Bourbon 'n BrownTown

Ep. 78 - Black Farming & Finding Your Food Story ft. Pearl Quick

Episode Summary

BrownTown breaks bread with long-time homie Pearl Quick, soil science educator, farmer, and pastor as they discuss the histories of Black, brown, and indigenous farming practices while navigating the relationship and resistance to oppressive institutions, and what it means to decolonize our food systems.

Episode Notes

BrownTown breaks bread with long-time homie Pearl Quick, soil science educator, farmer, and pastor as they discuss the histories of Black, brown, and indigenous farming practices while navigating the relationship and resistance to oppressive institutions, and what it means to decolonize our food systems.

Full transcription here!

GUEST
Hailing from the South Bronx, Pearl Quick is an educator in soil science, disease ecology, genetics, and faith formation from Sarah Lawrence & Princeton University. Pearl created Many Soils, a farming space where Black and brown youth come to learn how to decolonize their palates, look at the physical world, and grow food for themselves, their families, and their communities outside of the white gaze.

Mentioned in episode and more information:

 

CREDITS: Intro soundbite from AJ+ and outro music Rainforest by Noname. Audio engineered by Kiera Battles. Episode photo by Pearl Quick.

 

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Episode Transcription

Ep. 78 - Black Farming & Finding Your Food Story ft. Pearl Quick

BrownTown breaks bread with long-time homie Pearl Quick, soil science educator, farmer, and pastor as they discuss the histories of Black, brown, and indigenous farming practices while navigating the relationship and resistance to oppressive institutions, and what it means to decolonize our food systems.

INTRO OVER MUSIC

 ("A lot of people don't know that the 12 and a half million Africans who were kidnapped from their home were mostly rounded up because they were expert agriculturalists. Even after the Civil War ended, the government never delivered on its promise of reparations. It said it would give free people a plot, no larger than 40 acres, and a mule. It didn't.")

BODY OF EPISODE

David: I [00:01:00] want to welcome everyone to another installment of Bourbon 'n BrownTown. I am your co-host David hanging out here with my boy, Caullen, as always. It's rainy as fuck. It's one of those April days, but Caullen, bro, how you feeling? How you doing? 

Caullen: I'm doing okay despite the weather being kinda great and dreary outside, I'm in decent spirits.

Normally my Wednesday's, which is the day we're recording, are pretty chill. I get up, work out, and work on SoapBox stuff the rest of the day. But today went to yoga, had a doctor's appointment, did some work, had a one-on-one, taught some more classes, then came through. So I'm kinda scatterbrained right now and haven't eaten a lot and I'm drinking this whiskey and Coke with 120 proof.

So things might get interesting near the end of the podcast, what I'm trying to say. But I'm feeling decent. I'm happy to be here. It's a lovely space. And I think the topic we're going to get into is exciting for me, just cause it's so [00:02:00] universal. Food. But also, I'm not a farmer, but I know how capitalism works, so I'm interested to talk some shit, hear some shit, learn some shit, analyze some shit. I'm excited. How are you doing over there? 

David: We're doing good. We're doing good. Today was- Wednesday's are usually kind of nuts, but today was actually really chill. And I've been liking consistency more and more, which is really weird, I guess that's called growing up.

But on that, I totally feel you with regards to this episode. I've been really excited and- I don't know actually, if I've ever named dropped Pearl in an episode in the last 77 episodes. And I may have on some of them, but I really enjoy the human being who we're going to be sharing this space with, 

Caullen: but for y'all that do not to know- Pearl Quick hails from the South Bronx, where she watched Black, Brown, and Indigenous women turn old abandoned lots into flourishing spaces for food. An educator in soil science, disease ecology, genetics, [00:03:00] and faith formation from Sarah Lawrence and Princeton University, she loves to be outside "at the very hint of a sun". Pearl created "Many Soils", a farming space where Black and Brown youth come to learn how to decolonize their palates, look at the physical world, and grow food for themselves, their families, and their communities outside of the white gaze. Pearl argues "my people do not need to succumb to this arbitrary idea that there is such a thing as 'good food' or 'bad food'. There needs to be another way of creating healthy, whole, and uplifting spaces where food stories may occur." Pearl reads two to three books a week in her downtime, and she's actively trying to break her 100 book year goal, which, kudos because I could not do it. She rises every day by 05:00 to train in the gym and enjoys creating her herbal teas. Pearl says, "I have the energy that flows between Christmas morning and a golden retriever puppy. I love the land, my people, and food." Pearl, what is goodie? 

Pearl: I am so [00:04:00] excited to do this. I love hearing about myself. I'm not going to lie. It's great. 

Caullen: I love that you love to hear about yourself 

Pearl: I love love it. And I love when men do it. It feels perfect. As it should. 

Caullen: Like, you're getting back at the patriarchy, somehow? 

Pearl: Yes! Put some respect on my name!

Caullen: I love that I've always loved how much you love yourself in a way that's confident and a little egotistical, whatever, but like- 

Pearl: I love it. Say it with your whole chest. No, it's definitely egotistical, I love it. 

Caullen: Even planning this episode, we knew we wanted to have you on. As a theme-based podcast, we're like, what do we want to talk to Pearl about?

Uhmmm, it could be farming. It could be faith. It could be sex and body positivity. It could be this, it could be that- she's so knowledgeable and competent about knowledge and always willing to learn. So I'm happy to have you here because you've been a homie for [00:05:00] many, many years. And also, I love learning from you and when we talk and any time, all the time, so I'm excited as David iterated.

Pearl: Thank you. I'm so excited. This is great. 

David: We're talking about this larger conversation of food sovereignty and Black farming and all the things kind of intermingled to, all of it, to which Caullen mentioned, is- we're not just talking about Chicago. And so for our listeners could you maybe give us a little bit of context as to ground us in understanding this thing- farming globally, and then where your current work right now lies with that? 

Pearl: Definitely. So I grew up in the South Bronx as it says, and I spent my time between the South Bronx and the South. And when I lived in the South, we had a farm and I realized [00:06:00] that when I lived in the South Bronx, where I'm from, I watched how supermarkets were geared very differently to Black and Brown people than they were if I got on a train and went to "white neighborhoods" where it went from the regular ShopRite to Whole Foods, which I consider Whole Paycheck, cause I can't afford it. And none of the food that was in my neighborhood, none of the fruit was good for you. I could smell the rotting meat from the door and it baffled me because I realized that the people who were putting this food out also lived in that neighborhood.

So my people were actively being- well, basically being fed things that were rotting, because we didn't know any different. Because there was a gap in knowledge on purpose. So when it comes to farming and food sovereignty, I spend the majority of my time trying to [00:07:00] teach my people- Black, Brown, Indigenous folks about where we stand when it comes to this land.

And because we were- Black folks were brought here, like, we didn't want to be here, like an invitation we tried to ignore. And we were brought here and made to serve this land from the Indigenous folks whose land it is. And we've had to survive on this land that has been forced upon us and we've been forced to, till it, and die for it, and toil for it, and also not reap any benefits from it.

So being in the South Bronx, seeing that our closest thing of food is the bodega, which I love, don't get me wrong. A bacon egg and cheese- every day, but also nothing is what it's supposed to be. Our people are starving and they are sick and they are dying and it is 100% on purpose is what I will- a literal hill I will die on.

So when it comes to [00:08:00] what I do, I think about why the food system is on purpose. It's racist, it's classist, it's elitist, and it's on purpose. And people like to push it to the side, but the reality is the people who work on these farms can't afford the food they grow any longer. And we will get into it, but the reality is it's on purpose, it is done for a specific purpose to make sure that they can co-opt Indigenous practices and call it "farm to table". Like, fuck outta here, that shit has been happening in my neighborhood forever. It is farm to table. The abuelita on the first floor has been doing fucking farm to table for decades, but you slap another name on it and you make it white, and all of a sudden you can charge $65 a plate. And that shit is infuriating and debilitating for my community. So it's really messed up and [00:09:00] that's why I'm here. 

Caullen: Woo. Love it. I am thinking about all the things. I love when I talk to folks. It's something I always try to bring up, but just the intentionality of it, of what you mentioned, as far as it's being done intentionally, right?

This food system is made intentionally to have all those things in it. We tend to lose that when we talk about the systems that rule our day and I think it's intentionally to naturalize oppression. Like, oh man, I wish this would be better. It's like, yeah, it could easily be better if you chose differently.

Pearl: It could be better

Caullen: We're just making bad decisions. We're not, but they are. So thank you for that. I wanted to say something- I want to ask something before we move too much forward. Can you give a community definition of what is food sovereignty? If I'm unfamiliar with that term, what does that mean? 

Pearl: Yeah man. Food sovereignty is a way to stop thinking [00:10:00] of the food system, stop thinking of the people who grow the food, the people who toil for the food as separate from the people who buy the food and the land that produces the food. Food sovereignty is remembering that we work in tandem to the land. So we work in tandem. We don't work separately. And I will put a spin on it because I am a pastor. I will say that food sovereignty also adds that in my case, the Bible in Genesis said that we will toil for it. We will work with land. We are part of creation. We are not the center of it. So food sovereignty is remembering.

