our print magazine or the aforementioned
journal on our site wet Stone Magazine dot com backslash journal.
There is always more on the way there. I'd like
to thank our guests today, the legendary Karen Washington BT,
my brother Bryant Terry, and the endlessly genius Dr Hannah Garth,
(41:44):
socio cultural and medical anthropologist, author of Food in Cuba,
The Pursuit of a Decent Meal and along with Ashanti Rees,
editor of the fabulous compilation Black Food Matters, Racial Justice
in the Wake of Food Justice and according to her Twitter,
Bio will be joining Princeton University next fall as an
(42:04):
assistant professor, So congrats to her and congrats to Princeton,
who is very lucky to have her. Finally, I'd like
to give a special shout out to our production assistant
Quentin LeBeau. If you'll have been following us on i G,
you know that for each of these episodes there is
a really stellar accompanying series of illustrations both on our
i G page but also on our website. Quentin has
(42:26):
been responsible for those illustrations and has done such a
beautiful job. They are so additive. We love having them
go with each episode. Quentin, so thank you for blessing
as Q. We really appreciate the artwork. Finally, you can
learn more about this episode and our guest on our
website wet Stone Magazine dot com, Backslash Podcast, or as
always on I G at wet Stone Magazine. That's w
(42:49):
h E T S T O n E. I'm your host,
Steven Sadderfield will be back sometime in the meantime. We'll
see you online. Piece. We'd also like to thank our
incredible podcast producer Selene Glazier. Selene, you are the best.
(43:10):
To our editor and Whetstone partner and director of video
David Alexander in London. I appreciate you, Dave. Thanks to
our wet Stone production intern Quentin le Beau, and last
but not least, my business partner Mel She who makes
all things at Whetstone possible. Thank you Mel. We'd also
(43:30):
like to thank our partners in production at I Heart
Radio to Gabrielle Collins, our supervising producer and executive producer
Christopher Haciotis. We'll be back next week with more from
the world of food worldwide Point of Origin listeners. As
(43:53):
you know, rating and reviewing our podcast is the very
best way for more p Aple to find out about
our very important work at Whetstone, So please, if you're able,
we would really appreciate a positive review in rating on
Apple podcast that will help others like yourself find out
(44:14):
about Point of Origin
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