One thing I’ve been doing as of late is volunteering with People’s Grocery. They’re a food justice organization committed to providing produce to West Oakland residence—a a district of Oakland with well-documented 55 liquor stores and no groceries. As usual, lack of access to healthy, fresh food predominantly affects low-income folks of color, and West Oakland is definitely an area with majority low income folks of color. People’s Grocery has the challenge of being a grassroots, community organization while not having complete leadership by community members. PG strives to put the leadership in the hands of West Oakland residents, but the intention to have the organization run by West Oakland residents is still an intention as opposed to a reality.
Some thoughts about food justice: what does that term even mean? One definition I’ve seen is the idea that there is enough food for those who need it—here and abroad—but that access to resources, racism, classism and imperialism have meant that food is a privilege, and healthy, sustainable food is a luxury.
To me, food justice also involves the understanding that food is a weapon. The ability to regulate, confine, and distribute food has become a completely accepted institution, but is also a fiarly new and unreasonable one. In non-capitalist forms, many communities practice food sharing and distribution, and food is not a commodity to be locked and guarded. Food can be traded, shared, or specialized, but the regulation and security of food, and the view of crops as commodities and not as a relationship to land, plants, and humans, has plagued capitalist since Jamestown colonies almost starved in the shadow of their acres of tobacco plantations.
In my life, food justice means supporting organic, but more importantly, local food organizations that support small farms. The integrity of a small farm is something that I trust, and the value of my local economy is something on which I depend. Growing food in my own yard, supporting organizations like People’s Grocery in an accountable way that doesn’t interrupt community involvement, and giving my food to small, homegrown farms is my way of bringing justice and liberation to a world, and undoing the chains around the food I eat and the people who eat with me.
