By Nina Holtz
“What we have is a Global Food Industrial Complex. This is what we have to dismantle. This is what we have to address.”
LaDonna Redmond is an activist from Chicago and the president and co-founder of a grocery store created for the hip hop generation called “Graffiti and Grub”.
Redmond’s TedTalk is about changing the narrative of the Food Justice Movement to better represent how historical racial oppression causes food injustice today. Without relying on political representatives to drive change, LaDonna calls for food nonprofits to organize together in campaigns for food justice. Find the original TedxTalk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydZfSuz-Hu8
[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydZfSuz-Hu8″]“We have come together across this country and turn our nonprofit will into political will to change the food system.”
“While we are talking about access to free range chickens and grass-fed beef, we need to also be talking about immigration reform, fair wages for the those farmworkers, and the entire food change workers, also, the people who serve us, the people who fix our food should also be paid fairly.”
“”Food desert”, the phrase, is another one of those cute terms masking the harm of a food system in our community. It really is the Trojan horse of increased corporate control of a food system.”
“…many of us would say, “You know, let’s build a 501(c)3, let’s get one of those 501(c)3s, let’s get some grants, let’s get some foundations in here, let’s fix the problem.” That’s fine. But, the food justice movement is calling for jobs. Economic Justice.”