#And they do NOT share Lewis' values and will not have his back against racism. Not that merc always did but. Even less so | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

docs4poc · 4 years

Text

7/20 Black Lives Day of Action: Event Transcript

Yasmin Rawlins: Hello, everyone, and welcome. Thank you so very much for joining us. This is the Black Lives Day of Action organized by many amazing people, including residents, nurses, medical students at UCLA, LAC-USC, Harbor, Olive View, and Charles Drew University. And thank you all for joining us. This is really part of an incredible movement. And we are all working so hard to improve and to increase justice throughout our communities and for our patients. My name is Yasmin Rawlins. I am a second year psychiatry resident over at LAC-USC, I identify as a Black woman. And my journey to this point has included Docs4POC. So, back in May, we founded Docs4POC. It was designed as a group of healthcare professionals advocating for social justice for communities of color throughout the United States. I just like to briefly read our mission statement because I feel like that really encapsulates what we stand for and what we're trying to do. We at Docs4POC believe it is our duty as physicians to advocate for all of our patients rights to health and wellness. We believe that health happens both inside and outside of the hospital or clinic. We believe it is our responsibility as physicians to address the social determinants of health in addition to the biological determinants. We believe that the existence of health and healthcare inequalities anywhere and to any person is unjust. We believe that every person, regardless of race, ethnicity, ancestry, citizenship status or national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital or parental status, religion, political affiliation, income, age or disability deserves the right to health. I would also like to acknowledge the land that we are on. We are currently standing in the territory of the Tongva and Chumash people. We would like to acknowledge our history of colonialism in this country and the ongoing colonial practices that still harm people of color and particularly Native American people today. We know that indigenous peoples were on this land and caring for this land long before us. If you can, drop wherever you are in the chat to let everyone know where everyone's coming from. And I'd like to pass this off to Kelechi for opening remarks.

Kelechi Okpara: Good afternoon. My name is Kelechi Okpara. I'm a second year medical student here at UCLA Drew and also the SNMA Maps co-coordinator. Thank you everyone for joining this virtual protest in solidarity with the Service Employees International Union Strike for Black Lives. Although many of you are unable to leave work, you have still joined thousands of others protesting deep seated and interconnected systems that work to oppress communities of color.

We gather today to draw attention to the racism and economic oppression embedded in our institutions - oppression that hurts all of us. These practices are all around us. We live on stolen land, and continue to pollute our environment. We limit economic investment in our Black, indigenous, Latinx, and other communities of color. We allow daily violence by police and other actors of the state. We have failed in our federal response to keep our most essential workers - many undocumented, and many being people of color in CA - safe from the COVID pandemic. Our homeless and incarcerated populations, disproportionately people of color, continue to suffer outsize risk. How do you shelter in place without shelter? How do you wash your hands without soap or sanitizer? We know too well that this pandemic is disproportionately impacting communities that have already weathered so much.

Racism, poverty, sexism, nativism, ableism - every one of these systems work in tandem to disenfranchise even the most vibrant and resilient members of our community.

This is the reason why we have gathered today - out of love for our communities, and out of hope that together, we can care for one another and pull through the multiple crises of our time: racism, economic inequity, environmental destruction, and the COVID pandemic. We acknowledge everyone who placed their lives on the line to protest, even after media coverage has ceased. But it is not enough to protest. We acknowledge those around the country, at this very moment, holding 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence in remembrance of George Floyd. But it is not enough to hold vigil. We must turn our collective grief, anger, and indignation into actions. We must march not just in our city streets but to the ballot box this November. We must hold our governments accountable, and implement laws and policies to ensure a more just future. We must protect workers and their right to collectively organize and form unions. We must continue to demand justice for the deceased like Breonna Taylor, who cannot possibly rest in peace while their killers walk free.

In our action, we commit to our duty to stand against every injustice that plagues our society and takes the lives of our Black brothers and sisters. We commit to our duty to unearth the ways portions of our society have trampled on others in their pursuit of the “American Dream”. What is an “American Dream” if Black and brown Americans from all walks of life cannot also see their own dreams fulfilled? We must dream bigger than our predecessors, and lift our voices louder than those who have already worked so hard to get us to where we are today. Now I’d like to invite some of our community and union members to speak.

