Are you hungry for justice? Do you love local, organic, delicious food?

Bring your passions together at the table, and join me and smartMeme board member Shana Mc-Davis Conway at the First Annual Gathering of the newly launched Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative (GFJI): September 18-21 at the Wisconsin State Fair Grounds in West Allis, Wisconsin.

Food connects culture, health, the land, and the people - but in this fast food nation (where food is getting more globalized, genetically-modified, high carbon, and expensive), we’ve got to step up and strengthen the movement to bring food back to an ecological, human scale. The inspiring trend is that farmers markets are re-emerging in many communities, and organic food is the fastest growing segment in the food industry - but the critical question is, who can (and can’t) afford it?

In the age of global warming, and in a time where 12.6 million children are going hungry in the United States, the future demands that we nourish the Earth and our bellies with a re-imagined food system built on the principles of ecology, and racial & economic justice.

This upcoming gathering is 3 days of doing just that. We are looking forward to delicious, local food — critical conversations about how racism shapes the food system — stories from community-based organizations who are doing something about it — and seeing YOU there!

The Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative (GFJI) is

a new network aimed at dismantling racism and empowering low-income and communities of color through sustainable and local agriculture. The network views dismantling racism as a core principle which brings together social change agents from diverse sectors working to bring about new, healthy and sustainable food systems and supporting and building multicultural leadership in impoverished communities throughout the world. The vision for this initiative is to establish a powerful network of individuals, organizations and community based entities all working toward a food secure and just world

A main course of workshops includes:

What It Means to Be White: Working towards full-awareness of white- privilege in community food security work: Judging by a quick scan of the demographics of people leading urban agriculture projects in low-income communities of color around the country, white women seem to be particularly drawn to this type of work. Within the good intentions of many white women (and men) often lie unexamined negative assumptions. This interactive workshop will explore cross-class and/or inter-racial partnerships…

Grassroots Leaders Fight for Justice in the Food System: The experience of racism in the food system can best be lifted by those who have lived it. We also are the ones on the ground finding solutions in an unjust system. Our multicultural panel will briefly describe our experience, work, barriers, achievements, and plans, with emphasis on successful work led by people of color in the food system….

and our smartMeme workshop -

Re-Framing Food, Changing the Story for Justice: People just buy junk with Food Stamps. Genetically modified crops will feed the poor. Community Gardens are for white hippies/Organics are for yuppies. America means justice for all. The intersecting narratives of poverty, race, and food create a complex mine-field of messages in the dominant culture that all of our work must struggle to re-frame and transform. We will use story as a method to approach framing our issues, and have an honest conversation about our successes, and what is holding back our efforts to create change…

Hungry for more?

A keynote from Winnona LaDuke (Founder White Earth Land Recovery Project and Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band. She has won numerous awards for her indigenous rights work, and written five books including Last Standing Woman and All Our Relations.)

and a potluck of great ideas from smartMeme community friends like:

Marc Rodrigues, organizer with Student/Farm worker Alliance; John Kinsman John E. Peck, from the Family Farm Defenders and Rafter T. Sass of the Liberation Ecology Project

The conference is filling up so register now! See you in Wisconsin!

Good News from our partner Protect Our Waters! On August 5th Nestlé released a statement of their intention to cancel the contract with the McCloud Community Services District to build (what was to be) the largest water bottling plant in the United States! Nestlé’s action to cancel their contract is a huge victory for McCloud community, the biodiverse ecosystems of the watershed, and the larger movement against the corporate takeover of the world’s water!

But this water fight is not over! In response to Nestle’s announcement, the Protect Our Waters Coalition released a statement that:

If the project does eventually move forward, the coalition wishes to ensure that the company is held accountable to do everything possible to mitigate the plant’s environmental impacts and maximize the economic benefits for McCloud.”

Read the Mt. Shasta News story here.

Tara Lohan of Alternet says:

This news is really an incredible turn of events and the concerned townspeople who organized to hold Nestle accountable to the people of McCloud and the environment should be applauded — as well as the organizations who have worked along with them…

Thanks Tara! And the warmest congratulations to the Protect Our Waters Coalition, other allies, and to the people of McCloud! It was the dedication and tireless organizing of the community that made this happen! You are in inspiration to us at smartMeme and people the world over who are standing up to the greed of the corporate water grab. Bravo!

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with members of the Boston-area Progressive Communicators Network. They host monthly learning events and invited me to speak about smartMeme’s approach to messaging and framing.

Based in western Massachusetts, PCN is a national network of organizers/communicators who:

“strengthen and amplify the power, voices, and vision of grassroots movements that are working for racial, social, economic, and environmental justice.”

PCN offers tools, networking, and an annual member convening to connect progressive communicators in order to enhance collaboration and advance the field of strategic communications. PCN also has active local groups, including one here in Boston.

About a dozen people came by to enjoy some burritos and conversation - and hailed from some amazing groups like the Student Immigrant Movement, United for a Fair Economy, Political Research Associates, Mass English Plus and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. It was inspiring to hear of the great social justice work that folks in the Boston area are doing, and have the opportunity to introduce myself (and smartMeme) to this community.

You can check out the slideshow I gave here (FYI some of the colors got tweaked in the slide-spacing process…)

After the slideshow we had the opportunity to talk, and the discussion was a rich reflection on the role of people’s history in story-based strategy. Often what we are facing is not lack of a story, but a ‘forgetting’ of history that is based in racism. As the antiracism principles of the Peoples’ Institute For Survival and Beyond remind us:

“History is a tool for effective organizing. Understanding the lessons of history frees us to create a more humane future.”

So many of the barriers that racial justice and social change communicators face are deeply related to an erasure of histories, and a dominant US media and school curriculum that often ignores (or is ignorant to) the centuries of struggle for social justice.

When we are communicating across race and class and waging the fight for justice, we are often struggling not just to reframe what’s happening in the present, but also name and reclaim what has happened in the past.

As any pop-psychologist will tell you, you can’t move forward into a better future without examining and understanding your story of your past - and the United States certainly has not reckoned with its history of genocide, slavery, conquest, and imperial interventions…

A related topic of discussion for the group was the story of the US civil rights movement, and that like many stories - it has become a “great man” story. While Dr Martin Luther King was undoubtedly an important leader, there were also countless individuals, particularly women (like Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, and many others) who were the muscle of the movement. (BTW I’ve Got the Light Of Freedom is an excellent peoples’ history of the Mississippi Freedom Struggle).

Some of the questions I was left with (as a social studies teacher by training and a smartMeme-er by trade):

As a diverse country, if we don’t know each others’ (and often our own) histories, how do we envision a shared future?

When/How must our movements wage the battle of the story over the past in order to foreshadow our story of the future?

Pop-culture narratives are celebrity-focused, but movements are powered by countless everyday people, so how do we both honor our leaders and hype all of the everyday heroes of our stories?

Thanks to PCN for the opportunity to offer our ideas, and have a provocative conversation. Thanks also to UFE for hosting!

*We hope to continue the conversation with another PCN learning event in the fall focused on using the battle of the story tool in practice. Be in touch if you’d like to attend!