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Give to Black-led food justice work

We are calling on our supporters and donors to throw your financial support behind organizations that are working to dismantle white supremacy in the food system.

The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are only the most recent public examples of how white supremacy and state violence threaten and steal Black lives. At CISA, we’re outraged and grieving alongside many of you, and heartened by the impact we’ve already seen resulting from the efforts of Black Lives Matter, the leaders in this movement, and the protesters who are standing up against police violence and white supremacy.

We know it’s vital to remain focused on the life-and-death stakes of this movement—and at CISA, this also presents a moment for us to reflect on how white supremacy is foundational to the circumstances of our own work.

Our nation’s past—which includes the murder of indigenous people and theft of their land, slavery, sharecropping, and inequitable lending practices—is inseparable from the conditions of our modern food system. This history is visible in the vast racial discrepancies in food access and hunger, and in land and business ownership rates.

We will never have a just and equitable food system that is built on white supremacy. At CISA, we know that we must work explicitly against white supremacy. Otherwise, we are complicit in upholding it. That’s why we are calling on our supporters and donors to throw your financial support behind organizations that are working to dismantle white supremacy in the food system. Local and regional leaders include Gardening the CommunitySpringfield Food Policy Council, and Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust — please learn more about their work and donate to support it.

And here’s a national list.

We don’t absolve ourselves of responsibility to work against white supremacy with this request. We are committed to continuing to build partnerships with organizations and people who are leading the fight for food justice and equity, and to interrogating and rooting out the ways that our own work is complicit. But for today, because this commitment isn’t enough by itself, we cede space and resources to the organizations and people leading the way in the fight for justice.