It's a good and beautiful remembering that everything you do must come in community and must come from understanding land and working with land. We have this insane ability to separate ourselves from land. And that's why we have people that don't [00:11:00] believe in global warming, we don't believe that the world is not groaning or dying, but the reality is food sovereignty is remembering that nothing can work if we don't work together. It is this beautiful understanding, and the Indigenous folks have been doing it forever, the Afro-Indigenous folks have been doing it forever, that our land sustains us. And the more that we understand that, the more that we understand the soil and ourselves, the more that we understand our community and the more that we can do what is needed to make sure our people are whole and holistic and fed and fed well. Food sovereignty takes the ego out of food and labor and money and feeding our people and really grounds us, pun intended, to this idea that we are part of land and that we must remember that.

And we have become so- we have strayed so far because we [00:12:00] are a people of dominance. We want to dominate. We want to destroy, we want to form into our image because we've made ourselves god. And because of that, we have ripped ourselves from the very thing that sustains us. Without land, you have nothing. And I just- food sovereignty pushes us back to the beginning and says, you are part of this. You are part of creation. You are not in spite of it and you are not better than it, and you are not above it. And if you don't learn that now, it will destroy us. And we have been doing this for decades. And so I'm hoping that the food sovereignty from our people will continually bring us back home. 

Caullen: I'm thinking of histories and trajectories and stuff. And you talked about Indigenous practices, Afro-Indigenous practices- even globally. And you fast forward to now, as far as how we use the land and commodify the land, which I think is a good word to use here. We talk about capitalism and how that's [00:13:00] put above anything else and all the other harmful things that happen to get commodities, to make things, to make food and land, which is actually natural commodities, make that possible. But I'm thinking, because you mentioned earlier the farm to table, like coaptation, it's funny to me looking back and thinking back on a lot of topics and themes and whatever, but with food and what you said about Indigenous practices, how it's been quantified with capitalism- maybe we can get into slavery to now with Black farmers. Now, we're seeing a lot of- I call them food trends, I don't know, but things that are catchy and cool, and hipster or whatever, and whitewashed, for sure. But I think it's even almost deeper than that, I guess, whitewashed and whitestreamed and all that, but it's so much of the case that even you see Black and Brown folks even catching onto as well.

And so with farm to table-

David: Yo, you fucking with squeeze, bro?

Caullen: What'd you say? 

David: No, I'm just talking shit. Because, you're talking [00:14:00] about the squeeze juice cleanse? Like the juice cleanse type shit? 

Caullen: I'm talking more broadly about a lot of things

Pearl: Juice cleanse, veganism, all of it, all of it. The farm to table is one of the worst to me. Veganism- westernized veganism is one of the worst to me. It's all- it is super whitewashed. It is so racist. It's so ridiculous the way that white folks have, especially white women, have co-opted this, "this is the only way to be healthy, don't you know?" And we're like, bitch that's every day

(music credits)

Pearl: Our people have been doing this shit every day. Where have you been? But now that you get to slap a different name on it and demonize my fucking food, are you kidding me right now? And that's what they do. They spend all their time being like, "Ooh, you can't eat yuca, it's high in starch. You [00:15:00] can't have platano, it's high in starch." You can go fuck yourself, because this has been in my family for decades and I promise you we've been just fine. This idea of veganism, this idea- like our people understood it in a very different way. Meat was celebratory. Why? Because you did not kill your animals for food every day. Don't get me wrong.

Do I think we eat too much meat? Yes. But that's because we have- it's readily available. So we eat meat four times a day almost. But the reality is if you are Black or Afro-Indigenous, or Indigenous of any kind, or Latino, you spend your time growing the animal and then you kill it and then you freeze it for a few months.

So anytime you ate meat, it was celebratory. But let's not fucking pretend that that shit didn't extend from slavery for us, when we would only get the scraps of THEIR celebration. And [00:16:00] then we would get the innards, the gizzards, the heart, the liver, the pig feet, the chitlins. And you think we didn't fucking freak that shit and make it work for us?

Cause we did. And we still do. So when someone comes from the outside in, and they're like, you can't eat that. I'm like, why don't you tell your fucking great, great, great, great grandfather you fucking dickhead? Just get out of my face, I don't understand what you're saying to me because it's your ancestors that made it so difficult for us to do anything.

And we gonna always survive and we gonna always thrive. So we did exactly what we're supposed to do. It is the great unlearning for me. It is the unlearning to decolonize our palates and our plates. The reality is, our food comes with shit. It comes with history and stories. So when I read a white recipe book, I'm like, Errgh, it's just recipes.

Like, okay, I get it. But when I read an Indigenous or Latina or [00:17:00] Afro recipe book, it comes with stories as well. Because we don't eat food just to eat food. It means something to us. And that is the thing that I'm constantly returning to. That it's not just "what is good food? What is bad food?"

It's what carries our stories. Afro women got on boats with no language going to a new fucking place and put seeds in their hair so no matter what, when they landed, they could grow food. You can't fucking make that up. That is our people. That is who we are. And that is the shit that I'm always decolonizing. Keep that whitewashed shit over there because it does nothing but confuse and destroy my people. And I'm totally against that shit. Sorry. 

David: I'm eating #### solely right now. I really [00:18:00] like connecting memory to traditions. That's fantastic. 

Caullen: It's just funny to me how in the past 15, 20 years too, we've seen the gentrification of hair products, of headscarves from Black folks and other folks too, so hard, so pushed.

And that includes food, for instance all the things you just mentioned too. And my thing too, is I've been working in fitness and the bigger, broader, allied health and wellness industry, seeing how that has always been problematic and holds onto a lot of those same things you said. I know some of the things that are good that you said about like not calling things good and bad food, as far as #### not being the language you want to use and how language has power.

But one thing with that I think about, I think it's only been recently where I've been reading more about Black and Indigenous practices as far as veganism is concerned and how all, they'll give a example of a food recipe and like, this is a vegan recipe, but it's not like fake-this fake-that fake-backs. Cause all that stuff is also high in all things we don't want. And so, for me it's always- for me it's oftentimes where is the race analysis and [00:19:00] the capital and class analysis come into play too? And you mentioned Whole Paycheck, right? Whole Foods is not cheap. But also meeting folks who are- climate change is their thing, and/or how they eat as far as being vegan or veterinarians are their thing, and me being someone who's not that, I'm like, cool, I hear you, I get how you on certain levels 

Pearl: Kudos!

Caullen: For as far as causes are concerned, as far as health is concerned, you're doing it for that or whatever. Obviously as someone who has a dietician as a mom, who's been on here, shoutout Le Greta Hudson, but I know that you can eat meat and be healthy.

But aside from that, I'm like, if you, especially for folks who make personal choices because of the cause, because of the broader thing, because of the system, good for you. Dope. Love it. There has to be an anti-capitalist anti-racist analysis in that thinking and in what you're doing or else you just doing this thing kind of falls flat.

A good example- [00:20:00] I wish my mom was on here cause she could interject, but it's like when being gluten-free was fun and cool. Not having Celiac disease, but when just being gluten-free was the cool thing to do. It was #### Monsanto- we're talking about corporations fucking over farmers and other people, Monsanto was like, Hey y'all, these motherfuckers, are trying to be gluten-free. Let's make this bread, change the molecular structure of the bread, and make it faster. Something you can do with normal bread, and it will be technically not have gluten in it, but people will buy it because it has "gluten-free". And that's what they did. And folks were having the same issues with their stomachs they were having with other bread. Because it was manufactured quickly, because of capitalism, trying to get some bread out, literally get the bread out the door as you get ####. And so if we don't attack these structures that are inherently anti-people and anti-land, and we're not gonna get anywhere. So I just, I, you know, I think you can hold them all together, hold them all in tandem.

Actually push these things forward, especially folks who are new to it, right? Who are [00:21:00] still learning, much like myself. But I think all the things you said are true and it's like, we can do this together. And white folks you can get on board, learn these practices, learn where they come from, and learn these stories. And learn how white supremacy hurts y'all as well. Racial capitalism also hurts y'all! 

Pearl: It's not a people thing. It's a system thing. It hurts us all. Especially if you drink the Kool-Aid, don't get me wrong, Monsanto is literally the antichrist, and I really understand it, in the sense that Monsanto has every seed on lock.

So if Monsanto truck is driving through a rural town and a seed falls off their truck and goes onto someone's personal family farm, and anything grows from that seed, they control the farm. Are you kidding me? That is what Monsanto does. And it does it on purpose because it doesn't care about [00:22:00] people, it cares about profit and it cares about their bottom line.

And I get that- I understand, like capitalism is a mess, but I also want people to understand how important it is to connect these dots. I went to Princeton, I would host a bunch of vegans and vegetarians, and I would say, most of you are here because you don't- obviously you don't eat meat, but you don't eat meat because you watched that one PETA video that was atrocious. Don't get me wrong, it's disgusting. Perdue is just out here fucking chickens up, I get it. Like 275,000 chickens, and they're just throwing the chicks everywhere trying to figure out who's a male, who's a female. But also understand that the people that are doing those jobs have no choice. That's one. And two, you can't care about 275,000 chickens, you can't. You [00:23:00] have to turn off your fucking humanity switch and you have to quickly do your job. And the reality is they're like, but I saw that PETA video and it was awful. So I would spend 22 weeks and I would get baby chickens.

I teach people how to humanely slaughter animals, because there is a humane. There are ways that we do it that is full of suffering that are on these big cattle farms, big chicken farms, whatever. But then there is small scale agriculture, which is people that just have like 15, 30 chickens. And some of them are used for meat and some of them were used for eggs.

So I would invite all the vegans/vegetarians. I would ask them to raise these chickens, raise them with me from birth to death. They didn't have to kill the chicken if they didn't want to. And they definitely didn't have to eat it. But 98% of them decided to kill them and eat it. Why? [00:24:00] Because they were part of the process.