Andrew. Andrew Lewis: Yes, thank you so much for that introduction Kelechi. I greatly appreciate it. And I just want to share a couple of things with y'all. Brothers and sisters, my name is Andrew Lewis, I’m with the North Westwood Neighborhood Council. And I'm proud to stand with SEIU today, and their national strike for Black lives. I want to say that none of us are free until we're all free. Freedom is not a state. It's an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau, where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is a continuous action we must all take. And each generation must do its part to create an even more fair and more just society, as said by the late John Lewis. So let me repeat that freedom is not a state. It's a continuous act. It's a fight. It's a struggle. It's indefinite. And it's why we're gathered here today to collectively make our voices heard. That enough is enough. That Black Lives Matter, that Black health matters, that Black nurses matter, that Black doctors matter. I personally call on our elected leaders to ensure that frontline workers have access to hazard pay to sick leave, and personal protective equipment during this COVID 19 pandemic. To enable a healthy and just society, we must invest in a healthy democracy. We invite you to take action with us to exercise your right to vote, to speak up, to get in some good trouble and to be loud. Protect our frontline workers. So thank you. And with that, I'll pass it over to sister Aqueelah Tillman for some words.

Aqueelah Tillman: Thank you. Hi all. My name is Aqueelah Tillman, and I'm a registered nurse here at UCLA Westwood campus, and I am here to speak on behalf of CNA and solidarity with SEIU. As healthcare providers, we have to understand that we work and operate in an inherently racist healthcare system. Systemic discrimination and racism is supported by institutional policies and implicit bias. This system affects the way that African Americans and other individuals of color experienced illness resulting in worsened outcomes and increasing levels of premature death. Registered nurses know that our patient’s health is not only determined by what happens when they encounter the healthcare system, but also by the state of social determinants of their lives in our society. It is important as nurses to assert our presence and our expertise in any public health crises, specifically one surrounding racism. Nurses have to accept acknowledge and recognize the disparities that exists. Nurses have the responsibility to be committed to understanding the systemic issues and prompting and allowing conversations that lead to direct action. As nurses, we must identify bias and address it in order to provide our patients with the necessary resources and our materials while under our care. Nurses have to be advocates for all patients. Nurses have to be at the forefront by transforming nursing education. Nurses have the ability to create and structure evidence based programs and initiatives that decrease disparities. Nurses have to commit to promoting and being active and local and state and national policies to increase access equity and the health protection. It is also important that nurses are representative of the population in which they serve and understand that racism in any form is not only harmful to society, but it’s also a direct opposition to the values and ethical code of the nursing profession.

Kelechi Okpara: Thank you very much for those powerful words, Andrew and Aqueelah. And just as our ancestors relied on the power of song to move mountains and strengthen their communities, today, we are going to do just that. They are based in Oakland, California, and their music illuminates the joy, pain, and beauty of what it means to be human in this time of systemic transformation. Today, two of their artists will lead us in song. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Our goal is to create a beloved community and that will require qualitative change in our souls as well as quantitative change in our lives.” We kindly remind you to keep your masks on while singing, particularly if indoors, and to maintain six feet apart from each other, for your own safety and those around you.

Please join us in welcoming Thrive Choir.

Dyna Erie: Hi, thank you so much for having us. My name is Dyna Erie and I have been singing with the choir for four years now and I just want to take a moment to say thank you all so much for what you're doing. I am not gonna get too emotional but I do feel emotional being a part of this. So thank you, for your work for keeping us healthy. And so anyway,I’ll sing a song that is inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We turned his words into a song because we really feel the resonance with it. And if it can be something that you sing while you're walking on the street, or whenever. It might help our worlds just turn a little bit softer and a little bit kinder. So the words are - and I'm going to have you all sing with me. So I'm gonna be watching.

I can never be what I ought to be, until you are who you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be, until I am who I ought to be. So it goes like this, and then there's two parts.

This interrelated reality This inescapable mutuality

[ group sings]

Thank you so much. Y'all have a good day now.

Kele Nitoto: Hello, y'all. My name is Kele Nitoto Thank you so much, Dyna. I’m also with Thrive choir, and that was so beautiful. I'm gonna sing a song. I'll probably throw a couple other songs in there but I'm gonna sing a song by Osibisa called Woyaya. And the words go like this:

We are going Heaven knows where we are going. We know we will Heaven knows how we will get there. We know we will. It will be hard we know and the road will be muddy and rough. But we will get there. Heaven knows how we will get there. We know we will. Alright, right. So let's start with that. And we'll see where we go from there. All right, here we go.

[ group sings ]

Woyaya woyaya What Lyndsey Scott said –

We don’t have the know the way, the way knows the way We don’t have to plan the way, that’s the way, feel your way The way knows, the way knows, the way knows the way It will be hard we know and the road will be muddy and rough. But the way knows the way But we will get there. Heaven knows how we will get there The way knows the way Thank you very much.

Yasmin Rawlins: Thank you so so very much to Thrive Choir for those absolutely beautiful moments of celebration and remembrance and honoring the people, many of our ancestors who paved the way for us today, and whose shoulders we now stand on. In many ways, music is healing. But it is also powerful, and it can be a source of strength in this continuous battle for justice. Before we wrap up, I'll hand it off to Kelechi once again for some closing remarks.

