The intersections of racism and food are nothing new to POC, although White folks continue to profess ignorance when the topic is broached. When so much of our consumption of food is cloaked in false adveritising, driven by a relentless profit motive and steeped in histories of colonialism and land theft, it’s no wonder that those in power wish to obfuscate the truth. The Thanksgiving holiday for example, neatly covers up an ugly history of genocide by putting a Hallmark spin on a historical moment: instead of learning about Indigenous farming practices and communities (which were maintained sustainably for hundreds of years prior to European intervention), nor how European colonialism systematically stripped Indigenous populations of their lands and resources, we get a fairytale about the Pilgrims and the Indians sitting down over a Fall feast.
Multinational food and biotech corporations continue to cocoon us in a myth about ‘advanced’ farming practices and biotechnologies, while ignoring the devastation that monocropping wreaks on the land, copyrighting seeds and genes to increase their profit, and supplanting hundreds of years of localized, sustainable food productivity in Third World nations with large-scale monocropping that lines the pockets of CEO’s and leaves communities, literally, starving. The next time you see one of those ubiquitous pictures of Poor Starving Brown Children in the big bad scary Third World, instead of spending 50$ on a pair of Toms to appease your guilty conscience, take a long hard look at your food consumption: do you know where your fruits and vegetables come from? Who picked them? Whose land it was planted on? Do you know where the myths about eating lots of meat and drinking tons of cow’s milk comes from? Are you truly aware of the forces shaping your eating habits? The scorn and derision directed at vegetarians, in the Midwest in particular and in the US in general, comes directly from a colonialist history that constructed excessive meat and dairy consumption as a signifier of wealth, power and thereby superiority.
By fashioning their consumption habits as superior, Europeans bequeathed themselves the prerogative to usurp Indigenous lands, overrun POC cultures and destroy sustainable, localized farming practices. People like to think that vegetarians are single-handedly out to destroy the American farm, but the American farm as we romanticize it no longer exists. We can no longer meet the producers of our food face to face, shake their hands as we purchase vegetables harvested on their land, build a communal relationship based on trust and mutuality.
Instead, both producer and consumer answer to the corporations, the bloated middle-men who aggressively control what, where and how much farmers grow, and then adulterate those products to squeeze every last bit of profit they can out of the consumers. Meanwhile, heart disease, high-blood pressure and diabetes rates are soaring, more people than ever are struggling with disordered and/or emotional eating, the ingredients list on our food-boxes read like chemistry experiments, the media tells us to blame the fat people, and no one has a freaking clue how we got here or what we should do. Over the last six months, I’ve transitioned to clean eating: high consumption of locally grown vegetables and fruits (or as close to local as I can get them), getting protein and fat from clean sources like nuts, Greek yoghurt and beans, and absolutely no high fructose corn syrup. This means that I have to make almost everything I eat from scratch, including bread and tortillas. While I still have a ways to go in divesting myself of emotional/disordered eating, for the first time in my life I feel in control of my food: the difference is like going from a controlling, manipulative relationship to one of trust and healthy emotional connection.
As a Third World woman, this is going back to my roots. This is eating the way my grandmothers ate, and still eat. Cuisine from Thailand, Sri Lanka and India naturally lends itself to a healthy, sustainable diet because for hundreds of years, our staples were vegetables, fruits, grains, locally caught fish and locally grown rice. Our food takes love and dedication to prepare, and it pleasures the senses while also nourishing the body and soul. In this, as in much else, the so called First World stands to learn a great deal from the people they’ve spent centuries exterminating, subjugating and erasing.
disclaimer: posting cos Thanksgiving is on my mind atm, as is how often race + food politics media advocates for some POC by tokenizing others [and how often white people don’t see it, because saying the right anti-racist things doesn’t automatically equal being aware of, or uncomfortable that, POC who shouldn’t have to are kind of negatively competing for your support in white dominated political networks].
e.g. posting as general food symbolism food for thought, not cos i 100% share the views [‘clean’ eating] or really want to be talking about Thanksgiving in Australia.
![Growing Native Request for Stories
Deadline: March 16, 2012 Notification: April 15, 2012
NAPT seeks stories that can be included in the seven-part series, Growing Native, which will focus on reclaiming traditional knowledge and food ways to address critical issues of health and wellness, the environment and human rights. Growing Native will focus on Tribes, stories and events from seven geographic regions, including the Northwest, Southwest, Southern Plains/Oklahoma, Northeast, Southeast, Northern Plains/Canada and Alaska.
