Overall, I have had an incredibly positive experience during the DCBRP seminars and group meetings. While every discussion that we have had during our weekly gatherings have usually focused on one particular issue (food justice, water justice, environmental justice, racial equity etc.) it seems that all of these issues are are entangled with one another, and contain an element of social justice.
I think this intersectionality between “movements” was most evident in our conversation with Angela Abiodun, as she pointed out that all of these things – environmental justice, education reform, and health inequities are interconnected issues that are tangled tightly with racism, sexism, and discrimination.
It has become apparent to me that movements and activists themselves are too often exclusionary and/or narrowly focused. Let me explain.
“[Movements] often become too specialized, as if finally they cannot help taking refuge in the pinhole vision of the institutional intellectuals. They almost always fail to be radical enough, dealing finally in effects rather than causes. Or they deal with single issues or single solutions, as if to assure themselves that they will not be radical enough.” – Wendell Berry
Movements are themselves often not comprehensive, or radical enough. We cannot take steps towards a more equitable food system without addressing economic and environmental issues. We cannot confront the issues that plague our education system without acknowledging the fact that people of color are disproportionately affected. We cannot talk about healthcare reform without recognizing that social circumstances and the built environment are major contributors to the poor health outcomes that we are seeing. We cannot have a conversation about environmental justice, food justice, or reproductive justice without addressing the issues of racial inequality, patriarchy, and capitalism. We cannot make progress without acknowledging the fact that we have had for a long time “an economy that thrives by undermining its own foundations”.
This is frightening, because it means that we must be even bolder in our demands for change. It means we must acknowledge that their issues are actually our issues.
The last reading assignment for my Food Politics and Policy course last Fall was titled “In Distrust of Movements” by Wendell Berry – a farmer, poet, and novelist. His essay has stuck with me the past year as I think about the intersectionality between these movements, and advocate for change. He does a wonderful job working through the complex and heavy nature of movements in his essay, which I have attached in a link below.
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/WBerry.pdf