Kelechi Okpara: Thank you to everyone who has joined us today. We would like to also give gratitude to the organizations who had a role in today’s action - SEIU, Docs 4 POC, CIR, LMSA, SNMA, Thrive Choir, and our guest speakers.

Racial justice is an ongoing fight. Health equity is an ongoing fight. We cannot simply act once and sit back. We must tirelessly raise our voices in solidarity. We must commit to this fight, advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves. It is our collective voices that will spark the flame for enacting change across our institution and Los Angeles county.

We ask you to start those difficult conversations. Hold those accountable who perpetuate these injustices. Hold governments accountable with your vote. Hold corporations accountable by supporting and protecting unions. Hold institutions accountable by mobilizing your communities, articulating your demands, and advocating for them - like the petitions circulating for the anti-racist transformation of UCLA Health. Ask constantly, who have we hurt in our current policies? Who have we left out? How can we serve them better? Show love to one another, but especially to these marginalized populations. Raise YOUR voice.

There is power in the words we speak, the stories we share, and the voices we uplift. We thank you all who have decided to no longer be silent. We charge you to continue to fight against these inequities with your voice, and perhaps with your own unique song in your heart. Together, we are stronger than ever before and we will not be docile, we will not be quiet.

In the words of the late Honorable John Lewis, who tirelessly advocated for our precious, almost sacred, right to vote: “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Yasmin Rawlins: Rest in peace and power to the honorable John Lewis. Thank you all again for joining us today. Today's gathering has been recorded and will be available later on (Docs4POC) YouTube channel. Look for (Docs4POC) on YouTube to access and share widely. If you haven't already, please register for this event at https://tinyurl.com/ucla4blm the Eventbrite for today's action, in order to receive an email with follow up actions, including a zoom call on Monday 7/27 at 6:30pm, where you can connect with each other and some of our resident organizers. Once again, the URL is https://tinyurl.com/ucla4blm.

We encourage you now to tune in to the live stream by SEIU. SEIU today is striking for Black lives and we support them in their actions. Go to facebook.com/SEIU to hear stories from workers on why they are striking for Black lives on this national day of action.

youtube

#docs4poc blacklivesmatter dayofaction healthmatters socialjustice

0 notes

realeconomicimpact · 7 years

Text

Let America Be America Again (By Darren Walker)

By Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation

(reprinted with permission from the Ford Foundation)

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.) – Langston Hughes, Let America Be America Again, 1936

In moments of uncertainty, we often return to familiar touchstones.

For me, one such anchor of comfort and clarity is the poetry of Langston Hughes, icon of the Harlem Renaissance.

During recent weeks, I’ve found myself ruminating on Hughes’s Let America Be America Again, especially its astonishing opening stanzas. In these ten lines, Hughes evokes the power of the American promise, coupled with the pain of indignity and inequality. He speaks to the complex mix of rage and hope, of anxiety and optimism, that characterizes the black experience in America—and which I would argue has characterized the experience of many Americans at some point, white, brown, black, indigenous, and immigrant. Over the past year, it has become clear that the noxious swill of rage and anxiety remains as potent as ever. Regardless of which side of the US election each of us was on, we all find ourselves living with a public discourse that has become increasingly callous, contemptuous, and polarizing. So, as we launch ourselves into a new year, I find myself reflecting on where we go from here—how we counterbalance anger and hopelessness with radical hope and optimism, and how we create, in Hughes’s perfectly-chosen words, “that great strong land of love” and dignity for all.

Two reactions to our current moment

Hughes’s poem captures a tension I’ve noticed in many of my daily interactions over the past several weeks, in all kinds of settings and among all kinds of people, including myself: a tension between a sense that our times are dangerously unprecedented, and a sense that while dangerous, they are all too familiar.

On the one hand, many of us feel that the world has been turned upside down. To read the headlines is to see an unfamiliar landscape in which several unsettling trends have converged. The proliferation of fake news and the prevalence of brazen falsehoods on air and online are undermining faith in basic facts. The bourgeoning democratic institutions that captured the imagination of Alexis de Tocqueville nearly 200 years ago—our civil society, our free press, our universities—are increasingly beleaguered and besieged. Rising hate speech and violence across the country has rightfully frightened many people. All of this constitutes an assault on what we thought were well-established societal norms.

On the other hand, some of us look to history and recognize that our current moment is not without precedent. To me, one clear parallel is America’s post-Reconstruction era in the South, when some Americans worked to roll back and repeal the hard-won voting rights, educational, and economic opportunities that brought freedom and dignity to the lives of so many of their fellow citizens.