And when you remove yourself from the process and you see your chicken shrink wrapped in a supermarket, we try to pretend- now this is when capitalism comes in, because we try to pretend that we're better than those who just don't know the information and we just go and buy chicken. So you know what I do, I fucking, I flip it on them and I go to supermarkets and I talk to people and I say, make sure that when you buy the eggs, if you boil the egg and you try to peel the shell off, if it comes off smooth, it's spoiled, 100%.

And if you try to peel the shell off and it comes off difficult and you spend 10 minutes trying to unshell an egg, it's fresh. That is what it's supposed to do. It's the same thing that I feel when I tell people, if you buy fruit and the number on the bar code [00:25:00] is over than five, then it's good for you, if it's under that then it's spoiled.

So I try to remember that my people can only do what we can do. So we buy shit from the middle of the aisles, and we have to buy stuff in cans, and we have to buy stuff that's frozen, and all of that I'm okay with. I don't spend my time trying to make someone feel like they're a piece of shit because they can't buy a CSA, which is a Community Shared Agriculture. Which by the way, by the beginning of the season, they make you fucking spend a thousand dollars.

Now tell me who the fuck is that for? Cause it ain't for my people. Not for us on EBT. No, no, no. It's definitely for someone who likes to say, I got this from a CSA. Yeah, but you also spent a thousand dollars for 22 weeks, so I feel like you're the fucking idiot, not me. I [00:26:00] really spend my time being like, let me debunk that for you because you look stupid and you're spending your time being classist, because my people have been doing this forever.

When they try to say our food is good food and bad food. I'm like, we eat beans, we eat meat, we eat rice, we eat salad, we eat avocado, like, of course, but this is what we eat every day, some form of it. It's not much processed food, and whatever is processed in our neighborhood is because that's the only thing we have access to. Which feels like a society problem, not an Us problem. 

Caullen: Take us off the group chat with that shit.

David: I think sometimes it is, you know, we mentioned it earlier, it was unlearning, but it's also accessibility and where you get in, where you fit in. [00:27:00] And when we mention systemic problems, people who, we've all probably have encountered, have different opinions as to what is progress, and what does progress look like correctly. And so, in the conversation we're making things accessible. You know, oftentimes it- especially now we have technology. Which I think develops and advances things and conversations in a way that they didn't before.

And I think- and I'm looking back into my own past and what's my history with this. And coming as a Mexican-American, and looking at and having the opportunity to study and- cause I'm not from LA, like my family came straight to Chicago and I'm first gen, so what the fuck does this all Chicanoism even mean?

But I'm going back to this need to unlearn and indistinct to make things accessible. And I [00:28:00] think one of the examples that we can look to is Cesar Chavez. And the movement that he and thousands of other Mexican-American folk in tandem- we can talk about intersectionality within the Philippine movement that was also taking place at the same time. And the importance of intersectionality. And all of these things were like, they didn't have time to talk about like, oh, this is what we're doing. It's like, no, they were fucking doing it. There's all these other things that I kind of want to put into it. But with understanding that, of you look at our history- and I know we were trying to name Black farming specifically right now, but in this entrance is from my understanding it's primarily migrant workers. So it's like, people for some of these other people that didn't have their own land. And interestingly enough, like with Cesar, who also like his- so we're recording mid April, he passed like the 23rd and he was born on the 31st of March, so we're right in between. [00:29:00] Which I thought I was like, wow, was that coincidence? I don't know. But on that note, it was understanding that people power could actually make work and this ideology of democracy truly being manifested. And I think the example that a lot of us really sit with is, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, formed the United Farm Workers. We can talk about labor and strikes now that we do have an episode on it with our boy Taylor, if you don't know what it is, check that out.

Where I kinda wanna kind of do a 2.0 now, not gonna lie, Caullen. But this sits with the pilgrimage, that they ended up doing from Delano to Sacramento. And the thing with it's like, I think about it looking at it as like, oh cool, these are my people in the '40s- no '60s, sorry.

Organizing, telling people, Hey dude, things can be better, we just gotta do this shit together. That's how I'm translating it. They [00:30:00] said it in Spanish, of course. And so I think what was super cool of learning that story. And I also like- so doing research today, I learned that there's actually a film of sCesar Chavez, I didn't know that was a thing.

And so just thinking about it, like, why didn't I know that that was that clearly, maybe there just wasn't any money pushed towards public- or advertising or whatever. Maybe I think I 

Caullen: They didn't want you to know!

Pearl: Yes. 

Caullen: They don't want you to know your history 

They don't. 

Pearl: They really don't. 

On that, I'm thinking of, so what made this really successful was- this pilgrimage from Delano to Sacramento- the day after the Senate had a migratory labor conversation in that same space.

And so, all I'm trying to get at is, to me what was interesting about that pilgrimage is it started with a hundred workers going from Delano to Sacramento. And by [00:31:00] the time they got to Sacramento, it was about 10,000 people had joined this week long travel to this space. And some of the documentation of it is actually really fascinating.

A little hard to come by, I'm not gonna lie. I thought there was going to be- I thought it was just- you have to do a little digging sometimes. But it's just fascinating. And so they get to this space at 10,000 people, you got, Dolores Huerta, who like, comes from this space with seven children and is like, I'm here, and I'm standing, and I'm telling you all that we can make this better. All of this is to say that you had enough people that then the farmers negotiated the tables and things started to change. That's just an example, within our lifetime that we can think about struggles within making food sovereignty.

Cause a big thing was since Cesar Chavez was like, the people who are growing your food don't have food for themselves. 

Mm that's [00:32:00] it that's it! 

David: I dunno, it's awesome to see that there are some wins. Also Cesar Chavez wasn't the greatest human being in the world, but like, then there's, we can also talk about people and idolizing motherfuckers and movement and where it's at, whether it's Black or Brown folk.

And also like, we tend to villainize those folks faster than white folks. There's things there. But I love that we constantly- and even now here in Chicago, there was the Milagro strike, which is corn tortillas. 

Caullen: Let's go! 

David: That just recently won a settlement of $1.3 million, like

Pearl: Yeah damn right

David: It's like, these are, we have real world examples here. And I wish we could talk about 

Pearl: they're fucking dying. Like 12 to 14 hour days, more than that, 16 to 19. When do they see their families? Couscous. Fucking quinoa. Avocado. [00:33:00] All of these things that they once could afford, now is so trendy that they can't even buy it. They can't even buy the things they're growing all day. No, absolutely not. Fuck that shit. Burn it down. Start again. Like, it doesn't make any sense to me. And I'm so glad that they did that. And I'm so glad that they won because we don't win because these big conglomerates, they fucking bury us.

They bury us and we're just no names. And that's bullshit because if everybody walked off a fucking farm, there'd be nobody. Nobody. Because the same people that are saying like "the Mexicans are taking all of our jobs" are the same ones who wouldn't do those jobs. So I don't want to even hear it. Because that man gets up at three in the morning to go and provide for his family.

Are you? And they're like, nah, and I'm like, then shut the fuck up, what are you [00:34:00] doing? What are you even saying to me right now? And so I'm so- this is the thing we need to be doing every second, every day, and I get when we don't. I get it. We take care of our families. But when you're fed up, when you're like, I am spraying pesticides, which means I am getting sick, which means my family's getting sick, which means I'm working 19 hour days.

And I still can't afford any of this shit. No, no, absolutely not. There's is no reason why it should be this way, except for the fact of capitalism, because the people on the top don't care about anything but profit. Either you're gonna get with it, or you're gonna get lost. 

David: No. And anything to just finish off that little circle with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers is what if that became like a symbol, within the Chicano movement? And it's the power of this one specific [00:35:00] thing then, what am I trying to say, expanded nationwide with more people understanding these things. Whether that's unlearning, whether that's like- you've said so many things, Pearl, right now that I kinda like, I've just been kind of making sure to keep in the back burner when having conversations with folks about these things that sometimes they get so pent up on, or so they like this is where they're holding.

Like this is the hill to die on, this example of Cesar Chavez and the homeys is like, it was a clear cut example to migrant workers, specifically, people who were a moving workforce in the country. And I think that, we've learned from that. We learned from our ancestors. If you look back, Caullen, to a point of it, the United States had programs with Mexico to bring workers. That was originally them for a minute, too.

And then you have, those are some of the people who Cesar Chavez had to fight against because he had to fight against these programs that [00:36:00] paid Mexican workers less. So justified paying American, Mexican-Americans, American-Mexican-Americans- we'll edit that- less. And so just thinking about the systems that have already been ingrained and how they develop things.

Caullen: Yeah. And I think it was important- what I always think about is trajectories and histories. But we've had wins here and there and we gotta celebrate those wins. And so when I think about Black farmers, especially after slavery ####, obviously sharecropping where Black farmers kind of had some land, they kind of made it for themselves and their families 

Pearl: over 1 million acres, by the way. I just wanna say.

Caullen: And it did not take long for that that was the case. And we've-

Pearl: Yep. 1920

Caullen: We've said capitalism very often this conversation. And I feel like it's for folks who know it's a lot of things, but what it boils down to is selling your labor for someone who owns a, for an owner, who's not doing as much.

