Post-Katrina New Orleans

Those who have, get in return. That seems to be the theme for the rebuilding New Orleans. And for those who don’t have? Take advantage of them or let them try alone.

“It seemed briefly as though everyone living here had experienced the same loss at the same time. For those back in the city at times it felt like differences of race and class had washed away,” is what Jordan Flaherty wrote. And for a moment during and maybe after the storm, that was probably true. When something like this happens to a city, people take a moment and remember they are not alone in the situation. However, often that doesn’t last. Not long, and class and race came racing to the top of the issues determining how the city would be rebuilt. The wealthy people of the city quickly became priorities of insurance companies, and I’ve heard it in agriculture too: keep the big customers happy first because they write the biggest checks. And when aide finally arrived (if you can call it that) it went to the same place the insurance was going. Corporations took advantage of struggling people and those with money were able to pay to get help and services. For the majority of the wealthy, however, they didn’t have nearly the most damage. They had already built their homes and business in parts of town that were much less affected by the flood.

So the rich parts of town were the ones who were able to also have backup generators to run their bars and businesses and start working back to the normal “normal” New Orleans. But the culture and traditions of New Orleans are derived from the working class who are mostly poor, African American citizens who were neglected and who also suffered the worst of the flooding in the city. And then when the rebuilding began, what did the government do? George W. Bush suspended the Davis Bacon Act, allowing companies to not pay their workers minimum wage. It also allowed those companies to not hire local people to do local work, and instead, outsource that labor to immigrants or other, outside people.

“Disaster capitalism,” as Naomi Klein called it, looks for people with money after these disasters to help out. Helping people without money is the same thing as charity, and charity doesn’t take advantage of people. Not to mention, people from around the country paying money to see the devestation 'first hand' in the form of disaster tourism, looking out the window of a Greyhound bus.  And then what happens? The poor people get blamed for squandering the money therefore they don’t get any of it. It’s a dark, long spiral downward for the people of New Orleans.

All of these things have continued to suppress the true local people of New Orleans, and without those people, who will bring the culture back to the city? Who will bring the tourists back? Who will bring the money and excitement back to New Orleans? I’ve never been, but I know that the city has an exciting reputation, but Floodlines has made me realize who really gives that spark to the city, and how those people have truly been victimized by many different entities in the post-Katrina era in The Big Easy.

Jena 6

For this blog and the next, we were prompted to discuss two of a couple events and situations that Jordan Flaherty writes about in the book “Floodlines.” For this one I chose to write about the Jena 6. Now, this hasn’t been a class for reaction-type discussions where we simply react to the situation. We’ve always gone beyond that to look at the issues behind the issues, but I have to start this particular blog with my reaction. Up until reading this, I really didn’t know much about the Jena 6. Before reading this, I really didn’t know that pure racism still existed. Pure racism is white people hanging nooses in trees and the blatant disregard for facts when punishing students involved in the entire thing.

Not the original noose in the tree at
Jena High School.

Now to look at issues inside or beyond the issue. The book talks about “Jim Crow, Esq.” the cleaned-up descendant of Jim Crow. I think that the Jena 6 is the original Jim Crow. Beatings and nooses is nothing cleaned up. We have looked at different situations with racial profiling and injustices, from the disproportionate population of blacks in prisons, to the response and route of aide to New Orleans after Katrina. Those situations are Jim Crow, Esq. That is modern racism. That is something that—unfortunately—we may never get past. It may change who is being racist to who, or how, or why, but people will always have their opinions about everything from race to the new football coach at WSU. It’s how people let those opinions rule their—and other’s—lives that makes a difference in the world. The problem is, and I mean this in absolutely no disrespect to the older generation, that the people in positions of power and influence were raised in a time that viewed those opinions differently than we do now. I also don’t mean that in defense for the people involved in the Jena 6; the movement that overfilled the town of Jena shows that adults are not racist and think that what happened was horrible. Granted, 97-99% of the movement was black, the fact that it was even able to get 50,000 people (picture below) to a small Louisiana town implies that people—black and white—around the world covered and talked about the story.

