{"id":690,"date":"2015-12-03T21:06:46","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T21:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=690"},"modified":"2015-12-03T21:07:34","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T21:07:34","slug":"shange-and-radical-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=690","title":{"rendered":"Shange and Radical Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photos from\u00a0Soul Fire Farm<\/a> courtesy of Afropunk<\/a> and Yes Magazine<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n

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)<\/p>\n

Recognize that land and food have been used as a weapon to keep black people oppressed\u00a0…Recognize also that land and food are essential to liberation for black people. (Curtis Hayes Muhammed via Soul Fire Farm)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In If I Can Cook\/You Know God Can,\u00a0<\/em>Shange\u00a0celebrates food and farming as a\u00a0global black experience, while pointing to the disregard of\u00a0black life that informs American food policy. In this way,\u00a0If I Can Cook\u00a0<\/em>shows that decolonizing our minds goes hand in hand with decolonizing our diets.\u00a0Shange’s statements\u00a0evoke principles of radical farming, which emphasizes\u00a0solidarity with people marginalized by food apartheid and reverence of ancestral knowledge of the land.<\/p>\n

In fact, we knew something about the land, sensuality, rhythm, and ourselves that has continued to elude our captors (Shange 41)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Soul Fire Farm<\/a>, 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.”<\/p>\n

By understanding\u00a0food as both a weapon of oppression and an essential tool\u00a0for black liberation, we can more fully claim our\u00a0pasts and envision radical systems today.<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photos from\u00a0Soul 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,57],"tags":[248,245,249,247,246,250],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogposts","category-student-blogpost","tag-diet","tag-food","tag-if-i-can-cookyou-know-god-can","tag-land","tag-radical-farming","tag-soul-fire-farm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}