And [00:37:00] so with selling your labor, it's for that commodity, and then that commodity is sold as Pearl's mentioned, you're getting cents maybe even, maybe sometimes even literally less on the dollar for that commodity and they're getting most of it. And they're claiming it's because of, oh, we gotta ship it, we gotta do this, and gotta do that, and then we had the idea for doing the whole thing. So you who are doing the most work, hours-wise and just taking it out of your literal body, you're getting these cents and we're getting the rest of it. Cause all the other things. Especially with farming and capital and labor and capitalism, that's kinda what we're getting at for some of these cases.

And so, with Black farmers, specifically, after slavery, we see sharecropping, we see Black family farms, we see co-ops of folks taking care of each other. And to Pearl's point, 1920, there were almost a million Black farmers in the US. We fast forward to now and about 48,000 farmers.

And that didn't happen by accident 

Pearl: less than a [00:38:00] percent 

Caullen: Back in the day, early in the 1920s, Black folks were about 40% of the population, thus owned about 40% of the land mass, which feels like it kind of makes sense. 

Pearl: Over a million acres

Caullen: From 1910 to 1997 Black farmers lost about 90% of their land. How much the white farmers lose? 

Pearl: Yes. 

Caullen: Anybody?

Pearl: Yes. 

Caullen: 2%.

And again, these things are connected. David's talked a lot about Chicano and migrant workers. Lose- not even losing, because losing means it happened on you, stuff being taken from you, right? Isn't that the language? Same thing with Black folks, and with anything you need loans to make things happen, especially in America. Black folks and banks don't have the best cozy relationship and that's because of systemic racism. Poor white folks don't either, but especially Black folks with anti-Blackness and slavery.

[00:39:00] And so it's the same thing with farmers. And as I learned doing research for this episode, so if you own a farm and want to operate, really at any scale, you have to have a farm operation loan. You just have to, you just have to 

Pearl: You have to

Caullen: USDA was not giving those out, 

Pearl: Heck no. Definitely not to the Black people

David: So to speak, 

Caullen: And they'll take about 387 days on average to process a loan for Black farmers. For white farmers, about under a month, under 30 days.

That was the case for a long time. And most likely still is. But we do have those wins. And we mentioned union stuff earlier, as far as collective labor and collected folks fighting capitalists for their own fair share. National Black Farmers Union is an example of that. IN '97 they came to DC and were like, USDA, give us our fucking bread.

And they got some money from that. Took 11 years to pay out. But they eventually got some money for that. Shoutout Timothy Pigford, the 400 Black farmers that sued the USDA. There was a follow-up phase. They got, a million- a quarter billion dollars. And just [00:40:00] recently, in 2021, we know how you feel about Joe Biden, really, literally any president, but in the COVID relief package, $1.9 trillion COVID bill, part of that was given to, "socially disadvantage farmers who face racial and ethnic discrimination".

So they got some bread from that. And so we're starting to recognize, acknowledge some of these generational harms. Is this enough, will it ever be enough? No. But I think it's important to notice those wins, both in collective solidarity, as far as outside of any kind of system that existed beforehand, but also when they at least recognize it, because you can use that to your advantage, to put it back on them.

And speaking of that, I don't really talk about the UN that much, I don't really care about the United Nations for a lot of reasons, that's a separate episode, but America does not consider food, a human right. 

Pearl: They really don't!

Caullen: They literally voted that is not a human right. So when you think about all of this, even just the very basic thing of food, we all, as human beings need nourishment to survive. [00:41:00]

Pearl: It was all really good things. Those are all really important things. I think we forget that until 1920, we had a million acres. That's insane. For us, for our people to come out of the 1800s, from slavery, where no one told us that slavery was over and we still didn't get the right to vote until years- we didn't know it was over and let's be real.

And also because we didn't know how to read. Who the fuck, who was going to hire us? So we still worked for the same massa that "freed" us. And the reality is we still did all the same work for $2 a week. And so we moved from that. We get our own space. They don't like it. And when I say they, I mean the whites who enslaved us and then we move on from there-

David: Recent employers, some would say.

Pearl: We move on from there, [00:42:00] we have all this space and they're livid and they destroy everything because they're so mad. Like, why are you mad? Are you mad because you went to a total- you went to an entirely different continent to get people to do the work that you should be able to do yourself? Yeah, I would be mad too, because you didn't even know how to bathe yourself.

So we helped you with that, too. So like who's the real savage here?

Caullen: You love that, don't you? You love talking about white people and bathing. That's your thing. 

Pearl: It's my thing. Because if you can't wash your damn feet and your damn legs, when you're in the shower, I'm angry. I'm just angry. I'm angry about that, okay.

Because I got to put lotion from head to toe, and you can't wash your legs? Like I'm angry. I'm just, I'm mad. I'm mad that you think you could get into my bed and my car and you just don't wash your legs. So whatever I'm angry, but also, I feel like when it comes to our people and our food, [00:43:00] it's super important to remember that we were brought here to do a job. Too import- to do a job as in growing food for profit, for other people.

And we were, "afraid", we were- we created this stuff for ourselves, but you know what happened? The same thing that happened when we tried to vote, they would put a jar of marbles on the desk in front of us and say, you can vote or you can get a loan if you tell us how many marbles are in the jar, are you fucking kidding me right now?

Caullen: It's just a weird. Horribly racist, and violent, and all the things, but just a weird test and a hard test. If y'all have actually done that. That's like, it's very difficult. 

Pearl: It's insane to me, but it didn't have to happen to them. When I went to Princeton, which is founded [00:44:00] on slave labor, by the way, I was in a room that a white man brought his Black woman slave to Princeton.

I was in her room, which was not okay. I moved out. But also when I worked- 

Caullen: You were living in her room?

Pearl: I was living in her room and I was like, I feel you, girl, I got you. Don't worry. I'm leaving this place. And if I could, I'd burned it the fuck down. I swear to God, but I left that place. I worked at the farm there with- I love my director, I think he's great- but when he would say things like, oh, you know, I grew up in Kansas and my dad lost his farm because of the Farming Act. I'm like, did he lose his farm before or after my people lost theirs? Not lost; stolen. It's a very different world. Your dad lost his because the banks, my family, it was stolen from us. [00:45:00] It's a very different idea.

So when we would go head-to-head, I would have to explain to him, you and me are not in the same place, you understand? You are a straight white man. You could be dead broke and someone couldn't wait to help you. And it's not going to be the same for me. There will be stipulations. So when I think about working on the farm with him, I spent all of my time trying to help him understand the history of our people being "freed" from slavery and then working for the same people who fucking enslaved us. Then going off and starting our own farms, just for them to be angry enough to fucking bomb us into oblivion. Are you kidding me? And then going to the banks to get a loan and their like, tell me how many marbles are in this jar?

Go fuck yourself! Like, what do you mean? How many [00:46:00] marbles in the jar, Kevin? How many fucking marbles in the jar, Andrew? How many marbles is in it? Because I bet you, you don't know. Cause who would know that? I don't understand. 

Caullen: It's just like, that's not a skill you need. Again y'all, I understand this is horribly racist. I get it. I get it. But also, if there's gonna be a test at least have it like, how many chickens are in? I don't know. Give me something that sounds not as- 

Pearl: Yes, something I need!

Caullen: I don't know. Thank you for that Pearl. And I feel like that's- I'm glad that you talked to dude. And it's, for me, it's always like, we have collective struggling, and I believe in that. It's like, I'm sure he got his farm taken away and that was fucked up. But understand, to your point, if you're all on the same playing field, he's got an advantage. And that's when it's like, yeah, capitalism- again, white supremacy hurts white people, you know what I mean? It's like, this shit is even bigger than you think, and it's ingrained. 

The other day, [00:47:00] I'll give them notes on the episode notes, I forgot who it was, but they have this quote, that said, "white supremacy isn't the shark, it's the water" 

Pearl: come on. 

Caullen: And my day was done. My day was done. I was like, what do I say? That's it, that's it. 

And I love how in what you said, you mentioned white supremacy, white institutions, whatever, the bombing Black farms, Black neighborhoods, where ever, that's actually that's happened, look up Philadelphia and MOVE.

But also you mentioned the loans and the banks and these private institutions, and it's like, that's how insidious white supremacy actually is. It's all the overt violent shit that we kind of know, but also it's the water

Pearl: It's the same shit as right now. On debts, on debts, on debts. Yeah. 

Caullen: And I think when folks- no folks that are close to us would say this, when people say like, you know how does slavery affects us today, whatever? And we know if you're listening, I hope you know that that's bullshit. But it's the sheer amount of literal trillions, arguably quadrillions of dollars that will be in the economy, that Black folks would have, if it [00:48:00] wasn't for slavery, if it wasn't for slavery not having that money from then on, it is immense. And as for the Black farmers alone, if they didn't have their farms stolen and developed elsewhere or developed by other people, over the past hundred and some odd years, we're talking about $177-230 billion dollars that's not in Black hands- just for farming alone, just for farming alone. 

And one thing I like to think about too, especially when I talk to folks about institutions in general, especially voting and the government doing stuff is, the fact that you can advocate for a policy- we've talked on here with other folks, Mateo Zapata about the immigration movement in the past 20 years and stuff.

And how we got the DREAM Act, and we have DREAMers now, and that wasn't what we actually protested for. But we got this watered down bill, which is helpful, but not really as much as it should be. I think of '21 Packers and Stockyards Act, gave protections for farmers, all farmers, and it [00:49:00] was enforced for a little bit and it helped a little bit, but that kind of went away in the 80's with Reagan, with deregulation, with all these things.

