In this episode of In Conversation, In Community, we explore the concept of food deserts, inadequate access to healthy food, and community gardening as it relates to environmental justice with members of Black Millennials 4 Flint. Schanaque Watson, Aramis Jones, and Terrence Brown, organizers from the BM4F Memphis chapter, share their personal environmental justice journeys and what BM4F is doing to bring healthy food access and environmental justice education to the Memphis area. To learn more about the Duke University Environmental Justice Oral Histories project, click here! ____________ Visit our website to keep up with the OC team and for a full transcript of this episode! https://operationclimatepo.wixsite.com/operationclimate Follow us on Instagram at @operationclimate! Follow us on Twitter at @opclimate! Subscribe to us on Youtube! To contact us, DM us on Instagram or email us at operationclimatepodcast@gmail.com! ____________ Host: Katherine Li Writer/Producers: Katherine Li, Erin Blanding Guests: Schanaque Watson, Aramis Jones, Terrence Brown Audio Editor: Katherine Li
TRANSCRIPT:
KATHERINE:
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Operation climate, the podcast made by young people for young people, where we talk about climate change solutions with cool people and learn about how we as young people and students can take action in the climate movement.
Today's episode is a special one because we are sharing an episode from the podcast series in conversation in community, a collaboration that we had operation climate did with a Duke University, Bass Connections environmental justice oral histories project. This is a really important podcast series because we are actually celebrating the 40th anniversary of the environmental justice movement in the United States. So we're very excited to share with you these episodes and let's get into it.
Welcome to In conversation in community, a celebration of all that the environmental justice movement is and has been. In each episode, we sit in conversation with those on the ground working to rectify the systemic impacts of pollution and climate change on historically vulnerable communities. This means we're speaking with youth, climate justice advocates, government workers, and those organizers who helped found the movement 40 years ago. Our purpose is to ask those ingrained in the community what environmental justice means to them, and to reflect on the common experiences, ancestral connections and modern injustices that pushed these amazing advocates into action. We look forward to sharing with you in conversation in community is collaboration between the environmental justice oral history project and operation climate. Today, we are in conversation with several organizers from black Millennials for Flint.
Black Millennials for Flint is a national environmental justice and civil rights organization with the purpose of bringing like minded organizations together to collectively take action and advocate against the crisis of lead exposure, specifically in African American and Latin X communities throughout the nation. In addition to working on lead exposure in these communities, black Millennials for Flint also works on a ton of other environmental justice areas that we'll be talking about. In this episode. We're talking with Shaniqua. Watson, parents Brown and Aramis Jones, some of the key topics that we will be covering in our conversation include the issue of food deserts, access to healthy food, why some communities don't have ready access to healthy food, and steps that we can take to ensure that access to healthy food, green space, and health in general, are all things that everyone can enjoy equally.
ERIN:
Could you guys please just introduce yourselves and your role at Black Millennials for fun? And we're interested in knowing you know how long you've been there, but communities you focus on?
SCHANAQUE:
And yeah, my name is Schanaque Watson And I was previously an environmental justice real for black Millennials for Flint. I currently serve as the Memphis director for black Millennials for Flint, and I'm going on a year. And I actually got involved with actually signing up for the program that we went through just to learn about just the basics of environmental justice, how it relates to things that are going on in our community and our health, as well as just like our families, just things we usually do not talk about. So that's how I pretty much got started.
ARAMIS:
So my name is Aramis Jones, and I am a Manhattan environmental justice or EJ. I got involved with the program last year, and I mainly gained an interest in learning more about the work that black Millennials went through just kind of getting an understanding of like, what I can do more for my community. From an environmental standpoint, I work in healthcare, and we talk about public care, people's health. And environment is a major part of that. So I just kind of wanted to learn more about how those things intersect. And you know what I could do.
TERRENCE:
And my name is Terrence Brown. I got involved through the Memphis division. I'm a lead ambassador. But what piqued my interest in particular with the program was some of the like, the food deserts of it. I used to work at was through AmeriCorps. It was an after school program. And one of my kids I remember he was not feeling too well. I can see it was a little bit sluggish. And like throw Buddy, he was like, I'm not feeling so. You gotta eat an apple buddy. And he said, I don't have any like, Oh, you got to drink some juice. He like we don't have any at my house. And it was just kind of, you know, a mind blowing like even like just some simple, simple things that I think a lot of us take for granted. You know, that help our health things we probably have enough for free as for our daily lives, a lot of people don't have access to in the area in particular, people's living in you know, the closest grocery stores Well, 3040 minutes away, you'll see more of like fast foods or corner stores and things of that nature.
