concerned about Abundance co-op ethics

This note was emailed widely to folks at Abundance and elsewhere. It is reposted here to Rochester IMC.

Open Letter to Abundance Co-op:

Never has there been a more depressing, segregated town in the recent history of the North East, than is Rochester, NY. The infrequently scheduled, and poorly routed buses fill their stops with Blacks, immigrants of color, and poor whites. On Park Avenue there's not one brown face - unless you count those cooking and serving. Most anyone arrested for drugs is Black, though whites, statistically use and sell drugs more than Blacks. The quality of food in neighborhoods of color is disgusting, at best, and highway robbery. Black and brown people are severely, embarrassingly absent from decision-making positions in all aspects of Rochester life.

And then, there's the Abundance Coop. A place that claims: "We exist to provide safe, healthful, and nutritious food and other products to the Rochester community. We desire to operate our business in a manner which supports a sustainable food system, sound ecological practices, and just employment procedures...."

I suppose if it said to the WHITE upper and Hippie class Rochester communities, I could agree. But not ONE person from the Board, to Supervisors, to Employees, to Volunteers is a person of color. Specifically, Black American. I wonder why that is? Is it that Black folk just pathologically don't want to eat anything except wonderbread, kool-aid and GMO fried chicken? Is it that there are no Black folk with gardening, farming, shipping/receiving, stocking, management or juicing skills? (Needless to say, in 1910 there were one MILLION Black farmers in the U.S.).

Or, is it just simply that the Board and Management enjoy having an exclusively white run, white served "cooperative", and figure that no one is the wiser? How truly sad, on so many levels... I mean, no matter my race, were I to embody (not just claim and espouse) progressive politics, I wouldn't be able to say the "planet" were more important than people who already exist around me. Were I to have children in this paradigm, I can't imagine telling them that the world just doesn't have any worthy Negroes these days... If I were a manager who had to report my hiring, recruitment, and retention practices to the federal government, my Board, or the general public - how would I explain, exactly, why there is no role for qualified people of color? Were I truly "progressive" enough not to even consider myself as such, but rather to simply live in a just manner, I'd create radio and tv programs about this - write op-eds and host community panels; tailor sermons and design t-shirts, and most of all, start conversations around the kitchen table about what exactly is going on here, in this Jim Crow town, anyway? And why don't we want to include Blacks in healthy, ecological and hopefully sustainable practices?

I suppose, were I part of the Rochester, NY Abundance Food Co-Op, and could just live in Lala-land, free from brown people - I just wouldn't bother addressing it...at all. But, were I a self or otherwise proclaimed "leader" in the Black community, there'd be much to look into, here... [Let's see if THIS makes it into the Rutabaga newsletter!]