And so that law is on the books, it's just not enforced. So when folks always say they need to make a law and that's it. It's like, y'all don't understand how the government works. You have to enforce laws, you have to enforce certain things if you want it to happen. If you want get someone in office, you want to get this thing passed and say that thing is not watered down and it's pitch- it's perfect, it's beautiful. Cool. Now it has to be implemented. Now they have to put money into it. Some states don't even use the money they have for Medicaid or from the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. And that was over a decade ago, y'all. And that can help people in literal ways.

So if we think broadly about Acts, about politicians, about policies that even are great, they have to be enforced, they have to be funded, people have to do the thing, can do the work and change them and amend them over time as the world changes. So just keep that in mind, in general. But I want to mention that Act, cause I learned about that in research for this episode about how there are some things on the books that can help [00:50:00] all farmers, especially farmers of color, but, y'all gotta put that shit in motion.

And with Reagan, and we talked about, neoliberalism, we talked about after World War II and how shit's changed, and time passed, and all that. That's important. Looking at folks that can get an office and actually do something, then how you push them and then organizing outside and say, fuck this whole system.

How do we do it on our own? How do we make food on our own and sell it to our people on our own? And we have examples of that, from what Pearl had shared, and from what we've seen in Chicago. 

David: Well, Pearl- and I kind of wanted to pivot that to you, one of them being, give me a little sauce on what farming has been like, or why you wanted to dip your fingers in some dirt? And how that's kind of been and what you've seen in regards to some of this food sovereignty and what we're talking about now as far as doing it yourself? 

Pearl: Doing it yourself. Well, obviously it didn't come from me. I grew up in the South Bronx. I grew up in Harlem as well. Grew up in the projects. Watched Black, [00:51:00] Brown, and Indigenous women, literally turn old, nasty, abandoned, lots, in a middle of a project or a middle of a hood. There's burned tires and cars and they would take them out of there, and they would make urban farms.

And I watched, and I helped. And I was with this women in the South Bronx and realized this is the shit that I want to do. And I realized that because it was women of our neighborhood; old abuelitas who did this work, and to them it was not work. It was like, we need these things, we're gonna grow these things, it's what we know, it's who we are, and we're going to use it to feed our families and our neighborhood. And for some strange reason, they all lived on the first floor. So that meant that you could go right to their windows, knock on the windows, and get a fucking pastelillo and get the shit that you needed, [00:52:00] and they would be available.

And for them it was just, it was just community shit. But as I got older, I realized that that was bigger than that. It was so big. It was like, okay, if you want to have your own plot, if you want to grow your own food, if you want to be around your own community, this is where you need to go. Because unfortunately, even though our people work in the supermarkets, it's for a job, of course, but the people who gave us the food didn't give a fuck if it was spoiled, didn't give a fuck if it was rotten. Didn't give a fuck if it was not good for us. It was money, and that's all that mattered. And I was never going to listen to that, instead of listening to the abuelita on the block because she was the one that really understood everything. And she saw everything, and she also understood that she's been feeding her family this way for decades.

And I trusted that. I trusted that [00:53:00] she knew the people of the neighborhood. And I think it comes from watching these matriarchal women in the middle of the hood be like, this is the only way our people are going to survive, because there's no way to do this. And you realize that you're eating food that other people would call unhealthy, which it makes no fucking sense, but these- we're all kids so that we're running around and we're doing the things. Health is not serious unless you make it- unless you want to make it profitable.

So I've loved being part of that. And I realized I want to do that. The Kerry Washingtons and all of the women, the Tanya Fields, the women that are in the actual land, in the South Bronx, who are doing the real work, who are making these farms that are thriving in our neighborhoods. Even the drug dealer [00:54:00] dudes were helping clear out the abandoned lots because the old ladies of the neighborhood would be like, yo, you ain't doing nothing but sitting on the corner all day selling weed and other things, which ain't helping our neighborhoods, but we gonna ask you to help us. And they would drop everything that they were doing to help these young- these old ladies, because they are our history. And to watch that happen, I wanted to be a part of that. And I knew that that was my whole heart is to be a part of something that meant that my people could divest from this capitalistic mess, and remember that our abuelitas, our moms, everyone has been teaching us how to eat from jump. They have been doing this for decades and you know how your Black mama, she be like, You went to that school and you think you're better than me, but I been feeding you, I been feeding your family, I've been feeding the [00:55:00] family on this- and I'd be like, you're dead ass though. Yeah, I get that, okay. I respect that because you're right! You have been doing this shit for decades. So my bad, for going to a white school and then bring it back white rhetoric, because that shit is not okay. And that's what you do.

You hear it enough. And I heard it for four years. That I thought I could come back and be like, platano is not healthy. And she's like, go fuck yourself, cause I fed you, I fed your mother, I fed her mother on that, go fuck yourself! And I'd be like, you know what, my bad! Cause you're right.

Cause I fucked up, I shouldn't have even come in his kitchen, because you have been doing this shit forever. And we go from that to now. And I realized it meant everything to me, especially as someone who has been tormented in her own body by people who don't live in my world, who don't [00:56:00] understand that Black and Latinos- women, we're going to be thick as fuck with like three Cs. Like cold peanut butter, like a snicker. This is who we are

This is who we're going to be. And it's never going to change. This is who I am. But when you grow up and all the Rachel's, and Heather's, and Bethany's is like 96 pounds soaking wet with two bricks in their pockets, you feel like you're fat and you're unworthy. But the reality is, I grew up with Dominican girls who were mad tiny on top, and mad thick on the bottom.

So this is what we do, and how we get that is because we eat our fucking abuelita's food, that's it. So we move on from the shit that like makes us feel unworthy, makes us feel broken, makes us feel unwhole. And we divest from that shit. And we [00:57:00] decolonize our plates and we realize, yo, I've been doing this shit forever. I'm good. I've already been doing this shit. So how do we move from, this is healthy, DK, like fucking quotes. And then moving toward, this is what's nutrient dense for my body. And that is why I also bring the body shit into it. So it's important to me and it's important to my people. And it needs to be a thing that we do.

Every day. And it's hard because you hear the same rhetoric all the fucking time. It's all we hear. So it's all you know. So when someone says something contrary, you feel like, I need to tell them that they're wrong and I'm like, baby, come get this plate, cause you wrong. But it's not my choice to tell you that right now, I'm going to bring you into the fold and we're going to be a family and we're going to work it out.

David: No, and they're definitely learning, we're going back to [00:58:00] this unlearning, this relearning and this understanding of this world that we can create. And I think it's simple, cause I'm thinking about where each of us fall on this line. And we're clearly all different.

I didn't grow- I love cooking though. And listening to you speak, Pearl, I'm thinking about the traditions to some of the dishes I know how to make. And why I know how to make them, and the reason why I know how to make them. And it comes back to whether that's my mom, my aunt, my grandmother.

Cause I don't have- and something else I wanted to name earlier on, Caullen, that you were speaking to, was generational wealth. And some people are so stuck on what I'm making- other people- what I'm chasing, my hustle type shit. Like, no, but some motherfuckers, they been here for like nine generations, dude.

There's like, and they grow, you know what I'm saying, mama gets fucking, okay? People having babies here. But to the point of food and our relationship with it, I think Caullen [00:59:00] you mentioned the recipe book and I'm really trying to think of when- have I ever looked at a recipe book?

I've seen YouTube videos, but usually my YouTube videos are like showing me how to make a tamale, like I did the other day, you know what I'm saying? I was like, oh shit, we out here pressing this corn into this fucking- masa into this corn. And after like five tamales, I'm like, all right, I'm done, I'm tired. How are they motherfuckers make a hundred of these? Every day? I don't know. I'm just thinking I'm being grateful for the opportunity that I have to have that history, kind of have that tradition. Cause maybe not all folks do. And I think that's where some of this co-optation- or the systems that we're talking about, they use that to their advantage, talking about "healthy food" 

Caullen: I feel like that's important to understand. Pearl you've said things so to this recording too, they're very much like, yeah, don't tell me what's good and bad food, which I wholeheartedly agree with. And I think a lot of folks would now more than they would [01:00:00] even like a couple of years ago. But, I think about traditions, Black folks have, traditions Latino folks have, some of that shit, it- having a diet that's consistent of a certain thing over and over again, that thing isn't inherently bad, but doing that, it's not good for a lot of your body's.

But when it's folks outside your community telling you what to do, that's when you take pause, it's like having a friend group. It's like, you're alway full of shit, like- Hey, he's shitty, he's my shitty friend. And so that anti-Blackness, that racism comes into play with all those judgements and stuff.

But putting that aside, do we need to have an honest conversation about recognizing that in our own communities? And I think that beautiful, maybe 23, 24 minute total episode of The Boondocks that shows that on display, the granddad's [01:01:00] restaurant, yo, 

(sound clip from The Boondocks, episode 10, "The Itis")

Caullen: all the food that rooted from slaves eating it because, to Pearl's point, have the scraps from the massa, had to make shit work and did, and were also working 20 hours a day.

Burning all these fucking calories. I do think at some point, sometimes we do need to understand where traditions come from and honor those and love those. And understand how that actually works with our physical bodies. And I mean that as most [01:02:00] individualistic as I can, because everyone's body is literally different, and that's- it's become like a kitschy kind of catchphrase thing, but it's true.

We need to understand that, and we can do them both. We can do them all, but it's just takes a layered approach. But when folks outside that don't understand those histories, and are telling us certain things, then are taking our things at the same time and marking up the price- yeah, I take umbrage with that. 

