Seeking Fairness Through Food Justice: Alabamians Address the Injustices and Shortfalls of Mainstream Environmentalism
Jan 31, 2021 09:31AM ● By Meredith Montgomery
Marian Mwenja’s passion for fairness began at a young age: “My mom tells me that as a child, even when I was the one getting the good end of the deal, I would get upset if something wasn’t fair for everyone.”
The Birmingham native participated in social justice initiatives as a high schooler and discovered a deep connection to environmental justice at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, when a professor argued that social justice issues can almost always be connected to land issues.
“This concept of environmental justice really made my soul light up—I can do something to protect this beautiful Earth that I love so dearly while also tending to this ache I have for all the harm and violence that is happening to people all the time,” says Mwenja. Believing that environmental destruction is rooted in the control and oppression of certain groups of people, Mwenja can’t fathom talking about climate crisis without talking about anti-Blackness and colonialism.
The Cultural Cost of Environmentalism
Indigenous people see themselves as a part of the natural world, acknowledging that when the land suffers, they suffer. When colonization occurred and native people were stripped from their connection with the land—a connection that fostered the health of people and the planet—the mentality shifted to one that separates humans from their natural world. Instead of a mutual relationship with nature, humans see themselves more as having power and control over all that surrounds them.
“Indigenous genocide and the enslavement of Africans laid the framework and continue to fuel the environmental crisis we are currently facing. Any work around ecological protection or regeneration that does not also include the protection and restoration and regeneration of people and cultures connected to that land, is violent and ineffective because you’re not actually looking at the entire problem,” Mwenja explains.
The recycling movement serves as an example. Although the green bins appear to reduce an individual’s waste stream while making them feel good about their eco-action, the recycling industry generates a significant amount of waste that contaminates the air and water of communities of color. Those communities, according to environmental justice researcher Dr. Robert D. Bullard, at Texas Southern University, “have been considered to be throw-away communities; therefore, their land [is most often] used for garbage dumps, waste transfer stations, incinerators, dirty materials recovery facilities and other waste disposal infrastructure.”
“Instead of questioning why we need the products in the first place, we are still producing unnecessary waste and still consuming thoughtlessly as we steal the life and health of Black and brown people across the globe,” says Mwenja.
Taking Action with Local Food Justice Initiatives
As the Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network’s (ASAN) first Justice Fellow, Mwenja has discovered food justice as an avenue to address the interconnected crises of climate change and racism. The position was created to coordinate the formation of a justice committee within the organization, and to strengthen ASAN’s partnerships with Black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) led organizations doing food justice and food sovereignty work around the state and Southeast region.
As a grassroots network of farmers, consumers and agriculture-related organizations committed to sustainable agriculture in Alabama, ASAN’s mission is to deepen relationships between the people of Alabama, the food we eat and the place we live. Founded in 2001, they foster personal connections between growers, eaters, institutions and businesses to promote a resilient and thriving agricultural system.
A resilient agricultural system is also a just one, and ASAN believes inequity and exploitation in any form, from producer to consumer, are threats to sustainability. All laborers within the food system must be justly compensated and treated with dignity, and the historic and modern racism and sexism that pervades current agricultural institutions and practices should be specifically addressed.
Within the food system, ASAN is committed to amplifying the voices of the marginalized, while creating and distributing resources to lessen barriers to ownership and to promote wider participation. Mwenja is leading the justice committee’s efforts to develop and research projects that can better serve Black and indigenous farmers while fostering connections with existing food justice initiatives in the region.
As one of the first steps, the committee is exploring how reparations can be distributed to BIPOC members of their network. “It feels really good, but also scary because it’s such a complex idea. But who else is going to do this work? We feel an obligation to experiment and see what’s possible in Alabama—this place that people write off all the time,” says Mwenja, who notes they’re also planning political education events so they can thoughtfully inform members who are unsure of why they are taking this initiative.
The justice committee is also interested in supporting mutual aid projects such as Fountain Heights Farm, which is distributing nutritious food to hundreds of Birmingham families through the pandemic as a part of the #WeAllEat Food Cooperative. Since 2017 the organization has been creating high yield urban farms on abandoned and tax delinquent lots to provide healthy fresh foods to community members on a sliding scale. The Dynamite Hill-Smithfield Community Land Trust is another example—a land trust, centered in a historic African American community, committed to permanently affordable housing and using regenerative agriculture to feed people. “So much mutual aid is already happening in the area and ASAN is trying to fortify those organizations that already exist, instead of trying to create something new,” says Mwenja.
Cooperation Fuels the Impact of Small Steps Forward
Mwenja is adamant that collectivism, not individualism, is going to get us through this. “We’ve got to help each other—everyone has something to give and everyone has something they need. When we all work together, we can meet those needs.”
An intentional mindset is imperative for not feeling daunted by the scale of environmental destruction and inequality that surrounds us. The 24-hour news streams and social media feeds tend to highlight the trauma and catastrophes of society. “It makes you feel like you don’t have any agency, but in order for things to grow, they have to first come to be,” says Mwenja, optimistically.
“If we get this thing right even on a small scale, I believe in its ability to grow in a way we can’t imagine, in a way that’s not linear,” Mwenja says. “If we do our part and trust that others are doing the same thing, something’s going to sprout. We got this.”
To learn more about the Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network, visit ASANOnline.org.
