Dialogue Description:

The topic of white women in the food justice movement has surfaced in many previous dialogues, so this month we’ve decided to dedicate an entire dialogue to it.  What space have white women taken and/or created in the food justice movement, especially in the SF Bay Area?  How do race, gender and class influence definitions of and relationship with “good food” and the larger arena of food politics? How does white female socialization influence how we eat, what we eat, and how we build and form relationships around food?  We will discuss how whiteness and femaleness present themselves in our daily lives and work in its relation to “good food”, all while enjoying some “good food”.
Also attached is the article, ” ‘If Only They Knew’: Color Blindness and Universalism in California Alternative Food Institutions”

Dialogue Notes:

These are rough, uncut, unfiltered, and anonymous notes taken at the dialogue. We get that these may not be very readable to those who were not in attendance at the dialogue, and, honestly, sometimes even to those of us who were. We still feel it is important to keep them available as part of our accountability process and for archiving and reference purposes.  Some of these notes have been digested/transformed into blogs.

Opening with check-in and discussion of the Zimmerman trial, connections between the criminal justice system and food justice:

  • why food justice and criminal justice systems look the ways they do
  • why are white women dramatically overrepresented in this movement? Arethey/we helping or/and harming the movement?
  • How can we use our selves to subvert, not just be used as a tool
  • Food is such a strong organizing tool
  • Strange sexism that exists in food movements – how does this play out?Underappreciated female labor (paid and unpaid)
  • How does white feminism play into this discussion and how can we broadenthat? Looking globally, larger discussion
  • How do you keep food accountable to other struggles for liberation andsocial justice – how it can become potentially co-opted, when loses thoseintersections
  • How do we address and move through connections between slavery andfarming and food justice
  • Black Land project, Black farmers addressing histories in the present
  • Nation of Islam has big cooperative farm in Georgia
  • Dynamic of fear between white woman and black man – how it plays out indoing things for, not being with – helping can be controlling and controllingcan feel safer – distancing
  • White female demographic presence: Social coding around women andhealth, diet, fitness, helping career, virtuous thing to do
  • When to step back? What is good practice in some of these spaces
  • Not either/or but AND
  • If I weren’t here in this role someone else would be harming more, andhelping more
  • Food is trendy now, organizations to plug into, college students
  • How is food justice work operating in the buffer zone?
  • Environmental outlook + social justice  food justice = holy grail
  • Valuing of life and bodies – relation between the criminal and food justicemovements
  • Food justice is unique in being able to extricate oneself from the system –grow some of own food, the act of growing powerful and revolutionary anddecolonizing, reconnecting to land outside of capitalist system
  • Ways in which we are perpetuating colonization
  • How much are you doing this with community, contextualized?
  • Movement Generation – resilience based organizing, neighborhood andcommunity first
  • Food is a personal thing – way to help and plug in
  • Eco- comes from oikos prefix meaning home or hearth – economy, ecology
  • Women coded as helping, sexism and resistance to sexism
  • Hard work, you need to be a badass to be a farmer and urban farmer – lots of surprise about physical strength as a female
  • Bonding through manual work, and mutual respect
  • “food movement” very different than “food justice” – empowering peoplethrough food – opportunity and access to eat the food you want to, notoutside forces determining what you can eat
  • what people want to get out of it versus what they want to put into it
  • “food sovereignty”: what do we consider justice in the first place?Sovereignty focuses on access and on overturning of power dynamics on whoproduces, what produce, how much cost
  • justice and sovereignty about access and what you have control over – link tohistories of racial and environmental justice
  • tremendous diversity within food movement – white women are all acrossthis spectrum
  • white females often representative faces
  • food security
  • historically in Oakland there has been a lot of fighting around these issues –controlling of means of production, who gets the funding can be contentiousin a resource-depleted areas, complicated landscape
  • one of the pieces for working for social justice in spaces, crucial to dohomework and developing political skills to navigate well
  • the Landless Workers’ Movement – largest movement in the Americas, MSThad a specific strategy to not have white people join until later to support, interesting metaphor for what is role in shaping and/or supporting after it has been established/shaped?
  • And what is it to not just play a support role in challenging white supremacist culture?
  • Who gets grants, language needed to speak?
  • Feeling stifled, with this analysis what are practical options open to me?leave job and someone with less analysis will come in and do what I do? Orleave get less fulfilling job and volunteer my time?
  • Sober assessment of what is possible within the positions, organizations weare in
  • Not needed by food justice movement but how can I be useful
  • As women we are often taught to discount our value, word, contributions
  • Permaculture! Nothing thrown away, not weeds, no “weedifying” people, nothrow away people – metaphor for human society
  • How can be more accountable to related struggles and movements?
  • Growing own food for people is often peripherally interesting, not toppriority
  • You have skills learned from white male fundraiser, radical analysis and arein the Bay Area, that’s pretty amazing
  • Phat Beets neighborhood focus, show up at immigration rallies, comes outwith statements
  • Training at work about microaggressions
  • Lots of white progressive people interested in sustainable food, and don’t see it as a racial and economic justice issue
  • Some youth of color not wanting to be seen working in the garden, connections with slavery – working outside growing food signifying oppression or signifying empowerment
  • Can be doing the same work side by side seen differently, different perspective can be expressed and move forward together
  • Recognizing what’s in it for you