We had our first anti-oppression training by an amazing group from Oakland called AORTA (Anti-oppression resource and alliance training). www.aortacollective.org

AORTA is a rad group of radical educators that provide organizational and community training on how to build movements for social justice and a solidarity economy, based on an intersectional  approach to liberation following the belief that true change requires uprooting all systems of oppression.  We discussed how systems of power, privilege, and oppression operate on individual, institutional, and cultural levels, and how these are manifested in different levels of the food system.

Each of us were to write on a post it a food/farming moment in our lifetime when we realized that people were treated unfairly based on their race, age, gender, class, ability, sexual orientation, age, or religion. Then we placed each post it on a large timeline, organized by the age when we experienced each moment. This was an incredibly powerful exercise in illuminating various manifestations of oppression through different generations, as well as on individual and a institutional levels.

The last step was discussing how we will understand this within the microcosm of our community here at CASFS, and discussing what it will take to create a safe, equal, liberating, and accessible learning/living environment for the diverse group of multicultural/multi-generational folks here at the farm. Here were some inspirations from our group.

If you’d like to learn more about the intersectionalities of power, privilege, and history in our food system, check out some of these resources.

“How the Irish became White” – Book

Food Empowerment Project

Grace Lee Boggs – a number of amazing books

Highlander Project

Catalyst Project

http://www.auroralevinsmorales.com/

You are probably wondering where the Titanic comes into play. Nobody listened to the folks on the bottom of the boat (the immigrants, laborers, stowaways, and POC) when they tried to come up to the top and tell people on top that the boat was sinking.