SCHANAQUE:
The community that he's referring to, I grew up around the corner from the organization he previously used to work it. And I know around maybe the age of 13, the only fast food place that we had to eat was called was Kentucky Fried Chicken. And we did not have access to actually grocery stores, we just have access to the and so the only thing that we could eat would be chicken. And so as a child, I never understood or I just didn't know that it was actually a term coined around it. And so as I continued to get older I did I started noticing, like, why is it that it meant is in most of your urban communities? Do we always have chicken places, and most of the time, it's usually like Church's chicken. And one thing people did not realize about churches is like, you could get a piece of chicken for like, $5.45, well, you will be able to feed your entire family, especially if you are living in poverty. So as time went on, I finally learned with the help of BM4F, it was called, as we said before a food desert. And like I said, I was 30 years old, when I started realizing something was wrong. And to this day, that community has not changed. They still don't have like inadequate transportation in assessable, to just help people, I can't say a little bit has changed, they did put like a food market right there. But sometimes when you're trying to eat healthy, so we all know, it's expensive. So if you're living in a community where you're barely making it, or it's impoverished, how can how can you have How can you eat healthy.
ARAMIS:
So my background is working in health promotion, public health. And so a lot of the organizations that I used to work with, you know, we focus on, you know, eliminating those barriers to get people to healthcare. So whether that's connecting them with insurance agent, or whether they get in a transportation to their provider. And one thing that was big for me, and working in detail care environment was ensuring that people got access to nutritional foods. And a part of the work that I was doing was hosting healthy cooking classes for some of our patients, and people in the community. And so what came from that was we're hosting these healthy cooking classes, but people don't have the actual grocery stores in their communities to actually go and replicate, you know, the food that we're showing them to make, you know, people don't have the transportation, people don't have access to green space when we tell them to go and you know, try to do some of these physical fitness activities, these green spaces aren't there for them to do it in their communities. We know what it takes to be healthy. But where do I go to get it? Or how do I how do I start, you know, a community garden to do what needs to be done for my community? When it comes to saying, Well, my doctor is saying I need Leafy, more leafy greens in my diet if I need more color in my diet, but those things are found at the store. So how to how to how do we make an impact to do that?
KATHERINE:
So when I first got introduced to black millennials, for Flint, I had this idea that you were mainly focusing on the Flint water crisis, which you you do do a lot of work on that, but it seems like you, you address a lot of other environmental justice issues as well. I'm curious to know what exactly is going on in Memphis? What kind of projects are you working on in that area?
SCHANAQUE:
For the Memphis location, we are working on a garden, actually in the North Memphis community? I'll say a little bit over them a little bit over a month ago? Well, we do we actually went out to Canvas to actually ask the people in the neighborhood, what fruits and vegetables would they like, in another great component that we did, we actually had the soul tested, because land is a huge component for black Millennials for plants to make sure that it will not be laying in the soul. And it's not any lay it in there. So we were like really excited, like, this is a great lot where we can get started. And you know, it's not like we're poisoning the people in the community. I was, I think really enlightened, through the EJ Grieux program from the trip that we took farmers education through, I didn't know anything about farming or gardening or anything like this. So we sent a trip down to New Orleans and we have an opportunity to meet with you know, some of the people from the community that some people from Mississippi as well. And it's kind of learning about what community gardening what it really means to not only the people that benefit from getting the food but also the people who are actually working you know, in the garden, you know, we are people that are of the land and this is something that we do you know as as a group, and it's something that we take pride
Me. And so, you know with it that trip, I didn't realize I'm like, Man, I'm really disconnected from where my food comes from, to how he, you know, further conference or how it gets to, you know, my kitchen table. And so to see just, I think the the journey and the commitment that it takes to do something like this. But I think also the pride that people get from feeding back into their environment, we feed back into the community. And I'm excited to see you know, what happens with the community garden that we're developing here. And
SCHANAQUE:
another great thing that we do in Memphis, we actually have we have these things called shot talks. So we go into the different communities. And we talk about environmental justice issues. Well, we do realize that barbershops are a safe haven, that's a safe space for men. And sometimes in this space, you don't have a lot of men or people don't realize, like I stated before, that is the environmental justice issue. So when we go into barber shops, we talk about Laya, provincial, we talk about eating healthy foods, we even kind of talk about mental mental health.
