Video: “Food, Justice, and Sustainability” with/Breeze Harper,Bryant Terry, Raj Patel, Brahm Ahmadi and Nikki Henderson
Date: January 26, 2012.
Part II:
TTS Speakers Series in Oakland California. January 26, 2012. This was a near 2 hour long, friendly conversation about food, justice, sustainability amongst myself and several other cutting edge food justice activists. It is also the evening in which Bryant Terry debuted his new book “Inspired Vegan.”
WARNING: HORRIBLE ANGLE OF THE CAMERA THE FIRST 45 MINUTES, BUT THEN MY HUSBAND MOVED IT TO A BETTER PLACE. YOU CAN HEAR EVERYTHING, BUT NOT SEE EVERYTHING VERY WELL. MY BATTERY DIED AND I DIDN’T GET THE WHOLE THING, BUT MOST OF IT.
This is my weekly non-vegan rant focusing on race and whiteness in the USA. IT just takes a few minutes at the playground with my newborn and 2.5 year old to get some “well-meaning” white woman to insult me by ‘complimenting’ me about the whiteness of my children and how I don’t look ‘black’ (yet I also don’t look American).
This is not an anomaly. This bullshit happens all the time and I’m just sharing it right now because it’s just been one of those weeks….
To those who thought I should have called her shit out: You’re right! I am still stuck in this “I should be compassionate to everyone including those ignant folk who racistly hurt my feelings” mode. I talked to my mother after it happened and she basically said or made several points:
(1) Amie (that’s what she calls me), If I reacted to all the racist shit white people have said to me, I’d be (a) in jail and/or (b) dead from high blood pressure. This is why so many black and brown people in the USA have high blood pressure.
(2) You’re right Amie about wondering if that lady would have mistaken you for the nanny if you had been a white woman. That is what white female privilege means: you can have a multi-ethnic child or even a “white” looking child and you will never been seen as a ‘servant’ to that child, only their capable mother. As a black woman, you are a capable nanny, buy rarely seen as a capable mother.
(3) Raise your children the way I raised you: to love yourself and everyone and not be a judgmental racist, colorist, etc. You’ll get stupid people who identify as white who say racist things to your children. And believe me, at this point in life, Eva Luna looks like she’ll be seen as ‘white’ by most white people. When she’s in school, she will probably be in a situation in which she is around all white children and they may very well start talking about black people and maybe even refer to us as “niggers” . You’ll have to train her to fight back and stick up for herself and your family. This is what it means to live in an ongoing white racist USA… and don’t think you’ll also be exempt from colorism by black folk who bother her about her being not black enough.
She reminded me how, when my parents first moved to our all white rural town in New England, the white man who came over to fill the oil tank for the heater asked, “How can YOU people afford to live here and buy a house?” She said my father told him to leave. Wow, such white entitlement to say that to my mom and dad.
So, maybe this this isn’t really a non-vegan ‘rant’… I remind myself to eat healthy vegan foods, especially my green kale smoothies with spirulina, avocado, fresh ginger, and maca root in the morning. It helps me with the physical stress in life, particularly when dealing with racist situations and feeling my blood boil. I hope I can teach my babies many methods to heal our souls and psyches and bodies from perpetual racism and normative whiteness and neocolonialism. I tell them to try to remember to be compassionate and loving to yourself and when you don’t feel well, are angry, upset, etc, nourish your soul with some green smoothies, kale chips, or a cup of nourishing mineral tea. So, here I go to make a kale maca Spirulina smoothie for all of us…
Shit White Vegans Say to Black and Brown People
This is HUMOR, people. I’ve been accused of being way “too academic” and that I don’t know how to have “Fun”. So, here is me trying to find some humor, okay. Everyone is doing this “Shit” meme, so here I am doing that same thing.
Sistah Vegan’s homemade vanilla creamsicle raw kale chips
Check it out. I was inspired by the local company in Oakland, CA called “Alive & Radiant Foods.” I tried their “Organic Spirulina Orange Creamsicle” flavored kale chips the other day and fell in love. Unbelievable stuff! So, I love kale chips but don’t usually buy them because they are too expensive. So, last night, I decided to make my own vanilla creamsicle kale chips and this was the result!
And check Alive and Radiant foods out here: http://www/blessingsaliveandradiantfoods.com
Recipe: 1 c raw cashews, 1/2 tsp of sea salt, 1-2 pitted medjool dates, 1/2 tbsp of raw vanilla, 1 c of water, a bunch of kale.
Breeze Harper’s 2012 Speaking Schedule
Breeze Harper
Breeze Harper’s 2012 Speaking Schedule
(This will be updated on a weekly basis as more events are confirmed for the year)
(1) January 26, 2012 OAKLAND , CALIFORNIA:
TTS Speaker Series Presents: “Food, Justice, & Sustainability” URL: http://bterry.eventbrite.com/ . Breeze Harper will be speaking on a panel with Raj Patel, Bryant Terry, and others. Time: 7pm-10pm.
Location: Oakland School for the Arts Black Box Theater , 530 18th. St., Oakland California. USA
(2) February 27,2012 AUSTIN, TEXAS:
Brown Symposium at Southwestern University in Texas, in the Austin area. Title of the symposium is Back to the Foodture. Breeze Harper gives a Keynote speech: ““On Being and Not Being the Wretched of the Earth: A Critical Race Feminist Analysis of Vegan Consciousness”” at 1:30pm at Alma Thomas Theater.
Event details can be found at: URL: http://www.southwestern.edu/academics/brownsymposium/film.php
In this video I talk about Sol Raiz organice Maca powder that I have been taking to create healthy libido, postpartum, and grow my hair back. I also update people on how I’m trying to handle “nursing on demand” and the challenges of being the primary caretaker of 2 children under the age of 3, while living in a nation in which there isn’t much structural and institutional support to help mothers (or the primary caretakers of pre-school age children which usually do end up being females).
The brand of Maca I by is by Sol Raiz:
solraizorganics.com/
Consuming Hopelessness vs. Consuming Ahimsa: On Sugar addiction and Structural Oppression
Talking about how and we we overdose on “unhealthy” behaviors and foods in the USA as ways to deal with hopelessness, stress, etc., and how this is a symptom of living in a society in which structural racism, speciesism, sexism, classism, etc are the norm.
And Supa Nova Slom’s video, “Sugar Crack” that I refer to in this video:
Clifford the Dog Misses His Family and She Doesn’t Care
I give a critical animal perspective to “Clifford”, the book series for children, and talk about one book I read at the library in which it was ‘normalized’ to take a baby from its family to entertain a human being and for that human being to not care that the baby misses its family and cannot see them or be with them.
Receiving anger, responding ‘politely’: How to handle aggression when exploring whiteness and race as a scholar activist
This is just an open heart stream of consciousness I share with how I am trying to figure out how to deal with the anger and passive aggressiveness I receive, as a black female who engages in intellectual inquiries about race, whiteness, and colonialism. It’s not so much about the online comments and emails I receive as much as I’m interested in how to handle these situations when I’m in a physical location, like after I have given a lecture, or if I’m in a class and a peer or professor displays overtly angry, or passive-aggressive responses to my critical inquiries.
Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and Sustainability
Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and Sustainability (MIT Press 2011). Click this link to buy it –> Purchase book
Breeze Harper
melissa danielle