Indeed, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and all kinds of othering are not new. Identity politics has always been a part of American life. Our founding fathers codified identity politics into our earliest documents, valuing the voices and contributions of white men above all others: Women were denied the right to vote; enslaved African Americans counted as three-fifths of a person; indigenous peoples were exploited and marginalized. And throughout our history, waves of immigrants from Europe and elsewhere were initially met with suspicion and often discrimination. It’s important to remember that over the course of our long, messy march towards justice, women and men—not just our predecessors, but we, the people, of every generation—have endured prejudice and persecution. We have seen it with our own eyes, and lived it in our own lives.

I’ll never forget coming of age as a gay man in the 1980s—watching AIDS ravage our community as politicians stayed silent. I’ll never forget the brutality of Apartheid, and how our own American government condemned Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and the freedom fighters seeking to end that unconscionable regime. I’ll never forget watching as the marches and protests unfolded in Ferguson in August of 2014, or standing with John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge a few months later, awestruck as he recounted the bloody Sunday in Selma fifty years earlier.

America’s rich and inspiring history has taught us that progress is not linear. As the dazzling Zadie Smith recently wrote, “progress is never permanent, will always be threatened, must be redoubled, restated, and reimagined if it is to survive.” So while these twin reactions—the sense that our moment is either unprecedented or has clear precedent —may seem at odds, they actually reaffirm a deeper understanding of the persistence of injustice in our world. They also remind us of the strength we must continue to find within ourselves to persevere and fight for our democratic institutions and ideals.

Confronting divisions, affirming dignity

Over the past three years, I’ve written about the ways inequality creates and exacerbates divisions. These include divisions of class, race, gender, identity, and ability, as well as differences in how we make sense of injustice in our lives.

There is no better illustration of this last category than the political binary of an election year, when our two-party system induces us to spend months defining our collective future in terms of us versus them, this stark choice versus that one. This rhetoric reinforces the notion of zero sum outcomes, and encourages us to believe that the gains of one happen at the expense of another.

We must resist this impulse. It is easy to lose sight of what we have in common, but the fact is that all of us share a fundamental human aspiration: to live in dignity. This is true no matter what we look like, where we live, how we worship, who we love, or what our abilities are. Whether by holding a decent-paying job, having agency in the decisions that affect us, or freely expressing our thoughts and creativity, we spend our lives in pursuit of dignity for ourselves and our families. Recognizing this universal quest for dignity is a prerequisite for any meaningful work toward social justice.

I am not suggesting that dignity is guaranteed. There are people and systems that seek to rob people of their innate dignity. They advance narratives that pit communities against one another—that permit some to falsely claim that the only way to ensure dignity for yourself is to strip it from others.

Of course, the dignity of one person does not preclude that of another. We can lift a poor Latina out of poverty and save a rural white man’s factory job. We can fight to protect black lives and the lives of the law enforcement officers who protect us. We can hold up a beacon of light for the “tempest-tost” refugees who seek safety and opportunity on our shores, and feel safe and secure in our neighborhoods and gathering places.

I’m not simply saying that we can do all of these things; I’m saying we must.

Our current context demands we question our assumptions and expand our understanding of who is vulnerable and excluded. If inequality fuels the fault lines of division, then our shared pursuit of dignity must help bridge the gaps. To borrow a phrase from the brilliant artist Lilla Watson, our liberation is bound up together.

The path forward: “America will be!”

It might be tempting to ignore or abandon the mutual obligation that ties us together, to embrace a kind of nihilism of indifference or, worse, to retreat into anxiety or rage. But we can choose a better path forward. With history as our guide, we can follow a path of hope—radical hope.

For Langston Hughes, born in 1902, the gap between America’s promise and its practices was wide. The great-grandchild of slaves on one side and slaveholders on the other—the child of educators and organizers—Hughes lived a life that demonstrated that the overwhelming fact of injustice does not obviate or relieve in any way our responsibility to act against it. He showed that a person can simultaneously feel righteous anger about the world and radical optimism for it. We must affirm the creed to which he gave voice, that the work of creating the America we envision requires optimism and resolve.

“America never was America to me,” Hughes wrote in the penultimate stanza of his masterpiece. “And yet I swear this oath—America will be!”

For as much progress as we have made, America has yet to fully live up to its promise and founding aspiration to be a nation of liberty, dignity, and justice for all. Yet this noble vision remains as profound as ever.

At the Ford Foundation, our commitment to achieving this vision will not change. We resolve to continue fostering a fairer, more just America and world. We remain steadfast and unyielding in our support of the institutions and leaders fighting injustice and addressing inequality of every kind and category. And we are grateful for your leadership—and partnership—during the critical months and years ahead.

Please visit the Ford Foundation website for more information about the organization and its work.