Pearl: Yeah, absolutely, you can do both. So, as I mentioned earlier, this idea of celebratory food, yeah- soul food remix. So I have something where I teach people, this is the history of our. If we were getting the innards and all of the, and we only had "Sundays off", "to be humans", while we were enslaved, that meant that we got the innards of the animals, so they would have the breasts, they would have all the fancy things. [01:03:00] And we would have the gizzards, which I freaking love. We would have all the livers and the hearts and all the stuff. But what I try to teach my people is that there is something that means something to us, which is historically we love these foods, but- and, it is not something we ate every day.

It's a celebratory food. It was on purpose, when you are enslaved, and you're only off "on a Sunday" you're going to eat beautifully. You're going to celebrate because you're not "off" every day. But the reality is that we have taken that because that, because it happens, we have taken it and we have extended it to almost every day and that is not healthy.

So a former friend of [01:04:00] mine, I would say, because you know, there's only so many straight white men that I can have in my life. I feel like there's a quota and I hit that.

Caullen: Ah Brian, you're out. I can only have two, three is too much.

Pearl: I'm so sorry, this is your pink slip. I mean, you've done well over the summer, but I need to let you go for the winter months, but 

Caullen: it's a COVID thing. 

Pearl: So he was like, I just don't think that white slave owners were smart enough to be able to do the food thing and 

Caullen: stop, Brian!

Pearl: I was like, Brian, no! 

David: Wait, I'm confused. Clarify for some of our slow listeners here. You're saying wait, so can you just repeat what he said again? 

Pearl: Yes. So an older acquaintance of mine would say things like, I just don't think that slave owners were smart enough to separate people who are [01:05:00] of different languages, and also make sure people didn't converse with each other, and also give them food that was unhealthy. I think you're giving them more benefit of the doubt. 

I'm like, Brian, I think you're giving them too much benefit of the doubt. The reality is this is what they did. So if you gave people things that made them consistently unhealthy and you called it a celebration. And of course, because we are those people who will freak anything, we made sure that it extended to our families and it was a celebration, but it wasn't a celebration every day.

So instead of going to someone's home- see the problem that I have is that I work with young people. And young people, if I teach them something, the first thing they want to do is go home and tell their parents. But I'm smart enough to know better than to telling a fucking 13 year old, your platano is unhealthy, so they can go back and tell their [01:06:00] abuelita? Yeah!

For her to be like, you can't live here anymore. Yes, exactly. I've been doing this for decades. So instead of being that person, which I'm not, I talk about food celebration. I talk about the stories, the nostalgia, the things that when you are feeling down or you are feeling nostalgic or you're feeling whatever you want to eat that thing that makes you feel like home.

See for Black and Brown folks, it's more than food. When I ask someone, what is your food story? Which is where my organization comes from. It comes from the fact that people don't just- our people don't just eat food to eat. It comes from somewhere. If I say you eat macaroni and cheese, why? Even though you're lactose in-fucking-tolerant, why do you do it?

And they're like, because my mom made it when I had a stomach ache. And that [01:07:00] means something to us. It is more than just the food. It's connected intimately to the story. So what I try to do is to hold that story beautifully and to also say, we don't do this every single day, we don't. And we also, as enslaved people, we would work 19 hours a day. So that meant that there was no amount of fat that could be on our bodies because we were outside from 4:00 to 10:00, my man, like there was no ability for us to be overweight. Cause we were not eating enough, and we were definitely not resting. So we have way more sedentary lives.

I don't want to take away our people's stories. It is our stories. It is us. It is who we are, but I also don't want us to fall into another white [01:08:00] made trap of eating things that are so unhealthy that it fucking kills us. But I can do both and I am trying to do both well. So that's- it's so important for us.

David: Pearl, thank you for giving us a little bit of insight into how you've seen entities divest themselves. And here in Chicago, I know we've mentioned City Farm, Urban Growers Collective. I think there's- I'm missing one off the dome, but it's beautiful to continue to see folks like yourself Pearl, who love this enough that that's what they're doing.

And that's one thing that I was connecting to my small research of understanding a little bit more of migrant workers and their struggle with it. This thing that I go back to is like, you get in where you fit in. They weren't [01:09:00] trying to solve all these other big world problems.

They weren't thinking about- it was, this exact moment this is what we're going to focus on. And we want the people who are working it to do it. And I think sometimes some of us get so lost in all the sauce of, but this- but that- but this is, and I think just wanting to recenter, understanding, where did you come into this?

If you're coming into this conversation as a vegan, I hope you hear, and you've heard all the things in reference, and you take that with you. If you're someone who who's like really, you're still pro-capitalist and you're listening, bless you, but I hope you're taking that with you.

And so it's so wonderful to hear. When things are so global, it's sometimes so hard to talk about stuff. But I think having these things that we can tie to such as tradition, such as mutual understanding- cause another thing to me earlier on, I would never eat alone.

And I realized that some folks who wrote me, they were constantly into eating alone. To me, it's like, why don't you just wait until everyone gets home and then eat a meal? And so thinking, I'm just connecting this now, as [01:10:00] I'm sitting with y'all, about even the traditions that we make with regards to, my parents made it an intention that we all sat for dinner.

It's like, oh, well, why? Is from where all that stems from, from these other things. Cause you would wait until the people were home from work and y'all would eat. I don't know. So it's like, that's what I'm taking away with right now with this conversation. And it's exciting because once again, you want to get in where you fit in, whether that's you growing the food, whether that's- maybe you work for one of these motherfuckers, bro, be a whistleblower, homie. We're here,

just give us the sauce, and we'll tell people. And that's the other thing is like, then once people know, we have to organize them and we gotta tell 'em. And there's hella people doing the good work out there. So shoutout to y'all

Caullen: I'm thinking locally about Chicago. I didn't think about this earlier, but you know, we did a project with Crossroads Fund- it's a small, radical, dope grant funding agency in Chicago. And they wanted to highlight certain folks who were doing dope work. This was maybe 2018, 2019 I believe- 2019, I believe, and one of the [01:11:00] groups was the Street Vendor Association.

Just what it sounds like, street vendors- that's my lady shoutout Carmen with her own business selling tamales out in the literal streets. And when we were talking to her, we were learning about her story and about how cops would come and be like, oh, you don't have a license to sell food here or there.

And like, they would criminalize her and her people out in the streets. Literally just selling people food, you know what I'm saying? And they got associations together and they fought back against the city and they won against City of Chicago, to be able to sell food to people out in certain neighborhoods.

And that's dope. And that's what organizing does. And for Carmen, and I remember talking or at least hearing her story a little bit and Carmen was like, look, I'm just here, I just trying to feed people. I'm not trying to be an activist or organized, I'm just trying to feed my community. And that was intentionally made- intentionally criminalized.

And so back to the point I made before about white supremacy is the water, not the shark. It's the co-optation of our [01:12:00] language. With the farm to table, with all the things Pearl mentioned, it's the literal police. It's how we talk about things, it's all the things, and so I always feel like a PIC, like abolition, like spit on everything, but that's where it comes into play.

And so I thought of that story when we were talking, I was like, fuck, I remember Carmen. And then she made this association, they are "legit"- I think there's problems with that as well, but whatever, and they're making their bread, which is dope. And you know, David mentioned Chicago City Farm our home homie used to work there.

Shoutout Alex ####. But we were there at City Farm, which they have multiple farms over across Chicago, I believe. The one we were familiar with is one in Cabrini Green, which has his own history of institutional racism, concentrated anti-Blackness anti-poverty as far as housing was concerned, and they were demolished in the '90s, we can have a whole episode on urban housing and the failures- the intentional failures of that, but there's an urban farm there.

And that neighborhood, now, is not what it was in the '90s [01:13:00] and '80s. It's white and it's mostly affluent. But there's an urban farm there and they were growing radishes and a lot of plants and vegetables and all the good things. And they would have events there, that would have folks come out, dance parties, they would have food- dinners, all this cool shit- and still do, shoutout. But I remember one time we were there and my parents were in town, had some fam town, my auntie, uncle, cousin, it was dope, had a great time. I was begging them to come out, everyone came out. Day they come out, whole homies were out, and the cops came because they just wanted to shut it down.

They cited- there was, we had bonfires there and stuff, so they cited the bonfire. They cited dumb shit that's on the books, but like, it doesn't actually matter 

David: It was used to cook food, by the way, those fires.

Caullen: The cited that, and they shut it down. And so I- it's not the same, but thinking of Carmen and the Street Vendor Association and selling tamales to people who want them, and the thing about the cops coming to this literal urban farm [01:14:00] that literally sells radishes-

Pearl: yup. That's just what they do. That's exactly right.

Caullen: We were playing music and hanging out, it wasn't like a neighborhood place where it's super quiet after 10- nah people were partying, this is fucking Gold Coast in Chicago. 

IThere's a Target across the fucking street. 

And it's just- it's not that I forget the police do that shit, as well as the other really insidious and racist stuff, but it's wild how not only our language, and our practices, and our stories are commodified and or co-opted for power and for capital, but also we're intentionally criminalized and have been for generations, but it just looks different and in different levels.

So I wanted to just name that as far as how we interact or don't interact with certain institutions and whatnot. So shoutout City Farm, doing your thing. Soul Fire Farm

Pearl: Yesssssssss. I love Soul Fire!

