Seminar weekly writing activity.
Week 4
Triggering Passages:
“Missing from the core of such efforts, particularly as they take shape in the United States, is an anti-racist critique that acknowledges and addresses the underlying racial logic and history of not only the Farm Bill, but of the food system and even within contemporary food justice movements. Such a movement must not be afraid to call out the racial logic and history of white supremacy, and its concomitant logics and histories of heteropatriarchy, colonialism, and imperialism, visible in all the ways we have outlined.” (Elsheikh 2016: 7)
“I love fish. You know the expression, ‘The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.’ Well the fishier the fish, the better I like it. Straight up fishy.” (Smart-Grosvenor 2011: 38)
“Called methyl iodide, or iodomethane, the fumigant was approved in 2008 by the George W. Bush- era U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, despite a letter of warning signed by fifty-four of the world’s most prominent chemists and physicians, including five Nobel Prize- winning researchers. In their letter, the scientist noted that agents like methyl iodide are ‘extremely well-known cancer hazards’ and that ‘their high-volatility and water solubility’ would ‘guarantee substantial releases to air, surface waters, and ground water.’” (Estabrook 2011: 53)
News Media Context:
From Earth Day to the Monsanto Tribunal, Capitalism on Trial
“These powerful corporations [Monsanto, ect.] increasingly hold sway over a globalized system of food and agriculture from seed to plate. And with major mergers within the agribusiness sector in the pipeline, power will be further monopolized and the situation is likely to worsen. The overall narrative about farming has been shaped to benefit the interests of this handful of wealthy, politically influential corporations whereby commercial interests trumps any notion of the public good.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/24/from-earth-day-to-the-monsanto-tribunal-capitalism-on-trial/
Discussion:
With the march for science happening across the nation this past weekend I had some interesting conversations with my fellow peers. One in particular made a comment on how Black Live Matters activists were impeding on this march for science “why cannot they [the Black Live Matters activists] give us space to voice our concerns too” the marcher protested. Not recognizing systemic racism that already disvalues people of color and women as a whole in the field of science. The March For Science and Black Lives Matter movements have common ground, the way we will make change is to bring all causes together to protest the current system we have. A fight for science is a fight for more educated and peer reviewed decision making in government, equality for all in science and general work force, and a stand for the environment. As stated in Race and Corporate Power in the US Food System: Examining the Farm Bill by Elsadig Elsheikh, we must unite for a common good to fight “heteropatriarchy, colonialism, and imperialism.” Being involved in the food systems we have a responsibility to recognize the travesties that have happened in our [the United States’ and the world’s] past, which have been used to put a select few at top, while disadvantaging and exploiting many people. This movement appears to be gaining traction, with demonstrations such as the March for Science and the Women’s March, that incorporate all peoples and causes to combat our current political system.
Though As I read this week’s passages I am confronted with business as usual, from Tomatoland to my news article, From Earth Day to the Monsanto Tribunal, Capitalism on Trial by Colin Todhunter posted this week in Counter Punch. Here are two examples of Presidents disregarding science entirely, Bush’s EPA approval of a known cancer causing fumigant for use on crops, and Trump ready to slash EPA regulations or dismantle it entirely. [Also as a side note, see News Media Context passage, I have noticed the word trump be used much more since our recent election, as in “beat (someone or something) by saying or doing something better,” which to me takes back this word and uses his own name against him.] When will we begin to put people above profit? How can we continue as a society to play this game of corporate favoritism, believing that the more money we generate regardless of the consequences the better we will be? How short sided is this as a species? Why is this game the only option, and how [other than through brute force] does it continue today?
Finally as I read Smart-Grosvenor’s Vibration Cooking, I came across a quote by her uncle, “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.” As a listener of rapper Kendrick Lamar, I instantly recognized this as a line from his song The Blacker the Berry off his album To Pimp A Butterfly. In this song he sings of his black pride and his hypocrisy, it is a powerful song, should it be enjoyed by a white man such as myself? Probably not, but his music is so well composed, evoking strong emotions through his songs of struggle and pride that is relatable in some way to myself.
