Food Sovereignty Kills Racism

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Spatial segregation keeps America racist.

I laugh whenever someone posits that racism will end when the so-called “older generation” dies off, as if the U.S. has ever in its history not had an older generation that was deeply invested in racism. Racism built this country, and this country runs on racism.

But why is it so hard for individuals to let go of racist ideas? Why can’t we, as a nation, quit this way of seeing and organizing our world?

Those are big, complex questions, but I think one of the pillars that upholds America’s racist society is that we, despite the progress that has been made, still live in highly racially segregated worlds.

For most people, our networks of friends, family, and day-to-day interactions are with people who share our racial identity. 

Since the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling in 1958, large district U.S. public schools have become 35% more segregated between white and Black children. Yes, you read that correctly—more racially segregated schools since school desegregation.

People in this country primarily follow the well-worn tracks laid out for us by the architects of American society, who, as we know, had no interest in racial and socio-economic class mixing. They were terrified of such, so cross-racial solidarity has been viciously stamped out from the John Punch 1640 ruling by the Virginia colonial court to the ongoing fight over public school districts.

You want to see so-called progressive, well-meaning white people transform into rabid racists, propose that they’ll have to send their kids to school with a bunch of Black and brown children from…gasp!…the inner city.

What comes forth in the violent opposition to school integration is the true nature of power in the U.S., vast fathoms of ignorance and fear of what “those people over there” are all about. White people lose their shit over the fear of what they “know” about how “those people” live, eat, talk, relate, educate, and what “those people” value. Why? Because nothing can be as good as what white people know and do. It’s the principle we are all socialized to accept living in the United States.

Now, that’s not to say Black folks know everything about white folks, but in my experience, your average Black person knows more about whiteness than your average white person knows about Blackness. Why? Black people wouldn’t have been able to last as long as we have without understanding the culture of our oppressors. We know about white folks as a matter of survival. Very little about white people’s success in America is dependent upon them understanding Black people well.

Still, we all are worse off for not understanding the people we live with. But how do we change the racially segregated momentum of this country? I may have found the answer in North Carolina.

Whether you’re Black, white, or purple, we all need to eat.

If you don’t eat for about three weeks, you die.

There’s no way around that biological fact. Everyone has to eat to live, which is why, as a species, we’ve attributed so much meaning to the daily practice of sustaining our bodies. But food does more than meet our biological needs; food fulfills our socio-cultural need to connect, create, love, and learn.

I returned to Mebane, NC, this year to participate in an annual event run by a group of Black families who have been processing pigs since emancipation. It is an incredible time, rich with history, story telling, shit-talking, and the ancient human practice of comming together around food.

But Black people aren’t the only ones participating in this event. There are white and Asian folks there, too. The racial diversity of this group and how well everyone got along stood out to my dad and me as we helped butcher five pigs on this 18-degree morning.

I’ll have an episode on the YouTube channel out early next year about the experience, but for now, I want to talk about what an event like this can mean for our future as a people in the United States.

We spent twelve hours butchering and processing these pigs. It was a tremendous amount of work. A core group of people stayed the whole time, and folks came and went as their respective schedules allowed. What stood out during those twelve hours was the respect everyone had for each other and the labor that we all knew would pay off with food for our respective households throughout the year.

There was plenty of smack-talk, but the good-natured kind that spoke of bonds formed over years of experience together and respect for everyone willing to, literally, step into pig shit to help fill a neighbor’s freezer.

It was bloody, messy, and smelly work, but everyone was genuinely joyful about the outcome and the food security our work would bring. The entire experience was a day-long bonding exercise for which many corporations would pay thousands of dollars.

When you do this kind of work, you can’t help but see another person’s humanity. This work leaves little room for pretense and posturing, bragging and embellishing, fronting and faking. You can either lift that hind leg yourself, or you need to ask for help. You either know how to use a reciprocating saw to cut off the head, or you watch someone else show you. You’re either down to clean chitterlings, or you’re not.

Honesty gets you through the day and earns the respect of the vets; lies and ego get you cussed out and uninvited.

This is where your preconceived notions about “those people over there” dissolve in seconds because “those folks over there” are actually right here, showing and helping you make sure you learn and go home with something that will keep you and yours alive.

Fannie Lou Hamer knew.

Anyone who tells you Black folks are underrepresented in agriculture because of the cultural baggage of slavery doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I used to believe this, so no shade if that’s you, but you couldn’t be more misinformed.

Black folks are underrepresented in agriculture for the same reason we are underrepresented in a lot of segments of U.S. society — white supremacy.

Farming was and still is a key to tremendous power in this country. Like many Black people in U.S. history, Fannie Lou Hamer understood this very well and organized around harnessing that power for her people in Mississippi.

“Food is used as a political weapon but if you have a pig in your backyard, if you have some vegetables in your garden, you can feed yourself and your family & nobody can push you around” - Fannie Low Hamer

Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm Cooperative ultimately dissolved due to a lack of sustained funding (white supremacy). Still, it remains a profound example of the power that food independence can give a people.

As I opened our freezer to put over 100 lbs of processed pig with nearly 100 lbs of deer and 25 lbs of fish inside, I felt the legacy of Mrs. Hamer’s vision—a vision that Black people have been fighting to live out—the folks in North Carolina still living out—despite the persistence of white supremacy. 

The price of red meat, pork, and, to some extent, fish mean little to me for at least the next half year. While acquiring that pig and through my years becoming a hunter, I’ve also learned that harvesting and butchering an entire four-legged relative is something I can do. Am I an expert? Hell no. But I know I know enough to keep me, my family, and my loved ones alive without a grocery store.

When I think about the relationships and the people down in North Carolina, I think about priorities. The biggest priority, at least in those moments, was making sure we all had the food we needed. My time down there wasn’t about whether or not I agreed with everyone’s politics. Those issues were secondary to ensuring the people I was helping and who were helping me got some pork. And because of that focus of purpose, I was in a better place to see the good in people and they in me because we were all doing good for each other.

Working your food with others cuts through all the BS our modern society encourages us to put on display and centers each person in a state of being that allows us to be our best selves. It grounds us in our most essential and fundamental skill as a species: cooperation.

So many of what we consider to be the conveniences of the modern world are about separating us from the labor of feeding ourselves. Each time I come back to tending a garden, butchering a four-legged relative, or cooking a meal from scratch, I’m reminded of the joy of simply being a human being taking care of my needs and the needs of others.

Food, family, stories, laughter, and love. What else do we need?

Thanks for reading!

-Jonathan