The Birmingham-Jefferson Food Policy Council: New Opportunities, part 2

Birmingham-Jefferson Food Policy Council Formed

The preceding article appeared today, two days after my blog post on the BJFPC.  I am assuming that it is at least in part a response to this post.  The article basically states that the committee that chose the council took into account race and made a push for diversity, and that the agenda for the council is to address food deserts.  I will address both topics beginning with the agenda for the council.

The council has not had a formal meeting (a retreat, but no official meeting, the first one is in March, tentatively) and therefore has had no opportunity to form an agenda.  If the agenda is formed by the Health Action Partnership, this diminishes the council's independence and autonomy. With all the new faces at the table, the council must be given time to form its own agenda, seeking input from throughout Jefferson County.  If not, it will just be the policy arm of the HAP and not representative of the larger community.  If the council choses to address food deserts, it should do so independently, drawing from multiple perspectives and multiple social locations.

What I would really like to address is race.  Let's be plain.  While the HAP may have worked to be inclusive of different races and class positions, it did not succeed in creating a racially and economically diverse body of people.  The group is overwhelmingly white and professional.  This in and of itself need not impede action, but the members of the council are going to have to think long and hard about their social position in a place as segregated and unequal as Jefferson County.  To the point, the council should not devise interventions without the partnership of the communities in which these interventions will take place.  Showing up at these communities with grand plans to solve big problems is likely to meet with skepticism and mistrust, as there is a long history of white dominated organizations promising the moon and delivering little.  Furthermore, the interventions designed by the white dominated BJFPC will likely be inappropriate without the input of the communities that are targeted.  The BJFPC, if it is to be successful, must refrain from developing agendas and programs without first doing the arduous work of listening to the communities targeted by these programs.  In other words, programs must be developed in partnership.

Finally, white people going into food desert neighborhoods, which are mostly black, to save them from a broken food system fairly wreaks of a missionary mentality.  Whites must understand that they are in a privileged social position vis-a-vis blacks and must wrestle with what this means and how this affects their interpretation of reality.  This is why listening is really hard work.  Whites not only have to listen to the words that blacks have to say, but also must understand their perspective, where they are coming from, requiring one to really step outside oneself to see how society distributes benefits and disadvantages solely based on race.

I want to reiterate that I am engaging in this dialogue because I want the Food Policy Council to work and work well.  I hold no ill will towards whites or members of the Health Action Partnership.  I would like for this discussion to continue in hopes that we can adequately address food system issues.