Being from a small to medium sized town in rural eastern Washington, I am far from the person who should be talking about how to change an obviously major issue in the country. But I think I can at least state my opinion and have some dialog about the issue. I don’t think that we can wait for a generational shift, because there were students just as involved in the injustices as the adults. A generational shift will only put them in the same places that the adults are now. While things may not be as extreme, it will still be there, and injustices like this will still be present. And who the heck knows where this country will be by the time we have TWO generation shifts. I think the parents of the Jena 6 had a good start in their demands (that were mostly unheard); Conducting Undoing Racism workshops. Maybe this exact idea won’t go very far, but the idea of raising awareness and working to reverse it is what needs to be done. The ridiculous charges were reversed because of the awareness brought to the Jena 6 court cases. Making people aware of the simple fact that this type of racism still exists will be a step in the right direction. It will make them look for it, it will make people pay attention, and it might even make people step in or say something when they do see something wrong.

Another quote from the book says, “…but in fact, Jena 6 presented a clear picture of the current state of our system,” meaning that this is the status quo. How do we challenge the status quo? We keep shocking the system until it breaks. Another thing that has to happen is movements like this one must continue and they need the support just like Jena 6 got; A massive outpour from around the country and world. Every time that issue comes back up, more people will begin to believe it and every time, more people will support change. Eventually, all the DA’s who bring their racist upbringings into the courtroom will be forced to step down, and every judge that seeks revenge on minorities will step down from certain cases.

I don't know w hat it was, but this picture just struck me when I was
searching for images to include in this blog. Artists of all sorts used
their talents to get involved and spread the word about Jena 6.

This issue isn’t going to go away unless something happens to force it. And as we have talked about in class, the federal government doesn’t seem too concerned with changing the status quo. So it has to be with grassroots movements such as the incredibly massive and successful movement started by the parents of the students dubbed the Jena 6.

La Vía Campesina / Coalition of Immokalee Workers

La Via Campesina and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)

This video is to give my oh-so-numbered readers a brief overview of La Via Campesina. I have talked about the CIW previously, as well.

The first similarity I see between the efforts of these two groups is that they are both challenging the bigger picture. The CIW isn’t challenging the farm owners in Florida, and La Via Campesina isn’t challenging the countries—or companies—that are exporting food to their countries. Let me back up and clarify one thing quickly. Countries do no export; companies, firms, and corporations export their goods and the countries only facilitate those transactions. Ok, good. The CIW has been protesting against the big players in the tomato market, companies like McDonalds, Burger King, and Taco Bell, not the farmers. La Via Campesina is protesting against the WTO to break down trade agreements that allow for easy import and export relationships. They feel that those agreements are flooding poorer countries with cheap food, which in turn puts their local farmers out of business because they cannot compete. 

Obviously the fact that they are both protesting is a similarity, but what comes of those protests is how they are similar in terms of disruption. They are both bringing awareness to an otherwise blind or ignorant public. In the clip, one protester mentioned intellectual property rights and the right to seeds of crops. Monsanto. There are always people out against Monsanto. There are always people out against big agriculture, so when the general public hears about such protests, they often shrug it off and go about their lives. If the CIW took on the local farm owners, news wouldn’t spread around the nation as it did because they challenged world-wide fast food chains. When people challenge the WTO, people take note. They may see it on the news, hear what the people are upset about and still forget about it at the next commercial break, but I think more people as a whole pay a little more attention. They do so because the WTO can affect every single person in the world. The general public—world wide—are often taken back by global protests, and protests that challenge the status quo on a global level.Take for instance the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999.

These two groups are putting their poverty and personal injustices on the front doorsteps of the people in the “countries in the north” as they are referred to in the video clip. The CIW is making Americans (mostly) think twice before they buy a cheap greasy burger from Burger King or McDonalds. La Via Campesina is making those countries think twice (OK maybe a time and a tenth) about whether or not to export as much or to engage in certain trade agreements, and making the citizens aware of what they are facing.

That leads perfectly into the final question. How are consumers involved? Consumers in the north are picky and want instant gratification. What they want, they get. And if they don’t want something, the corporations are left with one option with the surplus: export. But it isn’t that the consumers are just denying goods, but they are also demanding outside goods: Imports. Corporations (remember, not countries) don’t always want money for goods. Goods for goods means they can sell imported stuff back to the consumers in their original country. So there is why these trade agreements exist. Consumers—not producers—in the southern countries see the availability of cheap goods and take advantage of them. Granted, we cannot blame this all on the consumer. I have talked about the illusion of choice before, and that plays a big role here, too. People have become nearly dependant on cheap imported goods because they have been made available to them by big corporations who have market power over the consumer. So this begs the question, what do we do? Stop demanding imports? Specialization has made that impossible at this point. Some countries are better at producing certain things than others. Trade is done to make two or more parties mutually better off, so we would have to take a huge step backwards. The same can be said for the CIW struggle. The need and use of fast and convenient food has been ingrained into the northern countries to the point where we cannot simply choose not to eat fast food. In this case, however, there are “choices” of which chains to eat at and which to avoid based on their tomato purchasing decisions.