Caullen: Which I just learned about recently. If you're unfamiliar with Soul Fire Farm, they're an Afro Indigenous centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system. Thye distribute life-giving food as a [01:15:00] means to end food apartheid. From what I've seen from that organization- or that collective, and from what you do, Pearl, you center young people. Why is that important? 

Pearl: Yeah. I center young people because not just the age old, "they are the future", which- yes, bitch, I am the future, okay. I don't want to play this game. I'm not old. I am future, bitch, me! 

But also because we- Leah and Jonah I love so much, I worked for them for a little bit in 2015. I worked for them for a year. I worked with them and I just love what they're trying to do. I think that everyone is on this earth to do what they're supposed to do. So Leah is half-white and half-Haitian, and she really leans into her Black sovereignty. And Jonah is Hasidic [01:16:00] Jewish and he really understands his place.

I just respect that. I respect that he takes a backseat. I just respect it. I respect it. I'm like Jonah, you're the greatest, I respect that you understand your place in this. And I just, I watched them, I worked with them and what I love most is that we center young people because it's important, not for them because they're just their future. Yes they are. But also because they have a different perspective, they haven't hit a spot in life where they are so jaded and so broken, and so confused about everything. They ask pointed questions. So as someone who teaches 8th graders, they ask these questions, they are Black and Brown kids and they say, Ms. Q, I am going to a predominantly, all white school, what should I be looking out for? And I have the abilities to tell them, you will make new friends, [01:17:00] but if you've only grown up with Black and Brown people you will have to understand macro-aggression, micro-aggression, and it's not to scare them.

It's to prepare them. So when I think about us and them as people who think about food sovereignty, and land, and soil, and growing, and food, It's because if we don't do it now with ourselves, with them, it will just perpetuate itself. They will grow up believing that the only way to be "healthy" and the only way to be in the know, or the only way to be woke, in that sense, is to be vegan, is to be vegetarian. If you decide to be that, totally cool. But if you only doing it because someone else told you that's the right thing to do, and animals have faces like Madonna fucking said- yeah, everything has a face and we still shoot those faces down, so I don't want to hear it, Madonna-

David: Even if they don't [01:18:00] have a face, they have feelings. 

Pearl: Everything has a face. I'm just like, yes, everything has a face, you're right, and we still shoot them down. So the reality is I teach young people-

David: or the back of the head 

Pearl: yes- to understand our spaces in life, to understand their people. Yes. To understand their people, to understand their families, to understand their food, their culture.

And it's hard when so many different people are coming to them, telling them there's only one way to be and only one way to think. And so it's so important that we focus on them because we ask them what they know and how we can support them. How can I help you understand how the world works and why you shouldn't go home and all of a sudden tell your mom that you can't eat her food? Because that's different. That is coming from something else, which is why I am very grateful to [01:19:00] be in this position to tell my young people, it does not have to be this way. I want to tell you the stories, and also, I want to know your story.

I want to know why you do this. I want to know why you eat this food. I want to hear your stories because it's so important for us to be like, that is so beautiful. And in time to be able to explain, we don't do this every day. Because I feel like it is our story and it's insidious to me, it feels like people are waiting to destroy us with food.

And at the same time, we're trying to reclaim that. Not the destruction, but the food. 

Caullen: So I have a question- if someone's coming to you and saying, Hey, Pearl, I've decided because I want to lessen harm in the world, with living things I [01:20:00] inhabit this space with, I'm going to be vegetarian and/or I'm going to be vegan, I guess, what is your response to that? Especially if they're saying that they're coming from #### and/or I have #### on how capitalism works and I get that you have to do more than that, but if someone's like, I'm doing this to lessen the hurt in the world, what would your response be to that?

Pearl: I don't-yeah, I don't think that there's anything wrong with- first of all, most of our people are primarily vegetarians. Maybe not vegans, but definitely vegetarians because we historically don't eat meat every day, so we lessen that. The vegetarian idea is not new. It is always been in our people, especially since we didn't kill animals every single day, which means we didn't eat meat every single day.

So primarily meat were celebratory reasons. It's expensive, it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy, so when you finally kill the animal you [01:21:00] freeze most of it so that you have meat for the celebratory reasons for a full season, which is like 10 months. So because of that, it's not new. I'm not faulting anyone for becoming a vegan or vegetarian.

What I am saying is to check where that's coming from. And to check yourself when you look at someone who wants to eat meat, who does eat meat. The reality is that we just have to check where our shit is coming from. But when it's coming from primarily white folks, I have to ask them, where is their response coming from?

So at Princeton, when I taught people how to humanely slaughter animals, it was all white people. Because that's where I went, in a predominantly white institution. 

David: Oh, I wish I would've taken that class, that woulda been dope. 

Pearl: So I would teach them from the chickens being day 3 years old, all the way to 21 weeks, when by that time they were [01:22:00] starting to kill each other. Which makes sense, that feels right. It feels like a studio apartment with 20 people. So they would start pecking each other to death. So because of that, I'd be like, you don't have to take place in this, you don't have to participate, but because you raised this animal-

David: But did anyone?

Pearl: And they did, yeah, most of them. So when you kill a chicken, in my regard, you don't do the whole, grandmother wringing the neck- like the grandmothers be like, hardcore, they'd just be like wringing the neck. Or they just chop off the head, which makes sense. But we would slit the throat. And the reason why the chickens are the most emo- it's the most emotional for you, is because with anything bigger than a chicken, you can shoot them in the back of the head at the base of the neck with a steel pole.

So it's quick, it's painless. But with the chicken, you have to get up close, and you have to slit it's throat. [01:23:00] And that shit is emotional as fuck. Yeah, and they're upside down and you slit their throats, but so many of my vegan, vegetarian friends would do it. And then they would go through the whole process. And even some of them would eat it, and they hadn't eaten meat for a long time, but I would ask why did they eat the meat?

They didn't have to. And they'd be like, because I raised it, I feel like I should eat a piece of it. And there was something special about that. So when I talk to people that want to be, or are vegan/vegetarians, and they're just like, I don't care about anybody else, but this is what I choose.

We all have reasons to do what we do, but I need you to check where that's coming from because this shit is so deeply tied into capitalism, into slavery, into elitism, into racism, fuck it, into misogyny, [01:24:00] it's all deeply tied into each other. So if someone tells me that they're doing it because, I don't know it's healthier, I want to check them.

I want to tell them like, is it, is it really healthier? Is this where we are? But the reality is it's not. And I really want people to check themselves. I'm not against vegan/vegetarianism. That shit has been in our culture forever. I am against what it is right now. When someone says, it doesn't make any sense, meat is murder. I'm like, so are cops.

Caullen: Murder is a legal term! Murder's a legal term. You can't say that cause it's a legal term! I love alliteration as listeners know, but the meat is murder thing, you have better reasons to not like it but it's like, that's a legal term. You know what I'm saying?

David: Well, can you explain, once again for the listeners in the back, what do you mean by legal term? I be like, oh, they murdered this meat, you know what I'm [01:25:00] saying? I'm not trying to use it legally. 

Caullen: Yeah, but you don't- you're just being like, you're just being dumb, right? Well, and also you're using things that mean violence to mean something good, which is also something we need to just try to think a second about, 

David: explain it. Motherfuckers are listening, you know, let's go 

Caullen: when we speak of things that are good, and that we are celebrating, and we're speaking about them in violent terms we're uplifting violence in a certain way. We celebrate violence all the fucking time!

Pearl: Uhhmm yeah! 

Caullen: We celebrate violence in our language. And we uplift that. I'm in the fitness industry, people be like, oh, we killed that workout, or let's go, you know, we say it all the time, it's normal, how much we normalize this shit.

Pearl: Let's talk about it.

Caullen: And there's levels, obviously, there's that. And there's a war budget. They're not the same, but it's like, we normalize this shit all the time. It's important. Pearl, thank you for that. And I knew you didn't hate veganism, but I just wanted you to tease out some of those things for people who are listening

Pearl: But there's levels to this shit. There's all sorts of levels to it.

Caullen: And I think about even when I was a child in social studies and learning [01:26:00] about Indigenous folks in America and things; and even then as problematic as the US education system is, I learned that Indigenous folks when they killed a buffalo, they would eat the whole motherfucking body 

Pearl: the whole thing! 

David: Everything. And not even eat it, but use it.

Pearl: And they'd use the hide for clothes. They'd use the bones for weapons. Everything. 

Caullen: And honor that and knew that. And knew about life cycles and honoring the buffalo before they'd even kill- you know what I mean? And I'm speaking on Indigenous history as if I'm like, an expert on it- I'm not. But I remember that from as being a child knowing that. I'd be like, oh shit, why don't- do we still do that? What are the things? And last thing I'll say, as far as anti-capitalist analysis, another thing you said, Pearl, and I had to agree with it- there was this meme that was like, you know, how do I attack climate change?

And it's like, "meatless Mondays" and like this, that, and the other. And one of the panels was like, "guillotine the corporate class"- I'm like, that's how you change climate change. I'm not saying don't do meatless Mondays- do meatless Mondays, whatever. But also, this is a capitalist thing. We could all go vegetarian or vegan [01:27:00] tomorrow and they would figure out a way to make money off of us.

Pearl: They would

Caullen: And the planet would still be dying. They could do both! 

Pearl: Okay- if we're going to be real, let's fucking talk about it- all of this vegan/vegetarianism shit, there's so many things that are sickly processed. You want to talk about vegan/vegetarianism. Soy is not good for you.