Across the country, Native people are regaining health and strength through the recovery and revitalization of traditional knowledge systems of land, language, traditional arts and health. Segments intended for Growing Native will be five to fifteen-minutes in length, and will also be part of rich, web-based interactive media. The series will offer concrete advice and tools for Native viewers and others whose communities are struggling with obesity and related health problems. Additionally, the program website will feature resources for students and parents about Native history, language, food production and community health for each region the series explores. …
How to submit your story ideas: Because each segment will be part of an hour-long program, Growing Native will have a Lincoln-based series producer that will direct the overall production standards and branding. Together with KNME-TV, Beverly Morris and Chris Eyre, we have produced a trailer to give you a sense of the “feel” of the series. [at link, with application forms]
via Growing Native Request for Stories | NAPT
signal boost](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwt1mdDOOf1qzoz4do1_250.png)
![The intersections of racism and food are nothing new to POC, although White folks continue to profess ignorance when the topic is broached. When so much of our consumption of food is cloaked in false adveritising, driven by a relentless profit motive and steeped in histories of colonialism and land theft, it’s no wonder that those in power wish to obfuscate the truth. The Thanksgiving holiday for example, neatly covers up an ugly history of genocide by putting a Hallmark spin on a historical moment: instead of learning about Indigenous farming practices and communities (which were maintained sustainably for hundreds of years prior to European intervention), nor how European colonialism systematically stripped Indigenous populations of their lands and resources, we get a fairytale about the Pilgrims and the Indians sitting down over a Fall feast.
Multinational food and biotech corporations continue to cocoon us in a myth about ‘advanced’ farming practices and biotechnologies, while ignoring the devastation that monocropping wreaks on the land, copyrighting seeds and genes to increase their profit, and supplanting hundreds of years of localized, sustainable food productivity in Third World nations with large-scale monocropping that lines the pockets of CEO’s and leaves communities, literally, starving. The next time you see one of those ubiquitous pictures of Poor Starving Brown Children in the big bad scary Third World, instead of spending 50$ on a pair of Toms to appease your guilty conscience, take a long hard look at your food consumption: do you know where your fruits and vegetables come from? Who picked them? Whose land it was planted on? Do you know where the myths about eating lots of meat and drinking tons of cow’s milk comes from? Are you truly aware of the forces shaping your eating habits? The scorn and derision directed at vegetarians, in the Midwest in particular and in the US in general, comes directly from a colonialist history that constructed excessive meat and dairy consumption as a signifier of wealth, power and thereby superiority.
By fashioning their consumption habits as superior, Europeans bequeathed themselves the prerogative to usurp Indigenous lands, overrun POC cultures and destroy sustainable, localized farming practices. People like to think that vegetarians are single-handedly out to destroy the American farm, but the American farm as we romanticize it no longer exists. We can no longer meet the producers of our food face to face, shake their hands as we purchase vegetables harvested on their land, build a communal relationship based on trust and mutuality.
Instead, both producer and consumer answer to the corporations, the bloated middle-men who aggressively control what, where and how much farmers grow, and then adulterate those products to squeeze every last bit of profit they can out of the consumers. Meanwhile, heart disease, high-blood pressure and diabetes rates are soaring, more people than ever are struggling with disordered and/or emotional eating, the ingredients list on our food-boxes read like chemistry experiments, the media tells us to blame the fat people, and no one has a freaking clue how we got here or what we should do. Over the last six months, I’ve transitioned to clean eating: high consumption of locally grown vegetables and fruits (or as close to local as I can get them), getting protein and fat from clean sources like nuts, Greek yoghurt and beans, and absolutely no high fructose corn syrup. This means that I have to make almost everything I eat from scratch, including bread and tortillas. While I still have a ways to go in divesting myself of emotional/disordered eating, for the first time in my life I feel in control of my food: the difference is like going from a controlling, manipulative relationship to one of trust and healthy emotional connection.
As a Third World woman, this is going back to my roots. This is eating the way my grandmothers ate, and still eat. Cuisine from Thailand, Sri Lanka and India naturally lends itself to a healthy, sustainable diet because for hundreds of years, our staples were vegetables, fruits, grains, locally caught fish and locally grown rice. Our food takes love and dedication to prepare, and it pleasures the senses while also nourishing the body and soul. In this, as in much else, the so called First World stands to learn a great deal from the people they’ve spent centuries exterminating, subjugating and erasing.
via The Politics of Eating Part I: Food, Love, History and Thanksgiving | Irresistible Revolution).
disclaimer: posting cos Thanksgiving is on my mind atm, as is how often race + food politics media advocates for some POC by tokenizing others [and how often white people don’t see it, because saying the right anti-racist things doesn’t automatically equal being aware of, or uncomfortable that, POC who shouldn’t have to are kind of negatively competing for your support in white dominated political networks].
e.g. posting as general food symbolism food for thought, not cos i 100% share the views [‘clean’ eating] or really want to be talking about Thanksgiving in Australia.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luyhccBi4A1qzoz4do1_r1_250.jpg)