I’m dancing around answering this question because I cannot think of any single, united thing that consumers can do to help—or influence in general—the struggle of La Via Campesina, so I will pose that to you.

The CIW and La Via Campesina are two organizations that are struggling against the bigger players in their situations to reverse injustices imposed upon them. There are definite differences between them, but it is their similarities that are captivating. I guess a start to answering my own question is to say that consumers can act by paying attention and seeing how these issues relate to them personally; spread that awareness of the situation and see what happens. 

 

 

Chicken... Chicken... Goose!

Animal welfare is a whole other topic
but housing such as this greatly reduces
the overall carbon footprint of chicken
production in the United States.

The chicken industry has examples of many different themes we have talked about in class rolled into one system. To begin with, most chickens are raised on one farm from birth to maturity, and if not, they are only moved once after they hatch. Consistency matters in chicken production and farmers who own the chickens through the entire process are better able to raise their chickens most consistently year in and year out. From the farm they go to slaughter then to supermarkets or restaurants. It’s a simple system, really, given the fact that few companies own the majority of the production. The University of Missouri did a study of the concentration of agricultural markets and came up with what are known as Concentration Ratios (CR4). The 4 refers to the four largest firms in a market. If the 4 largest firms represent over 40% of the entire market share, it is considered to be a concentrated market. The broiler industry had a CR4 of 58.5% in 2007, meaning the four largest companies—Pilgrim’s Pride, Tyson, Perdue, and Sanderson Farms—control 58.5% of the broiler production in the United States. It should also be noted that the two largest firms control 47% of the market alone. The CR4 statistics are a perfect way to look at bottleneck corporations, and the fact that two companies control nearly half the entire production is the root of some of the major issues in the rest of the system. 

The pie chart at the right visually paints the picture and has data from 2008. I don't know what figures the University of Missouri used, but the data in the pie chart is based off of "ready to cook production" and shows 10 companies control 75% and 3 roughly 50%.

Add caption

Those companies contract production with actual farmers who are already producing in the system, and in some cases, they virtually own the farmers. Some farmers are indebted to the corporations hundreds of thousands of dollars, but because the corporations need the chickens, they allow the farmers to stay in operation. Recently, one processing company got bought out by an international company who discontinued the processing of chickens. Over 200 farmers lost their livelihoods because they were in such deep debt to the original company that when they sold out and the processing and ownership in the chicken industry went away, they could no longer produce. Luckily for current chicken producers, there is legislation right now that would require any such firm to pay or cover 80% of debt owed by the farmers. Discussion about whether or not this law will pass or not is very uncertain.

Now this concentration in the chicken industry is not just at the production level. These companies are fully integrated into the system from owning the chickens at the farm and the feed, to owning the slaughtering facilities, packaging, distributing, and in some cases even the direct sale of the meat. This only compounds the issue of being a bottleneck corporation and allows them to exert greater pressures up—to whatever extent they can—and down the production chain, making choice even more of an illusion.

After they are of a mature weight, the chickens are sent to slaughter. It is here that people assume injustices and working conditions are poor for people. Let me begin to address that issue by saying that in order for a company to sell meat in a case—ie. Safeway’s meat case in the back, fresh or frozen—the slaughter and processing facility must be federally inspected by the USDA. And this is not an inspector who makes his or her rounds around the nation and is only at each plant briefly; no, there are USDA inspectors at the plants every single day that the plants are operating. Also, in the 90’s there was a push and legislation passed that enforced and improved ergonomics for workers, which includes walkways being slip-free, standing areas with rubber mats, as well as machinery guidelines for guards and protective devices for the operators. The graph at the left shows how the rate of MSD's have decreased since the early 90's and remain on the decline. The working conditions may not be what everyone would consider perfect, but there are extensive rules and guidelines that meat processors must follow to protect and ensure the safety of their workers. The regulations regarding ergonomics also regulated how long workers can stand without breaks and how long their breaks must be per day.