Week 5
Triggering Passages:
“I am not a philosopher of mind but an animal exhibiting, yet not exhibiting, to a gathering of scholars, a wound, which I cover up under my clothes but touch on in every word I speak.” (Coetzee 1999: 26)
“I can see what you are getting at. When you kill a bat, you take away everything that the bat has, its entire existence. Killing a human being can’t do more than that.” (Cotzee 1999: 90)
“Because their people depend on hunting, fishing, and gathering from the environment, they reject false solutions such as eliminating local fish from their diet. For Akwasane people, much like many other native people, eating from the earth is about more than diet, it is about cultural continuity. It is about the recipes, methods of harvest, the cycle of the seasons, and holidays. It is identity.” (Deetz 2016:4-5)
News Media Context:
Tribunal Finds Monsanto an Abuser of Human Rights and Environment
“Monsanto has come under sustained criticism from not only the organizers of the tribunal, but from a wide range of people around the world. Research questioning the safety of glyphosate has been published in dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals. Numerous groups and researchers, who have no involvement with the tribunal, have issued reports and written books condemning Monsanto products and practices. Moreover, people will be participating in the annual March on Monsanto on May 20 in hundreds of cities in dozens of countries around the world.” (Dolack 2016)
Discussion:
Instantly from picking up The Lives of Animals I felt an instant connection. When I look into my dog’s eyes, I see just as much life and love as if looking into a loved one of the human species. The first passage triggered me, reminding me of when I talk with friends, educated so much so it sometimes feels as if they are explaining emotion away with jargon and “hard facts.” Where does the humanity go? How do we bridge the gap between scientific rational facts, and irrational emotion as we have contemplated in previous seminars. The best way to communicate with these friends is through their own scientific language. Yet as in the text of the first quote I still must demonstrate my emotion, my wound if you will for the consciousness and emotions of these other creatures.
The second quote sums up my feeling towards animals. Is their life not on the same pedestal as ours? Are other human’s lives not on the same pedestal as others? Where do you draw the line for a value of life? Is it not all equal in the end? Does this stem from the United States prominent Christian communities preaching that our dogs and cats will not “be there in heaven” when we die? These questions all arose as I read this text. If there was a tragedy, such as my house on fire, I know in that moment I would value the life of the animals in my house as much as my own, putting my life in danger to save them.
As I have studied our local fishing economy and culture of the Puget Sound, this last passage really stood out to me. My great grandfather was a fisherman out of Ballard and Alaska, so I grew up with a family history of respect for our waters and an understanding of cultures that came before ours in this region.
The quote I found published in Counter Punch triggered relief. I felt good that Monsanto is being held accountable. With demonstrations taking place across the world, this signifies an awoken population that is no longer willing to take the shit Monsanto is dulling out across the nation and the world. These people who stand up are demonstrating that they will not be put after profit, our lives are more valuable than corporation’s “lives” despite the United States declaring corporations are people. This is where I would draw the line between what life is important and not.
Week 6
Triggering Passages:
“Popular education avoids the rigid classroom/teacher hierarchy. A participatory process intended to be an exchange of ideas, it relies heavily on nontraditional means of teaching such as music, visual arts, theater- even faux boxing matches.” (Estrabrook 2011: 118)
“I remember the first time I heard John Coltrane records. I was in Paris in ’59 and we got a record by Trane called “My Favorite Things.” We used to play that record all day and I mean all the day.” (Smart-Grosvenor 1999: 60)
“Indeed, it was these agrarian roots that made Africans so valuable to the development of white supremacist capitalism in the Americas. Today, those same agrarian roots remain the essence of the survival for African land-based communities.” (Bandele & Myers 2016: 3)
News Media Context:
Kalaratri Appears: Indigenous Women Take-Up Arms in India
“Most importantly, the actions of these women challenge assumptions about the political role of their gender. The kind of leadership they represent is certainly not the same as that called for by Ivanka Trump & Chrystia Freeland at the W20 Women’s Summit on April 25! They also challenge standard estimations of a woman’s power.” (Bentley 2017)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/08/kalaratri-appears-indigenous-women-take-up-arms-in-india/
Discussion:
This week in Vibration Cooking, the main theme appeared to be making due with what you’ve got. I especially was moved by the passage where Coetzee talked about her obsession with an album her and her friends bought, listening to it on days on end. Making do with what you have is so much better with close friends, and addictive good music. I think back to the many times my friends and I would find a new artist and put a few songs on repeat. We would listen over and over again until something new came along.
