By Elizabeth Langgle-Martin, Community Engagement Manager
On a recent Thursday, more than 45 people filed into The Nashville Food Project’s community dining room. Guests entered shaking umbrellas and shedding coats to join us for a hot cup of scratch-made sweet potato chili, a panel, and community conversation on the complexities of food injustice and how hunger intersects with other systemic inequities.
Panelists (featured below) sat perched on tall, colorful stools as moderator and the Nashville Food Project’s CEO, Tallu Schuyler Quinn, set intentions for the evening.
The conversation, like the reality of food inequity, was messy. Mentions of racial tensions, top-down versus bottom-up change, the stigma that inhibits folks from accessing lifesaving safety-nets, and institutions that have long held up inequity speckled across panelist contributions. Through our Q and A time, it was evident that guests were also struggling with how to reconcile the picture of what a just food system could look like with the reality of the amount of brokenness we see splintering across so many people’s access to elements that should be basic human rights. It’s an uncomfortable and necessary conversation. It’s a discussion that requires both fierce hope and space to feel the deep brokenness of our existing system.
Here are some snapshots of the many contributions from each of the folks who leveraged their time to discuss how food can be a lens for other pressing justice issues.
“ We have a federal government actively working to dismantle SNAP… One of the changes that recently came out was a proposal on time limits. Individuals between the age of 18-49 are only allowed to be on SNAP for three months unless you meet certain requirements or are working… If you are struggling to find a job, why is taking food away going to help you find a job? There is no research that exists that shows that that is the case. Another one that happened this past Friday, is a proposal that is attacking the school system and the nutrition standard. So, when you have a government that is going through not normal channels to dismantle these programs, that’s going to impact all of our communities.”
“We need shared ownership and shared equity… We need grocery stores that are cooperatives… For-profit entities where people actually get to own and buy from the same place… We need to figure out neighborhood connectivity. I’m thinking of neighborhood ownership, farmlands, grocery stores. I’m thinking large scale so that way we could actually sustain a city.”
“People’s access to housing affects where people live. Where people live affects the schools their children go to and where they can get food… these issues are so interconnected. In Nashville for instance, our housing costs have almost doubled in the last 10 years, from around $700 or 750 to around $1400... that’s double. When our housing costs go up people have less money spent on healthy food and have to start cutting corners. In the United States, we have dug a very deep hole… We have divested from the lives of poor, indigenous, black, and brown folks. That hole has been dug by slavery, redlining, not having a living wage, not supporting the rights of workers who need to organize… we have the gutting of the federal funding of housing... same thing with cutting food stamps. This hole is man-made, women-made, made by the people in power, and this hole is deep.”
“ Many [older people] have never been at a place in their lives [until now] where they need help accessing food. When you become older, you can be invisible and you can look like you are okay… But I’ve seen people who were emaciated from malnutrition. I see hunger manifested through isolation. It is hard for [aging adults] emotionally to be at a place in their lives where they have to seek food [assistance].”
“When we talk about equality, we are talking about sameness. When we talk about equity, that is when we move into the realm of justice and fairness. That is where we need to be in a systematic approach in everything that we do in our country and in our city. Nashville operates in a silo tendency. We look at everything in its own specialized department. We want to talk about housing today, so let’s open the housing drawer. We want to open about transportation, let’s open the transportation door and close this [housing] drawer. All of this is a systematic, circular framework that we need to put equity at the top. ”
Tallu closed by paraphrasing a past professor who noted that we have to absorb enough of the world’s brokenness not to paralyze but to galvanize us, moving us to action.
Signe noted “People often feel intimidated by being advocates but it can be as simple as saying ‘This is what I believe and this is what I see and I think others should see this.’ Find stories, share stories, learn more…”
Inspired to act? Here are a few ideas!
Click here to find council person by your home address.
To receive nutrition policy updates, click here to follow Tennessee Justice Center and sign up for email updates.
To learn more about OTN’s work around homelessness, and to join them in advocacy and action, visit their website.
To volunteer for Fifty Forwards Meals on Wheels Program, contact: sloik@fiftyforward.org
To learn about My Brother’s Keepers Network visit their Facebook.
Missed the conversation? Click here to check out our recording of Food as a Lens.