In this post, I respond to a dKos post by sharing a few of my own experiences with food-provision services. I challenge Kossites and the Progressive Community to create specific, local ways of engaging in practical food-provision, and to create practical political change around poverty in their own states and communities. I believe that this kind of action has the potential to be of great help to Democratic candidates in 2008 and beyond.
Poor people and public discourse about poverty are trapped between racist, classist assumptions promulgated by right-wing think tanks on one side, and idealistic but impractial 'Pie-in-the-Sky' ideas on the other. By becoming personally involved as change-agents, Progressives can create a reality-based public discourse while creating practical improvements in food provison for the poor.
I had hoped that this diary ('A Modest Proposal for the Feeding of America' )
would offer solid, practical advice on feeding hungry people. I am terribly disappointed with the post and with the comments.
To put my comments in perspective, I should tell you that I am considerably older than most Kossites -- I was twelve when Jack Kennedy was shot. I come from a working-class background, and earned a decent-but-modest living for myself until I suffered a disabling injury that took me into the realm of public housing and Food Stamps. My response to the diary/comments first, then some realities.
My disappontment with this diary is: The diary recapitulates all the points of the broad, sweeping 'liberal' perspective which (in my youth) was labelled 'socialist' -- ie, Commie pinko -- by the racist/classist portions of society who have successfully fought this agenda for decades. The ideas are good -- but they are of no practical value for hungry people now, this minute. Nor will they be useful any time soon -- they are no closer to being implemented today than they were thirty years ago. They are, in fact, 'Pie-in-the-Sky'.
The early comments reflect the same kind of 'tsk-tsk, blame the victim, stupid poor people don't know how to do right' assumptions that have prevented meaningful social programs for the last thirty years. In other words -- you're brainwashed, people, wake up! The Heritage Foundation is alive and well in your assumptions.
There is no one form of 'poverty'; it is different in urban ghettoes than in rural areas or small-towns; it differs state by state, and even county-by county. It differs based on the age, family structure, health status (disabled/able), and many other factors. There is one commonality: poverty is grueling, unremitting, and rife with double-binds intended to keep the poor impoverished and powerless.
I live in a Blue city in a Blue county in a Red state. My Red state's laws and regulations surrounding 'poor relief' reflect the oppressor's desire to extinguish the oppressed, to make those 'beneath' suffer. What is 'poor relief' like in your state, your county, your town? What local resources are available to provide healthy food and to insure that the poor receive it? If you don't know, why not? If you aren't working on it, why not? Are you pressuring your state government to provide for the poor -- if not, why not?
My county and city have a great Food Bank, and many food-distribution sites where people can go to get food -- surplus from grocery stores, food donated by citizens, government commodities. But can impoverished people get to the food? If I am lucky, I can get to one of those sites once or twice a month, if someone takes me -- because I don't have transportation, and public transportation is beyond my means. If your city provides food, can residents get to the sites? If, like me, residents are poor and disabled, can they find transportation? Are you helping food get to people, or people get to food? If not, why not?
To address the issue of 'poor food choices' brought up in the comments, I'll tell you something I've seen many times at Food Bank distribution sites. I help keep a monthly Food Bank drop-off going here at my apartment complex -- it's a simple thing, one or two phone calls a month. When the truck comes, Food Bank volunteers unload the boxes onto the ground. Residents root around in the boxes, hoping for bread and dairy products, staples that will stretch their Food Stamps. The fruit-and-vegetable portion of the delivery always consists of: just-past-shelf-date bags of salad greens; black bananas; and a few salvagable vegetables hidden within boxes of vegetables blackend with mold. (Interestingly, both the best and worst of the produce comes from our local Food Co-op: the best quality, organic produce -- which unfortunately is also the moldiest.)
The residents who root around among the boxes fall into roughly two classes: old women, who are largely disbled, and young women with small children. Sometimes the young women feel a dainty revulsion to the process of rooting through dirty, moldy boxes of food thrown on the ground. The older women are more practical. The other difference is: The older women actually know how to turn the produce into food -- we know how to cook, and make suggestions to each other about how to use unfamiliar products. When there is a wealth of whipping cream (usually after holidays), old women make butter. When, one summer, there was a continuing abundance of tofu, I wrote up a factsheet on storage and use so residents could make use of this protein source. The younger women -- the ones with chidren -- look at the fruits and vegetbles with blank faces. They don't know how to cook anything but pre-packaged food. They might take one or two apples, but the thought of making applesauce is foreign to them -- as is the thought of making banana bread with black bananas. If you know how to prepare healthy foods and create a healthy diet from cast-off food, are you sharing your knowledge? If not, why not?