KATHERINE:
So I want to learn more about these shop talks. Because I feel like barber shops are not a place that I think of first when I think of where to reach people for, you know, climate change, education, environmental justice education. So I'm very curious that, you know, what, what was the response that you saw from the shop talks?
SCHANAQUE:
So usually, when we walk in, we're like, oh, we're talking about environmental justice, and people just like, okay, because you know, you've, most people don't actually know what what it means. So when we start talking about, for example, I'll just keep using the food desert, you know, I'm like, well notice, you know, when you walk outside, like, what do you see? Like, where's your closest grocery store? If you stay right here in his barber shop? Where would you get an apple, for example? And then be like, um, like, is it within amount? Is it two miles is like, Oh, well, maybe about three, four males? And I'm like, Well, you know, this, that's a problem. But we also started the conversation. It's like, well, I know, you notice this a Family Dollar across the street, or it's $1. General, across the street, like, so this usually have the conversation kind of stars, they realize, like, wait a minute, like, we didn't pay attention to that. Or we also will let them know about like, the tires, for example. You know, tires have led in, and I was like, Well, you know, if we go outside, but do you see I'm like, do you see tires on the side of the row? And they'll be like, Yes, I saw this environmental justice issue. That's a problem. I'm like, That's not normal. Well, if that is all you see in your community, you start believing this. That's just normal. That's just what it is not understanding that it impacts not only your community, but that impacts your health as well. And so as they continue to listen to us facilitate that facilitate the shop talks, they become more engaged, and they're always like, well, when you're coming back, how can we talk about more? How can we get involved, I will definitely say the barbershop talk experience is just just a great idea, because especially it gets us out there. And now when people see us, they actually hold us accountable. Because we have had barber shops that tell us like, we don't just want to see you one time, we want you all to come back. And I think that is a great thing. That's a great thing to hear. Because I do understand sometimes people show up and you never see them again. So one great thing about black millennials, we're Flint, and we say we're coming back, we make sure that we come back.
KATHERINE:
So another area of your programming that I noticed is that you do a lot of work with children on environmental justice issues. What are these programs like? What do you exactly do with the children? And why is it important for children to be engaged in these kinds of topics?
We actually did a community service day in plant at the beginning of May, where the children got to actually work in the garden with talent. I got to do a land a late experiment to test the water. And we just had a big day. Like we're actually just showing like showing the kids like, hey, let's get you started early. And so a lot of people don't realize like if you show kids early, they will express their interest. Recently, we came up with a program for the little kids. So it's from ages three to five. So we call it mini EJ embryos. And actually I've been the teacher with them and we actually grew microgreens so it's broccoli. The great thing about working with the children, we actually brought a food scientist and she showed them Hey, here's fresh broccoli, he's frozen broccoli. And the kids were actually able to tell the difference. My three year old that I have, you know, I've been going through like, hey, is this is broccoli or fruit or vegetable? Prior to starting? She'll just be like, it's green. I was like, okay, but is it a fruit or vegetable? And so within this pilot program, she knows now that broccoli is a vegetable. And so the four year old, actually came back and told me one day she's like, Hey, I have broccoli and cheese last night to eat. I won't broccoli and cheese tomorrow. So it's great to see that the three and four year olds are realizing like, oh, okay, this is healthy. This is good. Yeah, it's so interesting how these, you know, what we think of as very simple issues of you know, what's healthy to eat, what's not healthy to eat. These all connect to food justice, environmental justice, this issue of food deserts that we were talking about before, this is fundamental knowledge to understand those more complex topics. So it's so important to have kids, young children to gain a good base knowledge of this, I think.
ERIN:
I know you guys are working hard to make sure the community has access to healthy food. But what role does the local and state government in Tennessee play and your guys's work?