It is products like this that demand has
increased for

Meat cutting is a skill-requiring job and training is extremely important in this part of agriculture. Even in the poultry industry there has been an increased demand for precut and “fast” food, meaning the skill required for cutting meat is only increasing. Processors and operators of these facilities know that having a quality product to meet these demands helps their profit margins, so they are increasing their training with their employees, which increases worker safety as well. 

I understand that the blog prompt asked me to discuss injustices in the system of chicken (or rice or banana) production, but through the class, we have, in a way, been talking about the “untold stories” of things in America, past and present. To me, the untold story is not the potential injustices of people working in processing facilities, it is the truth of the situation inside a slaughter plant that is the real untold story that often gets told in a very negative and condescending light. While many other blogs may address some of those issues if they also chose chicken, I felt that I needed to discuss other issues that counter injustices or mistreatments that may have previously been a part of meat processing in America.

Shopping as the "other"

(Not in Pullman's Safeway)

Recently I visited the Pullman Safeway. I had a list in my hand, and I was shopping as a college student who was stable financially, but not by any means wealthy. When I started to evaluate the store from that perspective, I realized a lot of things were aimed at me. But that goes to figure; a college town store aiming products to sell to college kids. I saw beer in a huge display with football promotions first thing through the doors. College students plus football on the weekends equals beer consumption. On the ends of the aisles was cheap, convenient and easily prepared food. Part time job salary minus books minus beer money equals very little for anything other than ‘Easy Mac’ and ‘Top Ramen.’ Along with the ‘Easy Mac’ on the ends of the aisles, there were also chips and salsa, crackers and coffee. Granted, not everything needed in one’s life, but just about everything for a good weekend of watching football and partying. 

It almost seemed to be that the store wanted to make shopping quick and easy for college students, make the simple things to make easy to see and—seemingly—always on sale. Other necessities were right where they always are—the outside edge. Bread milk and eggs are always easy to find. The image at the right pretty well sums it all up. A generic floor plan for a grocery store, and where "real" food may or may not be found.

When I went back even more recently, I had a list in my hand. I considered this list to be like a restricted diet, that I needed to find specific things, and substitutes would have to be considered very carefully. I found that my time in the store increased, and that, minus the products on the walls of the store, everything I needed was within the aisles. I was hunting for certain things rather than wandering up and down the rows and deciding what I thought I could cook or use or eat that night. I can see that if my list had actual diet restrictions rather than just product restrictions, my challenges would have been greater. In the main view of the aisles the cheap food is easily seen, but the organic products are often lower and towards the ends of the aisles. 

The average shopper will see the mainstream products the most; products which, behind the label, have mostly the same processor and producer. This relates to the idea we have been discussing, the illusion of choice. How can we consider multiple brands of chips choice when the same company owns all the brands? Few companies buy from a huge number of farmers, and turn those commodities into a wide range of predetermined products marketed to specific consumer groups. But it has turned into a situation where now, as consumers, we are accustomed to seeing those products on our store shelves, so when they aren’t there, what do we do? We demand them, we hunt for them, and in some cases, pay way too much money for them (not so much in the highly processed and cheap foods, however). All that does is trickle back upstream to those bottleneck corporations and tells them that we want those products on the shelves. So they keep supplying them. 

All these foods contain corn.

Consumer shaping—is what I am calling it—is the best way to describe how consumers are connected to the food chain. We are shaped by the system to demand, use, and even need certain goods, and therefore raw commodities, ie. corn. Our choices have been shaped by the middle men between the farmer and us. The products supplied to us have worked into our daily lives to a point where we go straight to the same box or bag every time in the store without thinking about it. We have been molded by the choices in the grocery store, and our lives have been both facilitated that, and been impacted by that. 

Oxbow is a CSA right here in WA that has taken off in the past 8 years.

The great thing, now is that there is a big push back from this system. Organic, local, sustainable. This movement will never be able to take over the entire food system, but for those who can participate and benefit from it, it is a much welcomed change and release from the control of giant corporations. We will always need cheap food, and we will always need corn, soy, wheat, beef, and many other products to feed people around the world. But the recent movements around the US show that people want to be more aware of their food and where it comes from. “Eaten today? Hug a farmer.”