Beyond burger is bullshit. All this shit is bad. It's bad for you. If I have to choose a beyond burger, what is so processed to make you feel like you're eating meat, and before that I can't go to my abuelita's house and have rice, beans, and fucking platano- guess which one I'm gonna choose? Because all of that shit is processed as shit.

Soyrizo. All of that shit is processed as shit. I don't care about the process fact of it, but the fact that people who do- not everyone, so many of us, are just like, that's better than what you're [01:28:00] eating. I just disagree. I disagree. I don't believe that it is. I believe that your shit is so pumped full of fucking nitrates, and sugars, and salts so that it tastes like the shit I'm about to eat right now- eat the burger, eat it. Don't pretend that it's chicken. Just eat the wings, eat it! 

Caullen: When we think about young people, we think about capitalism and the working class, and how it really is, when you get down to it, by ordinary folks who own and operate these powerful machines that intentionally kill us, intentionally own all the land, and all this shit. 

David: Intentionally oppress us

Caullen: But one thing I have leaned into the past couple years is having an international perspective on these things.

We think about the World Bank and the IMF, and all these international groups that don't do good things, especially for the global south. Hands Across America in the '80s, we had to honor and help [01:29:00] the Africans, right? It's like the Africans- actually African countries were not that well off because of certain neoliberal practices that were global.

So this whole marketing thing has happened because of global capitalism. FARM AID in the United States had good intentions, but it was- it originated to benefit farmers, which is good, but it's because of the shit their own country is doing, United States is doing because of anti-Blackness, because of capitalism, all the things that we know to be true.

So it was essentially seeing the nonprofit industrial complex take a hold of this problem that it's also part of in a weird way, as far as how it's structured, how it benefits off these -isms that we always talk about. 

Last thing we'll mentioned is farmers in India. Punjabi farmers in India doing their thing. And fighting against the three farm bills that Modi put in- tried to put into policy. But they had uprisings

Pearl: Let's talk about what a million people can do.

Caullen: In 2020, end of 2020, 2021. 

David: We ain't talking about ten thousand, it was million- oh bro 

Caullen: [01:30:00] Hella folks went crazy and got that win. And we got to have the honor that. And it's not disconnected to our fights in this country and abroad. Modi, in India, is a Hindu nationalist, and had- and still has horrible anti-Muslim practices and policies. And that's not new to India by any means, but he was leaning into that more so than before. Anti-Blackness, isn't new to the United States, but Trump got it leaned a little more than before. So this shit is not just happening in pockets of the world.

We can talk about Duterte in the Philippines- can talk about a lot of folks. And so we need to talk broader about these systems, that in farming or have histories, and are hurting our people in all the other sectors we have to understand that this is bigger than us. 

And lean into your hood and help where you can. And do what you can with your people. But this shit is not new and it's not only in your neighborhood, it's everywhere. 

Come on. Yes. The reality is this has been happening everywhere because colonization and [01:31:00] white supremacy has touched every corner of this earth.

So the reality is that we- my friend from Shanghai, use to always say, you can always tell people from what they look like. She'd be like, if you're very pale skinned, you work in an office, but if you are Chinese, but you're a very dark skinned, ooh we know you work in the field. But the fact that the field is considered the lower class, the fact that you sitting in a fucking cubicle is better than me who grows your food, who eats it, makes no sense.

And that shit stretches across the entire world. Everyone's like, well, you're just a farmer. Just?! My man, if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have strawberries in December, which is a problem by the way. But also if you want it, I make it happen. [01:32:00] You understand that? Cause you don't. You don't make it happen.

I make it happen. My people makes it happen. It's what we do. But we also work efficiently and extremely fast and for 18 hour days. So let's not play this game. And we need to understand that that shit is global. That's global. That's happening all over the world. If you're darker skinned- cause we're dealing with anti-Blackness- if you're darker skinned, then all of a sudden they're like, oh, you work in the sun. Yeah, and you eat every day. So let's not talk about that because somehow it is considered lower class and that doesn't make any sense. But that's why I do what I do. So I can make sure people understand. When I was at Princeton, even- I mean, I understand why the Black folk were like, you work on a farm? It feels like, it's giving me slavery. And I'm [01:33:00] like, actually-

It's giving me slavery vibes... 

Pearl: And I was like, uhm but I'm doing it for us. I'm doing it for our people. We give free produce, how is that a problem?

But the reality is it's considered so low class. And I don't understand it because if it wasn't for people who grew food y'all would starve to death. But that's the reality. So many people tell us, I can't even keep a house plant alive. Hmm. But you can grow food because if it wasn't for me or my people, you would not survive.

And the fact that we look at someone who works at a cubicle as higher than someone who works on a field makes no fucking sense. Think about it in terms of going to a restaurant. You ever go to a restaurant and they fuck up your order, but you really think about that shit. [01:34:00] You be like, I ain't going to send this shit back.

Cause I'm not really trying to have that hock-tooey special. I'm not really sure if it's going to work in my favor. I'm not really sure if I should send my shit back. The reality is that if you're that terrified in a restaurant, understand that someone is cooking your food, which means someone is growing your food, and understand that they're being covered and ingesting the most toxic of fucking pesticides all day.

And that's lowly to you? That's the terrible thing that I deal with every day, which is going all the way back to the beginning of this conversation, which is, if we don't have it right with the land, it is not right within ourselves. And that is the shit that I stick by. Is that we look at people who tend the land. The [01:35:00] very land we live on as lowly, the people who grow food, which by the way, is not easy.

I don't care what- it's not easy work. It is backbreaking work. It is extremely dangerous. 

Caullen: It is more dangerous than policing.

Pearl: The sun- come on! Yes! 

Caullen: There are like, 17 more dangerous jobs. So if you want to thank someone and you see them on the street, but like, Hey, thank a farmer, but thank you for your service. Thank you for your labor. Ranchers, truckers, thank them. 

Pearl: Yes. That's exactly where I land. I'm like, first of all- blue lives don't matter. That's not a job. That's not an actual race. That's not a thing. But the people who grow your food that you like to go home after shooting someone who is Brown, you like to go home and kiss your little white baby on the mouth, and your dog, you like to fucking tongue kiss them. Whatever it is, it comes from my people. It's my people who do this [01:36:00] every day, all day. And I just think that that shit is mind-boggling to me. So I'm sorry to tell you that is the most important thing to me. Everything that I do, I do it pointing people back to the people who do it.

You- I always, when I do my prayer, when we hold hands and we pray before a meal, I say, thank the people who make the food, and thank the people who grow the food, cause it's not for them. We're not having fucking oranges in New Jersey in December, my guy. Those are not real. They're not real. We don't have oranges in Jersey.

It's not real. So, I don't want to do this game with you, but we need to make people feel a little bit like shit so that they understand, this shit is real. And the way that we like to pick and choose who we concede- [01:37:00] we desire and who we see as worthy, doesn't make any sense to me. But we do it because we're trained to do it.

So I don't care what you eat or don't eat, but don't be that guy. We don't need that guy. That guy is already a president and already everything else. We're good. We're good. We don't need that guy.

David: You know, and that's it. That's a wrap. Thank you, Pearl, so much. I love- I'm so glad that we were able to make it, this literally went down exactly how I thought it would. And so I just appreciate you. I appreciate your energy and I'm sure our listeners 

Pearl: Love you both so much!

David: would love to continue digesting. Cause I probably am going to have to listen to this conversation again.

But I do, as always, want to give a moment to give you an opportunity to shoutout any of the homies. Plugging anything that people who have been listening to you for the last hour and some change. We need to get more linked in, you know, tell 'em! 

Pearl: Lucia Leon, [01:38:00] who has Lightly Farmed, which is in fucking Chicago. And she is Filipina and Mexican. She is killing the game. And she's been doing this for 10 years. And I'm so proud of her. And she is in the heart, two acres in the heart of freaking Chicago. And I love that for her. And she has been trying so hard to bring food and space and produce and herbs and oils to her people in Chicago. And that's the person that I want to really want to big up because it is already in the space that you're doing this work that you're living, and I think that that's important because they can get to her. They can't get to me as quickly, but they can get to her. And that means so much to me because she has been doing this work real well. There's so many dope people in Chicago, which is why I really do love Chicago. Who are on ground level, really making it happen. Really in the streets, really trying to take care of [01:39:00] people and she is one of them. So I really want a big her up because she's out there she's trying. And she is just so adorable. And she is just making it happen. And I'm really proud of her and I really want a big her up and I hope you guys go and see her. And I will tell you where she lives so that you can make sure that you go and actually see her.

David: Yeah! Thank you, Pearl, so much, once again, all of this information will be made available in the episode notes, so make sure you check those out. Pearl, once again, much love, shoutout to you and all the work that you're doing, really excited to visit you back in New York and really excited for you to come to Chicago whenever that is. Caullen, as always, much love to everyone, stay Black, stay Brown, stay queer

Caullen: stay tuned. Stay turnt 

Pearl: definitely stay queer! 

David: And we'll see you next time

Caullen: Especially if you're in Florida. If you're in Florida, stay queer as fuck!

(End music credits) [01:40:00]

David: BrownTown is engineered by Kiera Battles. For more credits, information on episode guests, related media and topics check out the episode notes. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Bourbon 'n BrownTown, Twitter @BourbonnBrwnTwn. Or visit soapboxpo.com/podcast

Caullen: For any and all things soapbox Productions and Organizing, follow us @Soapboxpo on all social media and visit soapboxpo.com.