Tag Archives: systematic thinking

Systematic Racism

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     Racism is a long-term product of history. The enslaved Africans have become symbolic of slavery’s roots. The Africans were sent to the western world and exploited. Under the domination of white people, they couldn’t fight against the injustice. This historical issue lasts till now that people of color often suffer low wages and exploitative conditions. But black people are not passive victims and they acted. African American communities provide crucial support for activists working for change in voting rights and fight against segregation. 

black cotton farming family

Black cotton farming family

     Racism is not an issue floating on the surface. The racism problem is imbedded in the systems. If we look at the food system, white farmers dominate as operator-owners, while farmworkers and food workers are overwhelmingly people of color. In a restaurant, it is common to see people of color working at the back kitchen and white people serving at the front desk. These people of color are hidden from people’s view, just like the systematic racism problem. At least six out of every 10 farmworkers is an undocumented immigrant (Patel, 2011). Under the pandemic, Migrant farmworkers are experiencing the hardship of low hour pay, inaccessible health care services, bad living conditions and fear of deportation. Racism is almost never mentioned in international programs for food aid and agricultural development. Undocumented farmworkers are excluded from Fair Labor Act of 1938 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1835.      

    Equity is difficult, but not impossible. To fight against racism, we have to understand that racism is not simply prejudice or individual acts, but an historical legacy that privileges one group of people over others. Recently, the Food Chain workers Alliance fought for higher wages and workin conditions. The participation of people of color in local food policy councils is changing the food system. There’s light in the path of ending the systematic racism. 

The food system is not failing people, it is working how it was invented  

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Before I took Political Science 385, the relationship between the food system and racism was not an explicit connection I made. I was in a bubble of ignorance, clouded by my own privilege of being considered white passing, socioeconomically privileged, and cis-male. I asked myself, “how could the [United States] food system possibly be racist? – it’s food, right? It was not until I stepped back, flipped through a couple of history books, and put myself in a different vantage point that I connected the dots: the United States is built on oppression and systemic racism, the food system is just one of the many layers that it lurks.

Systemic racism can be traced back to the very creation of the United States. The brutal colonization of the indigenous population for their land, forced slave labor and unjust laws stripping people of color from land ownership are just the beginning of injustice that minorities have faced in our food system. The very backbone of our modern-day food system has been created by the very populations that are left behind.

Not only has the entire system been built on oppression, the very laws that are meant to protect people from harm has had a long history of dismantling Black and Brown empowerment. Before Jim Crow laws were enacted in the United States, African American’s owned 13 million acres of land in 1902, by the end of 1997 years of Jim Crow, they only owned 2 million acres. White land owners now pass on their externalities to people of color, while they reap the benefits of their new found land. Many working longer hours for lower wages than their white counter parts.

There is so much more happening behind the scenes than the average consumer might think. Buying something as simple as an avocado, a banana, or chocolate, it is easy to forget about the hundreds of miles, hours, and workers it took to get where it is now. The food system is not a farm to table concept like people may think, it is much more complex and inner connected.

One thing that I will always hold close to me from this class is that you cannot look at one part of the system and generalize about the whole. The history of oppression in agriculture cannot survive on its own, it is interdependent on a long and brutal history of colonization, institutionally racist laws, biased social norms, and labor.

The food system is not failing people, it is working how it was intended.

Work Cited:

Food Justice & Racism in the Food System

New Research Explores the Ongoing Impact of Racism on the U.S. Farming Landscape

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-15686731/cocoa-farms-in-ivory-coast-still-using-child-labour

Alien Land Laws in California (1913 & 1920)

Photos: https://communityfoodfunders.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/History-of-Racism-and-Resistance-in-the-Food-System-Visual-Timeline.pdf

Letting Your Guard Down in a Time of Crisis

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During a pandemic it is natural to worry about your defense systems. Will my immune system fight off the disease? Will my financial savings and food stocks last long enough? Will my government adequately protect me from hardship? In all of this, it can be easy to neglect one of your most important defense systems: your ego. Your ego acts as the immune system of your personality, reacting defensively to the information you receive and filtering it through various emotional and intellectual processes until it aligns with the way you conceptualize the world. The biggest worry during a time of crisis is not that your ego will fail to protect you, however, but that it will protect you too well. The quarantine has put my ego on high alert, and I have often found myself stressed, irritable, and defensive because of it. In a class such as ours that deals with controversial topics, this could make it difficult for me engage with challenging information, but contemplative practices have been crucial in allowing me to openly and honestly engage with ideas that challenge my worldview.

These practices work by altering my learning environment and physiological state. During a contemplative practice I am in a safe, comfortable, and quiet environment which allows me to relax. In this state of peace, my ego is able to let its guard down and I can abandon the defensiveness I feel towards challenging ideas. For example, while learning about fossil fuels, my mind is usually coming up with excuses for why I am not personally responsible for environmental damage, or why the information I am learning does not apply to me. A contemplative practice, however, lowers those defenses and forces me to engage with the material more honestly. I was not just hearing statistics, but I was feeling the information on a visceral level and applying it directly to my own life without making excuses. I also find that my ego encourages me to think linearly so I can ignore the wide range of effects my lifestyle has on a global scale; thus, contemplative practices have made it easier to think systemically which is crucial when analyzing our complex food system.

Note: I’m not sure this really came from the Buddha but I’m sure he would agree!

Overall, I have found the contemplative practices extremely helpful at improving mindfulness and self-honesty, and I now see them as a necessary step towards internalizing the things I learn. I believe that exercises like these will be critical for us as a society to be open and honest about our most significant problems, which will be necessary if we ever wish to solve them.