What I've described above is what takes place in a medium-sized town with a relatively great food distribution process. What is food distribution like where you live? Are you making a difference?
We food-scroungers look forward to the holiday season -- church and civic groups get awfully distressed at the thought of a person not having a 'holiday meal', so there are turkeys galore. November, December and January are great times at the food distribution sites -- the grocery-store surplus trickles down in a mighty way. But guess what, folks -- people get hungry in March and April, and August, too. If you give food or money to food-distribution charities during the holidays, what prevents you from giving a consistent portion each month? What prevents you from organizing other people to give consistently?
This last year, in my area -- where residents are really quite generous in their support -- there has been a 30-35% increase in 'food insecurity' -- that is, a 30-35% increase of people coming to various food distribution sites. This year's increase in the level of giving and support for food provision is -- are you ready? -- a walloping 1%. What are the statistics where you live? Can you, as a member of the dKos community, raise the level of support so it meets the need?
Well, CroneWit, you may be thinking, that's all well and good -- there does need to be something more done sometime to feed hungry people. But after all, dKos isn't a social-service think tank. dKos is supposed to be all about electing Democrats. So how does all this talk about moldy vegetables and rides to Food Banks apply to the goal of a Democratic America?
Simple. Feed the voters. And if you do, you'll learn -- they are Hungry for Justice, and you know how to Work for Change.
I'll expand on that just a bit. Last night I watched Scorsce's film 'Gangs of New York'. One theme is the ongoing flood of starving Irish immigrants, many of whom are enlisted right off the boat to fight for Lincoln's Union -- they sign up because they are promised three meals a day. At the end of the movie, after the inter-gang battle collides with riots over the draft, Boss Tweed stands over a mass grave and tells a henchman: 'There's a boatload of Irish coming in. Go down and meet them with soup and bread. There's been a lot of votes buried here today.'
Wherever you live, there are a lot of people buried in hunger and poverty. And while those people deserve to be helped simply because they are human -- they also represent an untapped potential army of engaged voters.
This untapped pool of hungry humans also contains the voices of people who can redefine poverty, who can take the definition of poverty out of the racist, classist frame promulgated by think-tanks over decades, and develop a reality-based definition of poverty, its needs, and its cures. If you are educated enough to read this, and are politically savvy enough to create change, what prevents you from engaging as agents-of-change within your local poor community?
So here's the challenge, Kossites: In what specific ways will you engage locally in practical food-provision and in creating practical political change around poverty in your state and community?
And here's a place to start: Next week, start researching food distribution in your area. Call and offer your actual physical help, and/or donations of goods and/or money. For this week, expect the people you contact to be harried and overworked -- it's Thanksgiving, and the holiday season always brings extra volunteers. But let them know you intend to make a long-term committment to working in food-provision issues. Then keep following up. Be there in January, February, March -- when donors are spent out, paying off their credit cards, and cupboards get bare.
Keep track of what you do -- here, or in your blogs. Track your time and expenses, including car expenses if you transport people or goods. Become your own demographic, and use the data to demonstrate to state and local lawmakers that community efforts to keep people fed amount to an 'invisible tax on the caring.' Use this data to leverage lawmakers out of the 'it costs too much/can't raise taxes' -- if you are paying an 'invisible tax', you should have a voice (representation) in the laws around poor relief. Track the ways you and others organize in ways that serve your local version of poverty -- these can become models for restructured, reality-based social services.
I've framed this as a challenge, Kossites, but I'd like to restate that as a dare -- no, as a double-dog dare.
Kossites, and the general Progressive Community -- I Double-Dog Dare you: personally engage in practical and political change on food-provision and poverty issues for the next two years. Get your hands dirty. Meet the folks. Then when you go pounding pavements to get 2008 voter registrations in poor neighborhoods, you'll be talking to friends.
And here's the motto: Democrats: Hungry for Justice, Working for Change.
I dare you. I Double-Dog Dare.