New Tulsa flag. For more on its meaning, including tribal connections, see this link.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending and presenting at the 25th annual White Privilege Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma with my dear colleague Karen Spiller. We were invited to share about the past 10 years of co-producing the 21 Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challengefor Food Solutions New England, and also be in conversation with Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr., Debby Irving and Dr. Marguerite Penick-Parks, who were the originators of the 21 Day Equity Challenge through The Privilege Institute. To say that it was a rich experience is an understatement.
Meeting in the City of Tulsa and being in the state of Oklahoma was particularly poignant, for all that they represent with respect to this country’s history – the destination of the Trail of Tears and home to 39 different Indigenous tribes because of relocation and forced removal; the site of Black Wall Street and the 1921 Massacre; birthplace of the likes of Woody Guthrie, Wilma Mankiller, Jim Thorpe, Anita Hill, and Ralph Ellison; a focal point of the Dust Bowl, and known as the buckle of the so-called “Bible Belt.”
We were truly blessed to be welcomed each day by members of one of the three tribes whose reservations intersect in the City of Tulsa – Osage, Cherokee, and Muscogee Creek. Through their welcoming words and “land acknowledgments” we learned so much more about this country’s history and also the resilience and generosity of Indigenous peoples. This included a very rich morning presentation from Wilson Pipestem, a citizen of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, Osage headright holder, Managing Partner and co-founder of Ietan Consulting and a fierce advocate for tribal self-determination. In this and a follow-up breakout session Pipestem facilitated with his colleague Lance Kelley, of the Muscogee Creek, I found myself scribbling teachings, including this list of ten, all of which seem to fit under broader headings of “be aware of the danger of the single story” and “check your assumptions”:
There are some 575 tribes in the US today and more than 300 reservations, along with 630 Canadian “reserves.”
In telling the story of the Indigenous peoples within the US, we should not speak of “conquest.” Rather we should talk about accommodation, ongoing attempts at agreement building, and of course, agreements broken and terrible harms done.
Much of the policy of the US government during the Trail of Tears era and beyond was based in a very false and harmful belief that Indigenous peoples were “inferior and would disappear eventually.”
Related to the above, laws were set around certain allowances of land for Indigenous peoples, complete with White overseers and an expiration date, all of which emphasized the false idea of “Indigenous impermanence and incompetence.”
During the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Andrew Jackson had his life saved by a Cherokee named Junaluska. Later, Jackson, as President, would request the removal of Junaluska and his people from North Carolina as part of the Trail of Tears.
A large part of Indigenous resistance lay in the ongoing refusal to accept that “the ways we were given that we know are perfect are in any way ‘wrong’.”
The story of Little House on the Prairie could also be told as that of, “A White family that was squatting on Indigenous lands.”
There exists a range of “blood quantum” requirements among tribes which determine tribal membership (from as much as one-half to as little as 1/128).
Sitting with all of this, with much gratitude, and more committed than ever to the notion of working towards “right relationship” as well as telling the fuller story of this imperfect and amazing country.
What assumptions are you sitting with?
What single stories that could benefit from a fuller telling?
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are [people] who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.”
– Frederick Douglass
On April 1, 2019, the 5th Annual Food Solutions New England (FSNE) Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge will officially launch. We at IISC are excited to once again partner with FSNE in offering the Challenge as a tool for advancing the conversation about and commitment to undoing racism and white supremacy in our food and related systems.
The FSNE Challenge is a remixed and more topically focused form of an exercise created by Dr. Eddie Moore (founder of the Privilege Institute), Debbie Irving (author of Waking Up White), and Dr. Marguerite W. Penick-Parks (Chair of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh). A small design team saw the potential of using the Challenge to invite more widespread conversation about the connection between race, racism and sustainable food systems and ultimately greater action for racial and food justice.
Furthermore, we saw an enhanced on-line version of the Challenge as a way of creating “network effects” around the justice work that many are already doing in our region and beyond. Participation in and the complexity of the Challenge have grown significantly and organically over time. In 2015 we had 200 participants, mainly from the six state region of “New England.” Last year we had over 3,000 people participate from most states in the US and some places in Canada. As of the writing of this post, we already have over 2,000 people registered.
The point of Challenge is not simply to spread but also deepen the commitment to racial equity and food justice. As such, we hope that participants return each year, and many do. Accounting for this, no two Challenges are exactly alike in terms of content, and we are continuously nudging people to go from learning to action. See the image below as one way that we have thought about encouraging people to move up a “ladder of engagement” through their involvement.
Over time, numerous organizations have self-organized to take the Challenge in-house, convening staff colleagues, fellow congregants, community members and classmates to reflect together on learning and making commitments to action. We have heard from groups such as Health Care Without Harm; the Wallace Center at Winrock International; Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems; Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University; Southside Community Land Trust (Providence, RI); Agricultural Sustainability Institute at University of California-Davis, Georgia Organics and many others who have convened around the Challenge and are planning to do it for the first time or again.
This year the Challenge is being widely promoted in a variety of places, including through sessions that Karen Spiller and I offered at the White Privilege Conference in Rapids City, Iowa, and at the New Hampshire Food Alliance state-wide gathering. In addition, the Challenge is being promoted campus-wide to students, faculty and staff at the University of New Hampshire, where FSNE’s convening team, the UNH Sustainability Institute, is located.
So what exactly is the Challenge?
It is a self-guided learning journey examining the history and impacts of racism, different kinds of racism, how it is connected to our food systems, examples and tools on how to undo racism and build racial equity and food justice.
How does the Challenge work?
People sign up (YOU can register here) and then starting April 1st, they receive daily email prompts focused on a different theme along with links to related resources (readings, video, audio) that take about 10-15 minutes each day. In addition, there is a robust Resource List for people to look through and continue their learning. Those who register also have access to an online discussion forum for those who want to talk and think out loud about the daily prompts and other learning along the way.
How is the Challenge evolving?
To meet the demands of a growing number of participants and the expressed desire for many to go deeper and to replicate the Challenge in different ways, we have developed a variety of additional supports. This year we again offered an orienting webinar that featured Drs. Moore, Jr. and Penick-Parks along with testimonials to the value of the Challenge, including perspective from Sister Anna Muhammad who works for NOFA/Mass and is on the FSNE Network Team and the FSNE Racial Equity Challenge Committee.
In addition, this year we have produced a Discussion Guide to support groups at schools, colleges, businesses, churches or other organizations that may want to do the Challenge together. The Guide along with the Resource List essentially form a ready-to-use “bake box” that groups could use to run their own exercise if they would like, or to keep the Challenge going 365 days a year!
Another feature this year is a robust Outreach Kit that has been pulled together by FSNE Communications Director, Lisa Fernandes. The Kit includes sample communications that can be used to recruit others to participate in the Challenge through email, social media (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook), as well as a one page information flyer.
All of this is in line with how FSNE sees itself evolving as a network into its next 8 years, creating resources that might be shared easily through aligned, diverse and robust connections and adapted by others in the region and beyond (stay tuned for a New Food Narrative Messaging Guide).
What next?
Please join us, and spread the word, the invitation, the conversation and the commitment to others!
Last year, this networked remix of an exercise created by Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr. and Debby Irving, was offered as a way of spreading commitment to learning about, talking about and taking action to solve racial injustices in the food and other related systems. This year, additional tools and virtual platforms were added to create a more robust environment for learning. This included:
an even richer resource page with readings, videos and organizational links,
a blogroll of daily prompts with links to resources and room for participants to offer written reflections,
a series of original blog posts on the FSNE website committed to relevant topics and themes