I was particularly triggered by Tomatoland and the mention of traditional education. What is traditional education? Does it work for everyone? Definitely not. There are so many various forms of learning, and everyone finds strength in subjects other than the traditional school system provides and promotes. As a hopeful educator I am grossed out and disappointed by traditional education’s cookie cutter approach, it is inhuman.
The Bandele & Myers article was particularly triggering as a potential future farmer. The backbone of our agricultural system, nearly the whole country as well, was built on slave labor. It is cause for reflection as a white male perusing an agricultural career as well. How may I benefit impoverished communities who have been left out of the system? How may I recognize and move forward as a farmer in a respectful way? These are questions I reflect on as I navigate American life.
Finally for my media article I was moved by the women’s actions. As masculine westernized culture has spread across the globe, we need a fighting force to oppose the oppression. These women essentially had to resort to violence. How have we come to this place, that for indigenous peoples their only mode of defense is violence in these modern times?
Week 7
Triggering Passages:
“Juicy Fruit, roses, cut grass, grapes – none of these volatiles smelled anthing remotely like a tomato, yet Klee believes that all of them have to be present to deliver the fruit’s signature flavor.”( Estrabrook 2011: 150)
“In my room everyone spoke Yiddish except me. Everyone ate kosher food. There were four of us. To tell the truth wasn’t no black folks on that floor except me.” (Smart-Grosvenor 1999: 81)
“While many Native people stand in opposition to this pipeline at Standing Rock, the resistance reaches far beyond Standing Rock tribal members alone. Many people have seen the opposition, and have recognized parts of themselves in the people who have travelled to Standing Rock.” (Deetz 2016: 3)
News Media Context:
Restoring the Heartland and Rustbelt through Clean Energy Democracy: an Organizing Proposal
“This new organizing proposal, Restoring the Heartland and Rustbelt through Clean Energy Democracy, offers a potential solution and practical steps to achieve it which can not only break the reactionary tide, perhaps once and for all, but also can greatly accelerate the very necessary process of abolishing capitalism and building a new, ecological sustainable world in the shell of the ecocidal old by building an intersectional movement championing “Clean Energy Democracy”. Such a movement has the potential to unite workers, rural and rustbelt communities, climate justice activists, environmentalists, indigenous peoples, and farmers of all backgrounds and revitalize a vibrant and grassroots democratic anti-capitalist left, and it offers goals that help address the intertwining crises of global warming, decadent capitalism, failing economies, and demoralized communities plagued by economic depression, racism, and reactionary nationalism.” (Ongerth: 2017)
Discussion:
What makes a tomato? Is it it’s juicy innards? The sweet aroma that perforates your nose as you hold it up to your mouth and take a bite? What flavors make the fruit? Can the fruit be synthesized down to a simple readable profile of tastes? Well of course it has already been broken down and taken apart as the triggering passage from Tomatoland demonstrates. Where is the line to be drawn though? Just because it acts, smells, and looks like a tomato does it make it a tomato? Similarly to all our other foods, particularly in the United States. Our processed foods have become nothing but synthetic chemicals strung together to replicate nature’s already perfect and nutritious original form. This passage was particularly triggering to me, because as I read the flavors and smells being described from the vials, I could experience it myself, but this drew no connection to the experience that is a tomato fruit. How can a fruit be so bastardized, simplified to patented chemicals that “resemble” nature’s true traits. This passage makes me queasy, and skeptical of the world around me. Is this all a lie? Am I living a simulation where this all just closely resembles reality?
