A lot of things in life make me grumpy. You know what makes me grumpy? Watermelon in my yogurt. Corn tortillas. Men in moving vehicles stopping said vehicles next to my walking person and saying lewd things. (I was wearing sweatpants, dude. And also? Fuck you.) Owning my white privilege.
Ever since I moved to Mexico, especially in my time in the primarily indigenous states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, I have had to own white privilege that I am not sure I got to enjoy in my rather Latino-ish childhood. But I am pale and this means people are either kind of rude, they make creepy comments about my pale hotness, or I get charged 18 pesos for a grapefruit jugo that I just know only costs 12. Look, world, you were totally right. Being white is hard business.
Oh, wait.
Naturally, this lifestyle of constantly apologizing for something I am not entirely sure I have adequately enjoyed is kind of exhausting. It makes me dream of my days in Carrboro, where I could pay five dollars for some ears of corn or alternately dumpster them from a Food Lion. Where I was politely ignored by the bearded, plaid-clad masses. Where I could rest easy, taking comfort in my privileged anonymity. And let's be honest. Carrboro is lovely. It is full of Stuff White People Like, and I love that Stuff. Farmers' markets? Fancy sandwiches? Grad school? It is all there, friends.
Recently, though, a particular Stuff that happens in Carrboro has exploded in national attention: the Crop Mob. The Crop Mob website describes the mob as "primarily a group of young, landless, and wannabe farmers who come together to build and empower communities by working side by side." How fucking glorious--hold on, let me be an asshole and latch onto this image of the scruffy, Jeffersonian youths! They are building community through agrarianism! Wait. Aren't there, like, a community of people out there who, like, have to do farmwork? For money?
Oh, duuuuude, there totally are! In North Carolina, even! And they are exploited and have rights that are being violated and they get sprayed with pesticides while they work in the fields! And there's a totally brilliant movie about one of these guys that my favorite professor in the whole, wide world made!
My problem isn't just with the fact that Crop Mob fetishizes the work that is done by millions year after year for shitty pay. It's not just that they talk about their low-resource farming as being "much more labor intensive", as if the workers stuck working factory farms are just living it up. It's not just the whole "I'm so tired of using my brain, I want to use my hands now" attitude of privilege. It's also that they don't even seem to explore the analysis as to why they themselves can't own land.
I've developed a lot of anger towards American food sovereignty and basically good-food movements since I've been living in Mexico, because I find these largely lacking in food solidarity. Listen to me, activists, foodies, and other grumpy types: we cannot "go local". Because factory farms still exist, and guess what? Here in Mexico, we eat dirty, pesticide-y produce dumped by US markets because even if you stop buying salmonella spinach and high-fructose corn syrup doesn't mean that corporations aren't going to try to pawn it off on someone. So when we talk about building community, we can't just do it with the five kids who are working on this vegetable garden with us. It is our responsibility to really build community with the whole food cycle. With the universe. And, oh yeah, it's our responsibility to change the international agreements that allow this stuff to happen.
Just remember Imbesi's Law of the Conservation of Filth with Freeman's Extension: In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty...but you can get everything dirty without getting anything clean.
10 comments:
Never in a millionyears did I think "hipster farmers" would be a thing.
So if I build my own house and people come and help me do it but I don't compare it to the plight of the homeless then I might as well not even build the damn thing? Would I just be fetishizing dry shelter? I should go without that shelter because millions don't have the same privilege? Is there another logical conclusion?
Well, if someone is making farming "cool" then it must be a damn hipster fad and totally not worth the time because, shit, they aren't really doing anything but posing for photo ops. There must be no actual farms or farmers participating, just cardboard cutouts of barns and silos and perfectly preserved old tractors that serve as fodder for DIY screen printed American Apparel t-shirts that all the urban cool people are wearing.
Fuck you; we're trying to produce food for our community to eat and participate in (as well as make our mortgage payments). We're good at it. We're young, not necessarily born on a farm, we don't like how industrial ag works - we therefore attract attention. Does it honestly bother you that small farms exist and that they need some outside assistance from time to time? Do we need to exist and toil alone to be legitimate? Or should we work all day and then go chain ourselves to the gates of the factory farms at night, making the same statement that we are already making by owning and running the small farm we worked on all day?
Basically your argument comes down to this - since we don't compare volunteering on a farm for a day with the plight of migrant workers, the whole Crop Mob movement is a waste of time and its participants don't deserve to have it so easy. Oh yeah, and since many of the participants don't own their own land (yet) they must not ever discuss strategies for buying their own land. Yeah, they are stuck in landlessness forever because a former Carrboro dumpster diver (talk about privilege) says so. Yuck...
Hi, Trace--we've met under way cheerier circumstances (I used to hang out with Nick), and I'm sorry my grumpiness was upsetting. My point is mostly that we can ALL do better. Plus this is my grumpy Oaxaca blog, where I've been exploring my discomfort with my own privilege. Also, I'm not sure some of the stuff you wrote are the same types of accusations I was making in the first place. Either way, sorry this (probably not entirely substantiated) rant was the reason for you finding me on the internet.
I get pretty upset when the crop mob is misconstrued or misused. Having put my whole-self into making a new and replicable model of reciprocity, I take it personally when the thousands and thousands of hours of work are reduced to a stereotype.
We can all do better with just about everything, yes, but calling out crop mob for not addressing enough issues is way off the mark.
Hmmm....
Maybe we can all agree on poisonous, exploitative, corporate ag really being bad for everyone involved. Rich, poor, immigrant, citizen, in the US, out of the US. We can probably all agree this is a global problem that we hope would change and become something more wholesome, more healthy, and more equitable.