So when we are a part of the EJ REO program, we actually crafted different policies on what we would like to speak with our representatives about we had a brunch and we proposed our ideas to them. What are our state representatives? Um, his name is Jesse Chisholm. He wanted to have a recommendation around urban agriculture, where we farming. And so what we did, we crafted our recommendations. And we actually submitted petitions for people to sign. And that was like a great way to get involved. It's like, hey, it's not necessarily a black Millennials for Flint idea. But because we're working with state legislators, this is what we're like what we're trying to do. And he actually brought the idea to us while he was presenting at the barber shop, so it's like, the perfect like, just the perfect way to get like everybody involved, we actually ended up exceeding the number of signatures I think we might have needed maybe like 120. And we had like, 151. So so this was really, really great. I see y'all for black Millennials for plant. She is a White House appointee for environmental justice. So a lot of things that she receives from us, you know, she takes it and speaks with other other people who are on the Advisory Council with her. And if things are not correct, we try to correct it on black Millennials blend in and just to get just for it to be all inclusive. So it will just basically help not just black Millennials were playing but every environmental justice organization there is around the United States, on a state and local level, government can definitely make it a point to create more grant opportunities to create like urban farms so we can transform a lot of these food deserts and food swamps into food oasis. The after school program I've worked with in 2018 was an urban garden. And I was very surprised how many people gravitated towards the garden, Miss South Memphis, and even myself, like I learned so much about farming that I previously just didn't know. We were growing things like okra, greens, turnips, you know, you name it, and it was it was in the garden, and seeing the kids actually being able to participate inside pickled okra off this dam and take a bite out out of it. I'm personally not a big fan of okra, but when I ate the El graphis him it was one of the sweetest things I ever tasted. And that's the transformative part, I think, where most communities and governments can collaborate together to be able to facilitate this education and change.
Yeah, having the opportunity and experiences to see exactly how your food is produced how it gets to your dinner table is such a great learning experience, I think, because it makes you so much more connected to the food system that we all participate in and makes you think about and learn about how environmental justice issues and climate change can threaten that food system and create inequalities in which some communities don't have access to these foods and some do. I think it's really awesome that y'all are meeting people where they already know Are instead of like making them, I don't know, figure in something else in their life. I'm wondering how necessarily does political advocacy like fit into your work
TERRENCE:
the political side of things, because we're talking about food deserts and a lot of other factors. But at the heart of it all, a lot of it is connecting back to the health and well being of the people. I know, prior to this experience from black millions of Flint, my impression of environmental justice was like, you know, injuries and, you know, saving the whales and things like that. And those are great things, don't get me wrong, but really connecting the environmental justice component to the people is such a huge thing. So I'll give you a prime example. And this connect back to the political side of things. One of the things we did here in Memphis was we toured our community. And one of the things we noticed was, you know, some of these factories that are blowing like toxic fumes and smoke into the air are like five minutes away from whole entire neighborhood for kids and families that live in and they're breathing in those fumes scanning into their skin, and you have to ask them what is happening to them long term. And that has a number of impacts from the overall just physical health, even brain functions. This was just one of the things with lit that we learned about through this program, and just overall quality of life, really that political advocacy, part of it, we have to demand from officials and leaders, you're gonna build this factory, don't build it next to my neighborhood, because there are some neighborhoods and communities where, you know, they will say, not in my town, not in my neighborhood, and it's just not existent. There's no equity in it. So we really have to fight for the health and well being of our children and grandchildren, grandparents, mom, dad, whoever, in this work of environmental justice, we just have to organize and do something about it.
KATHERINE:
So our last question for you is a big one. It is what is your vision for the world? And by that, I mean, what would the world look like if Black Millennials for Flint didn't have to exist as an organization?
equity and the quality of life for our people, the even playing field across the board when it comes to, you know, food when it comes to transportation when it comes to, you know, quality, you know, air safe a community that we live in, I would like to see, literally zero, like factories, nearby neighborhoods. And another thing too, is I would like to see both in our schools and our communities, even if it's not a very small level. Obviously, a lot of people take up gardening and growing their own vegetables. So even there on earth just flowers today, enjoy. The pandemic showed us how fragile things like grocery stores and resources. You know, how how fragile those things are, it was pretty scary to see you Hey, blue shells are bear, or even the same year, I think it's 2020, where Memphis we had a very severe ice storm, as well as the across the country, and literally our water, our groundwater froze over. And it took several hours just to feel one bucket of water, that ability to be self sufficient, is such a blessing is a beautiful thing. And then another follow up question for that is what do you hope people will take away from the work that black Millennials for Flint is engaging in our cities, because they used to empower people to you know, believe that at the grassroots level, this work still matters, because you can start out, you know, grassroots and work your way, you know, up to like what we've been doing, which is working with, you know, our state representatives, which is having to co you know, be a partner, you know, in the white with the White House and environmental justice, and believing that at the collective feel like your time, also showing people that you know, you I look like you you look like me, another great thing I go back to where I went to church in Memphis, were able to look at the GIS map, and it shows all the land lines in the urban communities, which are the same communities that we just spoke about, with food deserts like I can type in the name of my church and it shows up for us just to just kind of just continue to educate continue to let people know that they're that they are not alone.