Shange and Radical Farming

by Clarke 2 Comments

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Photos from Soul Fire Farm courtesy of Afropunk and Yes Magazine

One could also say that racism is toxic, so by metaphorically refusing an all-American diet of meat and potatoes, Yvette and thousands of others refuse to swallow what will, in fact, poison them: self-hatred. (Shange 91)

Recognize that land and food have been used as a weapon to keep black people oppressed …Recognize also that land and food are essential to liberation for black people. (Curtis Hayes Muhammed via Soul Fire Farm)

In If I Can Cook/You Know God Can, Shange celebrates food and farming as a global black experience, while pointing to the disregard of black life that informs American food policy. In this way, If I Can Cook shows that decolonizing our minds goes hand in hand with decolonizing our diets. Shange’s statements evoke principles of radical farming, which emphasizes solidarity with people marginalized by food apartheid and reverence of ancestral knowledge of the land.

In fact, we knew something about the land, sensuality, rhythm, and ourselves that has continued to elude our captors (Shange 41)

Soul Fire Farm, a family farm committed to the dismantling of oppressive structures that misguide our food system, partners with Project Growth, a restorative justice program in Albany, in order to continue the literal work of “eluding our captors” via ancestral knowledge of the land and ourselves. The initiative brings convicted teenagers to the farm, both as a way for them to earn money to pay their restitution and “heal relationships with their communities, the land, and themselves.”

By understanding food as both a weapon of oppression and an essential tool for black liberation, we can more fully claim our pasts and envision radical systems today.

 

 

Comments ( 2 )

  1. Tiana Reid
    Clarke, your post brings out both the literal and metaphorical uses of ingestion and digestion as affecting the mind and the body through modes of toxicity in the form of social and environmental regulation. By incorporating Soul Fire Farm, you made me wonder further about the link between Shange's work and activist projects. Going off the Shange quote you started with, what does it mean to "metaphorically refuse" something? What kind of practice of refusal is that? Is it a theoretical refusal?
  2. Kiani
    I appreciate this post as you focus on the root of food production as a source of community and resistance. The post reminds me of the efforts of black artists, mainly Junglepussy, to discuss the importance of healthy eating specifically as it pertains to people of color. A week or so ago, Junglepussy discussed her journey of self-discovery through healthy eating at an event put together by the Columbia University Society for Hip Hop. I think its interesting to consider the production and consumption of produce as a means to create and sustain communities of people. She said something along the lines of "They don't want you to be healthy. They don't care about your health" -- they being society or the oppressor, which though upsetting is empowering in that now black folks and folks of color are now called upon to consider their health and the source of their food as it pertains to the proliferation of their communities, by the movers and shakers of culture.

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