I think it gets interesting once we talk about what holds this system up, our different relationships to this system, and how we want to go about changing things.
So, the system sucks because it harms the earth, harms the workers, harms the farmers who own the land, and harms the people who are forced to eat the crap it shovels out. Folks are working on all kinds of solutions to this problem, some more holistic than others. Some people wanting to end harm to the earth are trying to do things organic and local and small scale. But it sucks when they forget to talk about workers still being exploited on these farms and the unaffordability of said organic/local stuff. And i'd avow that there are deep and real reasons for this amnesia, and it's about racism, classism, and the privilege that lets you forget these people even matter. I think people are tring to end harm to workers by supporting them to organize unions, buy into the farms they work on, and change laws that protect workers. I think it sucks when these activists leave out the importance of healthy environment and affordable food. The reason for their amnesia, i think, is that when you're trying to put food in your mouth, things like the earth mother may not be on the top of your mind. I also think it's because these folks have a well-earned (if sometimes unfair) opinion of eco causes as being the affairs of middle-class white people. There are folks who are trying to end harm to farmers that can't make a living through loans and technical assistance, etc. But if they forget about workers and the environment and the consumer, well, you get the idea. Same for people who just look out for consumer rights without thinking about workers, growers, and momma earth.
It's all connected, you see!
What bugs ME, then, about the recent resurgence of crop mobs is the "see me? see me?" attitude that seems to pervade it. What i appreciate about Nikki's post is that it's reminding us of what crop mobs forget to talk about when the media shows up to take pictures of our darling kids getting their hands dirty for something they believe in: there are millions of farmworkers and farmers and consumers getting their hands dirty and also being really harmed by bad ag. My question for media and mainstream media consumers is "why is it all of a sudden so special that people are teaming up to do some cool collective work?" Is it because they're white kids? Is it because they could be making millions in other jobs but nobly choose to be in a crop mob instead?
To me, noble is the ongoing sacrifices that generations of migrant farmworkers, farmers, and working-class consumers have made in the face of an ag system that makes some people rich off of everyone's sweat and poor nutrition. And teaming up to get a job done together, all in the name of community? How do you think poor people have survived in this world? This kind of teamwork and community spirit isn't new- it's a daily reality for people whose lives (versus, say, their sense of principles) actually DEPEND on it. So next time a reporter comes up on a crop mob giving it the old college try in a produce field, why not use it as an opportunity to say that you're aware you're not that special, that only your privilege makes you this special in the media, and that there are lots of people out there the world over that do this to survive daily, and they're really the ones worth talking about?
Thanks, Tony, I think you make a clearer point than mine: I don't think I'm calling out the Mob, but I sure do think the media coverage (which is really what made me grumpy in the first place) could stand to call out how fucked up some shit is. And how fucked up I think dumb shit is, is basically what this blog is about. I think Tony is much more eloquent and fair than I am, but I also want to honor the fact that CM is some folks' life's work and well, I have my own life's work that allows me to be pissed off and call out the lack of analysis of alternatives-to-migration movements. I say once more, we need to work HARDER.
Tony - we try that approach. It doesn't sell newspapers or get eyeballs to the TV so it gets left out of the final draft. We require that media come out to the events to participate, but even that doesn't really make sure the story gets told. We can only control the way our story is told so much. So we look like "darlings". When the media leaves, we are still there in the community doing the best we can with what we have.
You are right that the crop mob idea is not new for most of the world, but it IS new or forgotten for most of the United States. We don't connect food to the farmer, and that is why when you mention affordability I cringe. Cheap food is how we got to this situation in the first place. That paradigm has to change, especially if we want exploitation of soil and labor to go away.
So is it all or nothing? Do middle class white folks have to become accountants instead of farmers because it "doesn't look right" for those white hands to be so dirty? I have never seen someone show up to a crop mob that wasn't ready to put everything they had into the work no matter who was watching. Can they get a break if they just showed up to work and not get into migrant worker advocacy or food policy?
Trace-
Your posts are evenly tinged (red) and look all kinds of self-absorbed. Even though this issue isn't all about you, each of your posts seems to make it about you. Look, it's obvious you're really bought into your idea of crop mobs and a specific way that people want to define them, and what can i do if you want to defend that position? Clearly, you've put heart and soul into this idea and this work, identify with it a lot, and aren't in a position to hear critiques.
Don't ask for a free pass, though! Remember I said that it's all connected, so I don't think it's cool to show up in a field and do communal work and not give props to others who do that as a matter of survival. I think at best it's blissfully ignorant to not take the opportunity to talk about the connections or to honor your forbears, and at worst it's the sin of omission. And behind that sin, behind not caring to mention other people who are in the same mess with you, who might even have it worse than you, and who could even serve as a source of inspiration, behind that lack of humility is probably some unexamined privilege.
Of course, i've yet to see anyone resolve debates or really act like they genuinely care about each other on online comment boards. So maybe it's best we leave it at that and agree that we're not getting anywhere at this point.
I think the solution to this is to go to the farmer's market on the weekend and then go to Taco Bell during the week.
"I don't think it's cool to show up in a field and do communal work and not give props to others who do that as a matter of survival. I think at best it's blissfully ignorant to not take the opportunity to talk about the connections or to honor your forbears, and at worst it's the sin of omission. And behind that sin, behind not caring to mention other people who are in the same mess with you, who might even have it worse than you, and who could even serve as a source of inspiration, behind that lack of humility is probably some unexamined privilege."
There is no space here for a personal biography, but the assumptions in the above quote are so over the top that, if true, would make me hate crop mob as well.
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