#Black Lives Matter #Defund the Police #Let’s Get Free!

The history of violent oppression of Black people in the United States of America is embedded within its systems: they cannot be reformed to make them better, but must be dismantled, re-imagined and re-built. The treatment of Black bodies is the epitome of the white supremacy that this country was founded on and continues to perpetrate. George Floyd’s murder sparked a movement because all oppressed people and all decent human beings rage against the blood chilling nonchalance with which Black life is ended by police officers, with little or no consequence for the murderers. Black Lives Matter is a clarion call to action which implicitly represents a challenge to the political and economic structure that is the United States of America. These three simple words embody the collective grief, anger and frustration that has grown to a tipping point all over the US as the now 16 days plus of actions all over the country demonstrate.

As thousands of families who have suffered trauma at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can attest, state sanctioned violence isn’t limited to the police force. The murder and mayhem perpetrated by armed bodies representing the state in this country, is not limited to Black people, but stopping IT, is key to building a more just world for us all. Black Lives Matter resonates because within this very proclamation lives the reality that change is possible. The demand to Defund the Police has gripped our imaginations because we are collectively tired of our tax dollars funding repression, violence and murder.

This movement has become a beacon to oppressed people all over the world who have marched in solidarity with Black people in the USA, and to protest similar cases of police killings and repression in their own countries. It is truly inspiring to see the solidarity from people themselves struggling against the chokehold of oppression. In the numerous murders of Black people by cops, native peoples of the land that is now the USA, after white colonizers violently “settled” it, see reflections of their own history and current reality. Native Americans are the only group of people in the US more likely to be killed by cops than Black people. Palestinians, who were the first to send messages of solidarity to Ferguson have mourned the killing of George Floyd even as they deal with the ongoing slaughter of their people by the Israeli state. It is no accident that the Zionist Israel lobby groups see Black Lives Matter as a threat to their efforts to split the progressive movement in the USA on the issue of Palestine. One of these groups specifically cited the growing move toward intersectionality in progressive movements in the USA as a problem.

Just as we connect the global dots, we see the holistic nature of our work and of the struggle for freedom. The mainstream food system oppresses working people at every single activity point, is adding to the destruction of our planet and continues to create diet related crises in our communities. It doesn’t do it with a bullet or a knee, but it is slowly sickening and killing people. And like every other system in this racist society its harmful impacts are imposed most heavily on Black and Brown bodies. Building alternative food systems that provide affordable, culturally relevant, nourishing and exploitation free food is a critical component of building a new world. CSU is proud to do this work with multiple partners and supporters and as part of a food justice movement.

The novel corona virus has amplified with stark clarity the failures of the current food system (health care and more) and has created a renewed interest in food justice work. CSU’s work is built on the legacy of our founders who understood the importance of all aspects of building a movement. They fed free breakfast to children, ran free community health clinics, created freedom schools and fought tooth and nail to challenge state violence against Black people. As Angela Davis has said the current movement is a “further expansion of popular consciousness. It is up to us to do the work, keep the ideas alive and keep the possibility of freedom alive. Freedom is a constant struggle”