2 notes · View notes

quakerjoe · 7 years

Photo

I think this is the best response to my queries about how ‘the other side’ sees things. Written by the admin of - On Point

“Now that we have a new asshole in the position of POTUS, here are some thoughts for those that put him in charge and what I think of them............I meet you all the time. You hate Obama. You hate gay people. You hate black people, immigrants, Muslims, labor unions, women who want the right to make choices concerning their bodies, you hate em all. You hate being called racist. You hate being called a bigot. Maybe if you talked about creating jobs more than you talk about why you hate gay people we wouldn't call you bigots. Maybe if you talked about black people without automatically assuming they are on food stamps while demanding their birth certificates we wouldn't call you racist. You hate socialism and social justice. You hate regulations and taxes and spending and the Government. You hate. You like war. You like torture. You like Jesus. I don't know how in the hell any of that is compatible, but no one ever accused you haters of being over-committed to ideological consistency. You like people who look like you or at least hate most of the things that you hate. You hate everything else. Now, I know you profess to love our country and the founding fathers (unless you are reminded that they believed in the separation of church and state), but I need to remind you that America is NOT what Fox News says it is. America is a melting pot, it always has been. We are a multi-cultural amalgamation of all kinds of people, and yet you still demonize everyone who is not a rich, white, heterosexual christian male or his submissive and obedient wife. You hate liberals, moderates, hell, anyone who disagrees with Conservative dogma as espoused by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. You hate em. Well, here are the facts, Jack. If you hate the Government then you are unqualified to manage it. If you hate gay people more than you love America than you should take your own advice and get the hell out. There are several countries that are openly hostile to gay people, but they are full of brown people and you don't like them much either from what I understand. It looks like you are screwed, but that's not what I am here to tell you. Now that you have thrown everything and the kitchen sink at President Obama and it still hasn't worked you are panicking. Obama's approval ratings are still near 50% despite your best efforts to undermine the economy and America's recovery at every step you can. You tried to hold the American economy hostage to force America into default on its' debts, debts that YOU rang up under Bush, so you could blame it on Obama and it failed. You've used the filibuster more than any other Congress ever, going so far as to vote against providing health care access to 9/11 first responders. You remember 9/11, don't you, it's that thing you used to lie us into a war in Iraq, and then when Obama killed Bin Laden and ended the war in Iraq you told people that he hates America and wants the troops to fail. You monsters. You hate Obama with a passion, despite the fact that he is a tax cutting, deficit reducing war President who undermines civil rights and delivers corporate friendly watered down reforms that benefit special interests just like a Republican. You call him a Kenyan. You call him a socialist. You dance with your hatred singing it proudly in the rain like it was a 1950's musical. Frankly, you disgust me. Your hatred nauseates me. Your bigotry offends me. Your racism revolts me. Dear haters, I am openly questioning your patriotism. I think you hate gays, Obama, black people, poor people, all of us, women, atheists and agnostics, Latinos, Muslims, Liberals, all of us, I think you hate every one who isn't exactly like you, and I think you hate us more than you love your country. I think you hate gay soldiers more than you want America to win its wars. I don't even think you want America to win wars, you just want America to have wars, never ending wars and the war profiteering it generates. You love that kind of spending, you love spending on faith based initiatives and abstinence based sex education (George Carlin would have loved that one), you love spending on subsidies for profitable oil corporations, you spend like drunken sailors when you are in the White House, but if it is a Democrat then suddenly you cheer when America doesn't get the Olympics because it might make the black President look bad. But oooh you love your country, you say, and you want it back. Well listen here skippy, it isn't your country, you don't own it, it is our country, and America is NOT the religiously extremist Foxbots who hate science, elitist professors and having a vibrant and meaningful sex life with someone we love if Rick Santorum doesn't approve of it. Rick Santorum isn't running for America's fucking high school dance chaperone, he should probably just shut the hell up about sex, but he can't because he has nothing else to run on. Republicans can NOT win on the issues. They've got NOTHING. All they have is a divide and conquer class war that pits ignorant racist and bigoted people against the rest of us in a meaningless battle of wedge issues and the already proven to fail George W. Bush agenda again of tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, privatization and war profiteering and nothing else, so all they can do is blame black people, gays the government, anybody and everyone else for their own failings. The party of personal responsibility, my ass. But they love multi-national corporations, just ask a gay hating and racist religious extremist if they think Corporations are people and they will gladly agree, but if you ask them if gay people are people they aren't so sure. Dear haters, you are the cruel, heartless misinformed assholes who would sell America out to Haliburton in a heartbeat, you would rather pay ZERO taxes than you would see a newly born baby get access to quality health care, you cheer when we discuss denying health care to young people with preventable diseases, and you boo when we discuss the First Ladies plan to cut back on childhood obesity. You are a cross to carry and a flag to wrap yourself in away from being the people who Sinclair Lewis warned us about, but I guarantee that if Fox News told you to dress that way you would, because you are the same blind, ignorant and closed minded dunces who drove this country into a civil war years ago because you are bound to the notion that some men are more equal than others. In short, the reason I proudly wear my union army hat is because of seditious sell outs like you who constantly fuck over working class Americans so a foreign entrepreneur like Rupert Murdoch can get a bigger tax break. If corporations are people, they are neither American patriots nor capable of love. Just like you. So stop wearing your hate with pride. Stop celebrating your anti-science, anti-math ignorance. Stop using code words to mask your bigotry like "family values", especially when you hate my family and when you stand on the same stage as a guy who has had three marriages or if you share a seat in the Senate with a guy who cheated on his wife with hookers while wearing diapers. You should be ashamed. I know that you are just doing this to motivate your misinformed hate cult base because if they actually knew that your ideas will make them poorer than they are now, they would never vote for you. You are doing your best to impoverish your countrymen so rich people can get bigger tax breaks and you can keep on delivering corporate welfare to the special interests who have bribed you, and I am disgusted by the way you gleefully parade your hatred with aplomb. I don't think you do love America. At least, not as much as you hate everyone in America who isn't exactly like you. You should think about that, and maybe get some help. And for the record, I do not hate you. I am embarrassed by you and nauseated by your cruel and thoughtless behavior and your all consuming greed, but I do not hate you. I forgive you and I hope you can change someday, but I don't hate you. You have enough hate in you for the rest of us as it is.”