Consumer Freedom?

So I actually wrote the blog about Greenpeace and other activist groups before I read and began the 5^th blog prompt. The topics are fairly similar, but this one will be a little more focused and guided compared to my previous venting episode. This blog is discussing some things said in a video about the Center for Consumer Freedom—virtually, a counter organization to PETA, HSUS, etc. The two minute clip said a few things that I did in my previous blog about these groups—for example, the hypocrisy of HSUS’s commercials—but I will try to direct this one in a different manner.

For those not in the class, we are currently reading a book entitled Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel that discusses some of the issues within our food system. One major issue we have talked about is the idea of choice, or lack thereof, for the consumer and how there are ‘hour glass’ structures in markets that are confined in the middle by certain corporations who are capable of limiting the choice consumers have.

These “bottleneck corporations” are able to control the market above and below them because there are many producers (above) and consumers (below) them, but only a few of the companies in the middle. They can put specific requirements on the raw products coming into their operation and then put out and sell a different, specific product. They have power over both the consumer and the producer because, in a way, they can virtually say, “if you don’t like it, take your business somewhere else.” But because there are only a few corporations in the middle who can buy the inputs and sell the products, it is hard for both consumers and producers to do anything but meet the requirements. This is how the idea of consumers having no choice comes about. These companies can sell whatever they feel like, that will also sell.

But once upon a day, a consumer had to deny a variety of apples, forcing farmers to stop growing that variety. From there, the increase in consumer demand for apples (or any food product period) forced the limited options of crops grown now. Granted, those middle-man corporations now control what farmers sell, originally it was consumer’s demands and preferences that started the restriction in varieties and types of crops grown. In that sense, consumption very much can control a market. If consumers completely stop buying a product, those bottleneck corporations will eventually be forced to stop producing it and give the consumers what they want. Regardless of the fact that it rarely happens, consumers have that power if they want to exercise it.

But of course these companies do not only operate in a single country; they are massive, multinational companies. So if the consumers were to exercise their power of shaping a market, it would have to be an international effort. This brings into the issue another major factor, the politics of internationalism. I think this is where Raj Patel would stress the idea of true consumer freedom, more so than the short clip even does. The idea of consumer freedom really breaks down the typical politics of trade and food products. In the book, he discusses many international issues, from war, to food aid, and how food has been used politically to control other countries. True consumer freedom would throw that out the window, and allow consumers to eat what they want, not just what their governments are given in trade or as support. Like in the example of South Korea, students had to be taught how to eat bread because culturally they were not used to grain in the form of bread at all. Because the country, politically, started trading wheat, bread is now a much bigger part of their diet. And it is not only imports, but also because partially to the Green Revolution, Korea’s own production has increased dramatically as well. These international policies and trade agreements have reduced impacted consumer’s freedom of choice, for better as well as for worse.

This video clip wants people to understand the truth of their food and wants consumers to be free to make decisions for themselves. Patel, however, argues that our decisions are somewhat made for us before we even get to the store. Where you live is a huge factor, and that can be dependent on social class and race both. If you live in what is known as a food desert, you can be very limited on what is available at the store. Sometimes, it is just not feasible to truck high value goods to certain areas of the country if the population concentration is very limited. If only a small number of products are going to be sold, it takes extra transportation and higher costs to get specialty goods in less than bulk quantities. On top of that, if you cannot afford certain goods regardless of where you live, your choices are also limited. Not only are your options limited of products to buy, but also where you can buy them. If you know you can afford something better, but you are in a food desert, or just far from that product, you probably won’t spend the money on fuel and time to travel to get that good; you will settle for what is available and affordable. Unfortunately, there are still large food deserts in the country. The first map shows the areas where different amounts of the population live without a car and further than one mile to a grocery store. On a somewhat unrelated, but interesting side note, compare that to the second map that compares areas where there are more bars than grocery stores. Again this can point to not only location, but to race and social class as underlying issues.

Consumer freedom may be a noble goal, Patel would argue that at this point, it is nearly impossible to accomplish. There are too many factors impacting what consumers have available to them for them to be “free” to choose the food they want. I appreciate the efforts mentioned from the Center of Consumer Freedom, but ultimate freedom for the consumer, I would agree, will be very difficult to achieve.