Shakara Taylor & her daughter, came from Lansing to share their vision of food justice.

On Monday April 25, Shakara Taylor led about a dozen OKT constituents and community members through an interactive evening that focused on creating food justice in our communities. As she spoke to “Diagramming Your Food System,” she shared that our current  industrial food system is not broken, but rather working just like it is meant to, i.e., as a capitalist creation it serves very well as a profit making machine. Like LaDonna Redmond has asserted in her TEdX talk,  Taylor stressed that there has never been a just food system in the US as, from the beginning, it was built on stolen land and by exploited human labor. (In the past that meant African slaves; today it means migrant workers of Latino and Afro-descent.)

Taylor asked the group to call on their memories of community and family as a way to help envision healthier food access for all. Some shared stories of parents and grandparents who grew and preserved their own foods — or got foods from relatives’ farms. Others spoke of a time when neighborhood families got together to gather, prepare and can foods together. A younger participant recalled growing up entirely on packaged, processed foods. In conclusion, Taylor asked each group member to share their thoughts on what the current food system looks like in contrast to what they would like it to look like.

If you missed out, you will have another opportunity to experience this enriching presentation. Taylor will repeat this program on July 11 and present another food justice program as the featured speaker for OKT’s November Women of Color Cook Eat & Talk.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.