4 notes · View notes

blacklivematters-blog · 7 years

Text

The Future Of Food Is Black

Check out https://blacklivematters.tumblr.com/

The Future Of Food Is Black

As a food professional, activist and educator, I deeply understand that caring about food means caring about people.

For the past decade, I’ve worked within a movement that upholds values of “good, clean and fair,” yet remains quiet or woefully tone-deaf in conversations about black and brown people, specifically in regards to racism, state-sanctioned violence, and rising inequality. Whether I’m simmering large vats of Blenheim apricots for award-winning artisan preserves (what up, Mrs. Abby Fisher!), frying up cornmeal-crusted local fish filets for a community dinner, chatting with black youth on how to organize around better school lunches, or helping expand EBT SNAP benefits at farmer’s markets, it’s ultimately about nourishing and uplifting people.

In a very real sense, the future of food is people. And that future looks a lot like me: a young, black woman, hungry for change.

Black people still struggle to put good meals on their tables every day due to the rising costs of food and the lasting impact of supermarket redlining. This future was also written long ago. You see, my journey to feed others well was paved by black women across food landscape for generations before me From the revered restaurant of the iconic Leah Chase, to the soulful sophistication of Edna Lewis’ cooking, to the field organizing of activist-farmer Fannie Lou Hamer, black women have been central figures in the public development of American cuisine. Beyond these accolades, our country’s has a deeper history still of countless lesser-known black women, enslaved in fields and kitchens, who have fed children not their own and who have long shaped our most celebrated foodways, recipes and sustainable agricultural practices.

Despite this rich history, I often feel alone. Our national good food obsession can curate Instagrams of oozing sandwich stacks higher than black folks’ restaurant wages. Our movement marches against an unknown impact of GMOs, but not to change the known dearth of food spaces with black CEOs.

Without my people up front and counted, the good food movement is deafeningly hollow. I’m tired of good intentions served up on white guilt–driven platters. And whenever I’m met with yet another eye-rolling marketing campaign Columbusing collards, the erasure of black folks is painfully felt. The good food movement hasn’t fully figured out how to effectively center the literal bodies that wash our Heath ceramic dishes or gingerly prepare our $125 tasting menus.

All of this is very hard to swallow. Especially when black people still struggle to put good meals on their tables every day due to the rising costs of food and the lasting impact of supermarket redlining. Black farmers still operate less than a half percent of U.S. farmland, and black people are crushingly excluded from good restaurant jobs. The ownership of food businesses and access to necessary capital are still highly stratified along racial lines. And the winners of profit margin-critical food awards and accolades are still as homogenous as selfies of a Trump-era House GOP.

The time is now to respond to how physical, psychological, and economic violence and neglect disproportionately impact black and brown communities, particularly through our food and farming system. There are specific in ways that food and farming issues intersect with movement building to empower and liberate black people. I cannot separate my identities as a “food person” and a “Black person;” the changing future of food and farming means organizing and feeding folks at this critical intersection.

But, I am not doing this work by my damn self.

The good food movement and its leaders have a social responsibility to acknowledge and address the ways in which systems of oppression marginalize people of color, inside and out of our industry.

