Food movement leaders, Washington DC clergy latest to offer powerful words of encouragement to farmworkers, allies preparing to fast!
Raj Patel: “… And that is the great strength of this fast: it works… by reminding the people who work [at Publix] that they too are human, are capable of compassion, and of making change that is life-affirming.”
Rabbi Charles Feinberg: “the farmworkers need to… push for what is due to them, but at the same time, they should know that they have many friends and supporters throughout the country”
Words of support continue to pour into CIW headquarters from across the country for the Fast for Fair Food, set to begin next week, Monday, March 5th.
This week, statements have come in from two distinct, yet deeply supportive, camps: the food justice movement and clergy, in this case clergy from the Nation’s Capital.
On the food justice side, Raj Patel — the British-born American academic, journalist, and author of the two widely read books, “Stuffed and Starved” and “The Value of Nothing” — sent this moving message in support of the fasters:
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How do you confront an organization as morally numb as this? With compassion. The fast can’t succeed unless Publix recognizes the humanity of the workers in Immokalee. And that is the great strength of this fast: it works not by embarrassing a shameless Fortune 500 company, but by reminding the people who work there that they too are human, are capable of compassion, and of making change that is life-affirming.” |
“I confess that I couldn’t quite believe the Publix response to news that the tomatoes in their stores may involve modern-day slavery: ‘If there are some atrocities going on, it’s not our business.’Also from the movement for sustainable food, Josh Viertel, President of Slow Food USA, adds these words:
| “There is a story behind our food. And it should be a story that makes us proud. We should be able to buy tomatoes at Publix supermarkets that have been picked by people who are treated with dignity and paid fair wages. Publix has an obligation to support fundamental human rights for farmworkers in Florida and beyond. That’s why the Fast for Fair Food matters.” |
Meanwhile, faster and DC Fair Food member Marley Moynahan — who wrote her own very powerful words of support, which you can find here — spoke with three religious leaders from the Washington, DC area, who shared their thoughts on the fast with her and with the CIW. Here are excerpts from their statements — you can read them in their entirety here:
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Rabbi Charles Feinberg … The Fair Food Campaign is very important. We feel we have a moral obligation to make sure that all workers in our country can work under safe working conditions, that there’s no fear of being abused, either physically or sexually, that they receive a fair living wage, and that their dignity is respected. To me, those are fundamental rights, human rights, and we feel very strongly that we have been too negligent as a country in guaranteeing those rights. Fasting is an important part of the Jewish tradition. In pre-modern times, a fast was called if there was a severe crisis in the community, such a drought or a natural disaster, which affected fertility or famine in the land. […] Fasting is also a way to signal a recognition of our responsibility toward others. We may have fallen down on that responsibility, and it’s a way to signal that we are trying to renew ourselves so that we can assume responsibility that we must take… Rev. Dr. Jeff Krehbiel … Part of the experience of being in a modern consumer culture is that we are deeply disconnected from the resources that we consume on a regular basis. A lot of times spiritual traditions are thought of as disconnecting us from material things — that what spiritual life is supposed to do is for us to think less about material things. But I think actually a proper understanding of spiritual life is that it actually connects us more deeply to material things, because part of the problem in our culture is that we are disconnected — we don’t know where our food comes from, how it was prepared, who grew it, how it was grown, and we eat it mindlessly. So to consume food mindfully is to be reconnected to the materiality of that food. And that’s part of what fasting does, you have to think about the fact that you’re not going to eat, which we usually eat so mindlessly, we don’t think about the food that we’re eating. So fasting has the effect of making us mindful of the food that we will eat. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers fit into that because they have been inviting conversation partners […] The gift that they are offering to the religious community and the wider society of the United States is that they are putting a human face on what has been a part of that food chain that has been faceless. … Once you know their story, and once you’ve been made aware — once you become mindful, it’s hard to be mindless again — that’s been their great gift, they’ve invited us to be in solidarity with them, to add our voices to theirs, so that real change can happen that will change the conditions in which they live. Rev. Raymond Kemp, S.T.L. … If you’re eating something that’s been picked by somebody who is underaged, malnourished, ill-housed, treated like a piece of farm equipment — there’s something wrong. If there’s no love in the food, no love in the planting, no love in the harvesting, no love in the producing of that kind of food, you really are dealing with something that is poisonous to every system that you’re going to touch it with. It doesn’t have to do with just you’re own diet, it has much more to do with — the source, the earth, the land, the closeness, the sense of seeing ourselves in some kind of relationship who made it happen …. I think all this makes enormous good sense in terms of health on every level of our society. It’s not just about the organic health of the food product itself, but everything that goes into making that possible. |
This time next week, dozens of workers from Immokalee and their Fair Food allies will be fasting outside Publix headquarters in Lakeland, Florida. Check back soon for all the news — including the Fast for Fair Food press release, final fast details, and more — as the countdown continues to the Fast for Fair Food!