Vibration Cooking is exposing me to unfamiliar territory. I feel lost and privileged. Privileged feel comfortable with the people and places around me, but lost that others have grown up in a world where their family is not the majority. Where the world treats you like a stranger and an outsider. How may I bridge the gap, lend a hand to a stranger who’s face is not like my own, how may I better understand their human experience and include them in on my own?
The Food First and Counter Punch articles I read where eye opening, yet gave me hope. Firstly the Food First passage I chose made me feel whole, being apart of a greater cause. But with that comes some guilt. I consider myself native to the Pacific Northwest, but I am not Native. I am merely a visitor in some ways, though I treat this place as my home. It brightens my heart to know that all peoples care for this place, our ecosystems and our world as a whole. Together we can find common ground to protect those places, peoples, and things that are unable to speak up and protect themselves from corporate interests and those looking to take advantage. In comparison the media article, Restoring the Heartland and Rustbelt through Clean Energy Democracy: an Organizing Proposal, gives me hope and a warm feeling that the world is not so bleak after all. There are those working to fight for the common good, and push for real social and ecological change. It feels as if there is hope at the end of the tunnel, if common interest groups come together to fight each injustice together! In me I feel a sense of comradely with my fellow woman and m
Week 8
Triggering Passages:
“The immigrant mothers were not comfortable leaving their tiny children with white Americans who spoke no Spanish or Haitian Creole and had little understanding of the parent’s cultures. Only when the association began hiring from the migrant community itself did the centers begin to fill.” (Estrabrook 2011: 158)
“The garden is fun. The view is not very hip, but each morning we can rise and walk out into the garden and partake of the polluted air.” (Smart-Grosvenor 1999: 110)
“The legacy of resistance has borne out one inescapable reality: individual efforts to challenge race-based oppression cannot dismantle the ubiquitous system of racism.” (Davy, Horne, McCurty, Pennick 2016: 3)
News Media Context:
How College Students Are Being Misled About ‘Sustainable’ Agriculture
“In short, organic practices are to agriculture what cigarette smoking is to human health.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447313/organic-farming-not-sustainable
Discussion:
As a hopeful educator I am triggered by the first passage quoted in Tomatoland. It seems futile to “help” a community that the “helper” has no relation to. No wonder the education institution was empty until familiar community members were hired. To be honest reading that passage I felt discouraged and shameful that I want to be an educator, what is it that I have to offer to communities other than the one I was raised in? Though I have thought about this much before, recognizing that I am an active member of my community that I would like to serve further by being an educator. I may not be fluent in other languages but I have other skills and traits I may bring to the table.
Reading Vibration Cooking I am moved by the quote mentioning her garden. I relate to this quote that though my garden is not the most aesthetically pleasing, it gives me a glimmer of hope in a concrete metropolis. Are my efforts to preserve the natural world unavailing? Mildly, probably, yes. Yet it brings me joy to see my little garden, and that though I breathe in unforgiving air there is still some hope in my little place on Earth.
I feel sick, disturbed, and hopeless to know I live in a world where the past and unshakable institutions keep the game of life still so slanted in favor of certain people. Where are the consequences for past horrific mistakes made my people and governmental states? It seems a responsibility, that though I may not make a large impact on the injustices of everyday life of past, present, and future, that I attempt the best of my abilities to make a meaningful impact on individual lives.
Finally, I have been pulling my news media articles from predominantly left leaning news outlets. I picked up this week’s media article through a conservative leaning publication. I was livid, rolling my eyes the whole way through the article. Blood pressure raised, I found myself exclaiming out loud at the article, “where are these ‘facts’ coming from” and “are these people really that ignorant?!” To compare organic practices to smoking cigarettes is clearly a way for the author to tick off ‘liberals’ but it demonstrates an absolute disregard for the facts and simple pettiness that they just want to be right regardless of the facts. I am still upset some people take this garbage seriously, and someone is sitting behind their screen laughing at the expense of the natural world.