Food injustice parallels racial injustice. The good food movement is not exempt from this crucial work because it appears to “not be our problem.” For instance, when our co-workers in the fields or in kitchens are targeted and face unlawful detentions because of collusion between local police departments and ICE – it’s a food problem. When big food retailers are allowed to rely on cheap, prison labor to produce goods – it’s a food problem. When Black and Native American farmers faced decades of systemic bias in access to capital and credit and land loss from the USDA – it’s a food problem. When young people have to organize non-violent, direct action to raise awareness of BLM in silent/tone-deaf food spaces within their own communities – it’s a food problem. When we simply prioritize well-intentioned ideas around “nutrition and access,” but ignore the resulting racial inequity, gentrification and increased police surveillance in communities of color – it’s a food problem.

The good food movement needs to demonstrate an understanding that food injustice parallels racial injustice. Our Movement for Black Lives can continue to create points of collaboration where food people and food spaces can be included within strategies for our resistance. We already know that people of color disproportionately bear the burden of diet-related illnesses, poverty and a lack of access to fresh, affordable food. These health and socio-economic factors serve as the salt in a festering, deep wound that we must bind and heal through self-determination, equity and right relationship with the land.

And it is young black people who will lead the conversation on changing our food and farming systems.

Our healing will come and bellies will be full when we dismantle corporate control of our food systems by empowering our own communities. This is already happening. We’re teaching our own to launch good food businesses. We’re going back to the land on our terms and with our own seeds. We’re creating space for conversations at the intersection of food and race. We’re telling our own good food stories. We’re unapologetically disrupting white-dominated artisan food industries and leading our own kitchens. We’re directing investments to black-owned food startups and reshaping ownership in our cities to reclaim space and economic equity. We’re starting organizing networks within food spaces to force a power paradigm shift.

My sincere hope lies in the the words of Father Mark Day in his sweet dedication of “40 Acres.” May we continue to “gain a more abundant share in the harvest of our endless toil.” I’ll see you at the table.

#BlackFuturesMonth

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/future-of-food-is-black_us_5895f081e4b0c1284f263d69?xps7phtm8lg94tpgb9

The Future Of Food Is Black

Young Black people will lead the conversation on changing our food and farming systems. Source

0 notes

graesays · 7 years

Text

We need to talk about Jez

I’m starting to feel like the time has come where we all need to take our head out of the sand and admit what many people have known for a while. Despite every want for him and his politics to succeed, despite everything that local Labour Party members have put to one side to try and allow him a chance at success, despite the beacon of hope that his politics represent for the younger and not previously politically motivated members of momentum. We need to accept that Jeremy Corbyn is not good enough in his current job and for the sake of everyone involved he needs to stand down.

I didn’t vote for him in 2015 (he was my 2nd choice behind Yvette Cooper). I did vote for him in 2016 because I feel he deserved more of a chance to demonstrate what he can do with the party behind him (and Owen Smith was a much worse candidate on balance). But in exchange for that support I gave him last year (to the point of attending his Leeds rally and buying a T-Shirt and badge while telling the people hawking the Socialist Worker to shove their placards up their arses fat end first) I expected him to show that he deserved it, that he would make an effort to make the party about more than his supposed personality cult. I gave him that chance, and he dropped the ball.

The first red flag (now isn’t that ironic) for me was the demotion of Clive Lewis from Shadow Defense to Shadow Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. This was done after Corbyn altered Lewis’ conference speech moments before he was due to deliver it. Clive originally wanted to state that he would not personally seek to change the current policy on Trident renewal (meaning he would leave it for the membership to decide whether to retain the policy, or scrap it in favor of a policy for nuclear disarmament). On Corbyn’s orders, Seumas Milne (Jeremy’s Comms advisor) handed Clive a post-it note moments before he was due on stage to deliver the speech saying that the Trident part of his speech had been changed to pro-disarmament. This in spite of the fact that the original speech was signed off by Jeremy himself prior to conference. Thus proving that in order to cement his views on an issue, he’s willing to throw his supporters under the bus (Lewis being considered as one of the key figures that got Corbyn the required number of nominations from the PLP to enter the leadership race in 2015) (1)

The second issue was his appearance at the Stand Up To Racism rally in October. For those unfamiliar with SUTR, it is a well known front for the Socialist Workers Party (The SWP). Not only do the SWP regularly compete against Labour in elections (as part of the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition, TUSC) but the more relevant issue in regards to Jeremy’s relationship with Labour activists who are also committed Equality & Diversity activists, is that the SWP deliberately attempted to cover-up, then downplay the fact that one of it’s senior members raped two women, and effectively held a donkey trial clearing the man (commonly referred to as Comrade Delta) rather than reporting the matter to the police. Deservedly, the SWP has been shunned by E&D groups and by the majority of Labour MP’s. While links between the SWP and Corbyn/McDonnell/Abbott are nothing new, this was the first time a formally SWP affiliated group had invited Corbyn to speak.

He did initially decline the invitation (he was due to speak in Scotland at the time) but as those plans changed, rather than giving the event the wide berth it deserved, he showed up and gave a speech, this legitimizing a group of institutionalized rape apologists. This for me was the straw that broke the camels back, the moment where he officially lost my support. I am an Equality activist first and a Labour activist second and that will never change. I just felt unable to vocalize my thoughts at the time in the face of how much support he still seemed to have at local level. (2)

From there though, things have only gotten worse. Whether it’s the complete and utter betrayal of his principles by standing aside and allowing the Snoopers Charter to pass into law without anything resembling a fight (John McDonnell voted FOR the bill at 3rd reading!) or obliterating our negotiating abilities on Brexit plans by announcing before amendments had been announced that he would use a 3 line whip to force his MP’s to vote FOR article 50 to be triggered irrespective of the success or failure of the amendments. He’s now suffering the humiliation of seeing Shadow Cabinet members resign and maybe even worse, public declarations of defying the whip coming from the very people responsible for enforcing said whip!

His stance on Article 50 more than any other issue shows that ultimately, he’s in it only for him, his mates and their own views rather than those of the wider party. Many of whom come from constituencies that voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU and will now have to sit and watch their MP’s be forced by the leadership to hand control of the EU negotiations over to the Tories without anything in the way of a serious fight. Killing any chance we might have had to regain ground in Scotland and dealing a major blow to the Northern Ireland Labour Group to contest assembly elections in future. Admittedly he’s caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to this because UKIP are breathing down our necks in previously safe Labour areas, but the bowing down to hard brexit without even the impression of a nuanced consideration of ideas taking place shows complete disregard for the 48% of the nation that voted to remain.

For the party to still be polling considerably lower in popularity than the Tories at this point, after Theresa May defied democracy to become Prime Minister in a way that Gordon Brown never even had a prayer of getting away with from the opposition of the day, after the Trident failure, the Pound falling to one of it’s lowest ever positions against the US Dollar, the ripping apart at the seams of the NHS and a seemingly giddy enthusiasm to sell off our most hard fought for workers and human rights to the lowest bidder is nothing short of an utter embarrasment and it is all down to the lack of ability to lead shown by those at the top.

Rather than just call out Corbyn for his failings, call on him to resign and clock off for the day though, I’m gonna suggest an alternative. It’s a tad radical but it’s an alternative that makes a lot of sense in the current climate the more you think about it, and that suggestion for Corbyn’s successor is the man who was in fact the first victim of his incompetence post leadership election mk2. Clive Lewis is the man who I think should be the next leader of the Labour Party. At face value this sounds like a stupid idea because lets face it, he’s only been an MP for 20 months. That said, have a think about these factors.

Politicians arent exactly the most popular people amongst the general public at the moment. Part of UKIP’s appeal to traditionally working class areas is that they present themselves as an alternative to career politicians (even if those who know their politics can see how much bullshit that claim is coming from a long line of ex-tory backers). Clive would be able to turn his relative inexperience in the house of commons as an advantage in this regard which could mend the party’s public perception.

He would appeal to a large number of those who were motivated to join Labour and Momentum because he self-identifies as a socialist and shares a lot of Corbyn’s values. Helping to ensure that the genuinely impressive rise in engagement by younger party members is not lost when Corbyn steps down.

He will be able to work with those within the party who dont drift as far left as he does. Having demonstrated his ability to do so with his original conference speech where he sought to uphold current Labour policy on trident renewal for as long as it remained the will of party members.

The usual Tory tactic of decrying those who identify as socialists as hating the country will never work when it comes to Clive Lewis as he has served in the Army, and even been on active service in Afghanistan, meaning he has literally laid his life on the line for queen and country, something that would definitely appeal to the type of voter that UKIP is currently working towards attracting.

All these combined mean that he would be able to assemble a Shadow Cabinet that contains the best qualified MP’s in each area. Meaning that we can have the best of both worlds in regards to having a party fronted by a man who personifies the party’s founding values while taking advantage of the broad church in a way that Corbyn and his friends were never able to.

We would be the first major UK party to have a BME leader. However bad their politics are, the fact that the Tories have had two leaders from a minority background and Labour have had none is an embarrasment considering that we are supposed to be the party of Equality & Diversity.

So that’s where I stand. I expect to be disagreed with quite a bit with other Labour members/supporters but whatever your thoughts, ultimately we all want the same thing, and that’s for Labour to succeed and be a party of Government. Hopefully whatever happens, that’s what we will be sooner rather than later because we seriously need them to be right now.

#corbyn #labour #politics

0 notes