Liberatory Medicine, QTPOC Healing Histories, and Online Knowledge Shares

**Cross-post from QueerHerbalism blog**

May has been a busy month. I returned from a few weeks in Puerto Rico building with some amazing co-visionaries: Maria Reinat-Pumarejo (Colectivo Ile- Africa en mi piel, Africa en mi ser), a phenomenal organizer and Raul Quinones Rosado (C-Integral), a liberation psychologist. Both do anti-racist trainings with PISAB and also facilitate Latino Challenges Toward Racial Justice workshops. We talked about anti-racism, liberation, colonialism in PR, decolonization, psychology, organizing, health and healing, and so much more. So needed and nourishing! I also got to spend some time with brilliant herbalist, organizer, and author Maria Benedetti of Botanicultura (FINALLY!) We ate and sang and she discussed her new novel, Dolores y Milagros. I also went to Finca FlamboyanT, a queer land project in Sabana Grande. It is a sanctuary, artist retreat and home with so many fruit trees and medicinal plants. Speaking of retreat- I stayed with Michelle of the Nietas de Nono in Patio Taller- another amazing artist retreat space (and space for youth organizing and so much other amazing work) with a beautiful herb garden and fruit trees. Hers is located in Carolina. We shared such insightful conversation about community, organizing, art, herbs, you name it. I also hung out with some created family members who really helped me out when I was living in PR last year. Without them I would not have survived. En serio. I restocked my zines and added some new ones at La Chiwinha, a fair trade ecotienda in Rio Piedras. And last but not least, I revisited Casa Mucaro high in the mountains of Las Marias. This communal land houses musicians, puppeteers, and artists of many persuasions. I stayed there in 2014 and was able to really focus on the Queering Herbalism Encyclopedia and I did a talk for the Sistah Vegan Conference (organized by genius, diversity strategist, scholar and critical theorist Dr. Breeze Harper) "The Vegan Praxis of Black Lives Matter" entitled Transvisibility, Survival and Solidarity which was part of a joint talk “ALL Black Lives Matter: Exposing and Dismantling Transphobia and Heteronormativity in Mainstream Black ‘Conscious’.



Yes! My trip ...no...journey...was as inspiring as it sounds. I am so grateful for the amazing people in my life who are doing such tremendous work. My heart was so full. I was so nourished during my journey this month.

When I returned I began working on two new zines and I put together the Liberatory Medicine Collection which contains the 4 second edition volumes of your decolonial herbal favorites: Queering Herbalism 1, Herbal Freedom School 1 and 2, and the new Partnering with Plants guide. Through this Sunday 5/29 the collection which has a $40 value is $25.

You can purchase here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/281840666/liberatory-medicine-collection

Partnering with Plants is also only $5 through Sunday 5/29. Use the code: PWP2016. <3
https://www.etsy.com/listing/290061139/partnering-with-plants


You can email me at queeringherbalism@gmail.com for sliding scale discounts on the collection or to barter/trade medicine, knowledge, techy skills, etc, etc...I really need help designing flyers, websites and online courses and on making audio and video courses more accessible to those with different abilities.

In June I will be at the Philly Trans Health Conference sharing on QTPOC healing histories and your purchases will partially go toward making that happen.

So what's this about online knowledge shares? Well, after much ado and some folks asking to be my "students" I decided to finally put together a little something online to see how it goes. A couple prototypes if you will. I won't reveal too much yet but I will say that one accompanies the Partnering with Plants guide and will be 4-6 weeks long and is a mini-program of sorts, while the other online knowledge share is a longer course- a full 3 month program- that explores all the volumes of the Queering Herbalism Encyclopedia. Ok. Cats out the bag. Hold me accountable to rolling these out this summer. Send me some messages and emails letting me know of your interest so I know all this hard work is going to resonate with some of you out there.

Well- I guess that's "it" for now. Be on the lookout this month for the mini-program/online knowledge share. I'm working on the flyer as we "speak". The registration page will be up soon.

Healing and Justice,


Toi

Food. Justice. Part 1: The Color of Food Justice

People's Grocery- West Oakland, CA

Working as a food justice organizer, one of the first actions I took was to scour the internet, libraries, bookstores and organizations for faces like mine. I knew there had to be brown faces in the food justice movement somewhere and it was vital to my survival as a person dedicated to food, health, and economic justice to find people of color who “got” it. Folks who didn't overuse “vote with your fork” and think that everyone has “time” and resources. Folks who saw the reality and spoke to systemic issues that made it all the more difficult to be “green” and “sustainable” and a “locavore.”

Which systemic issues, you ask? Not having enough money for some organic food. Not having access to healthy foods because you live in a neighborhood with only convenience stores and fast food restaurants and no grocery stores. Not having a backyard to grow food in or a community garden in your neighborhood. Not having time to buy and cook healthy food let alone grow your own food. Not being told that your ancestors diet was healthy and not being told the truth behind our behaviors today and the way that capitalism has bred our community's sickness and contributed to an obscene amount of preventable deaths....genocide.

The narrative that we frequently hear obviously comes from mostly privileged white folks who seem to omit race and class from their conversations. It's convenient and comfortable for them. All the work our ancestors did devoid of labels such as “local” and “organic” seems to also get left behind. Which predecessors? Great black agriculturalists such as George Washington Carver who may have been one of the first to have been concerned with sustainable agriculture. Great brown farmers and activists like Cesar Chavez who saw firsthand the toxic affects of what was being put on the crops farmworkers harvested (and continue to harvest).

In the dominant narrative it seems like black and brown folks are ignorant about health and healthy food. Perhaps we're “too lazy” to start a garden and grow our own food. We don't want to just spend the extra money on the “front end” instead of on hospital bills due to our eating “habits” on the back end. It seems much easier for food activists to focus on our behaviors and glaze over issues of time and employment (working two and three jobs), space (maybe we don't own land or don't have access to community gardens or live in food deserts full of fast food restaurants and corner stores with unfresh and processed foods). There's an overall assumption that we just don't want to be healthy and that we don't care about our family's health. Very little is said about discrimination within the health care system, decreased access to health care, limited access to healthy foods and land, and other issues that communities of color haven't had a lot of control over.

It's easier to play the blame game. It's easier not to check detrimental and erroneous assumptions and to be guided by stereotypes and biases. It's easier to be exclusive and not include brown folks into the food movement. Race talk just ruins things. There are tokens to report back about what's going on in the community. Even though the reports aren't needed because it's all the community's fault. Obviously they like to eat that food, live that way. Quick get together a brigade to get them all to Vote with their Fork...

even if they can't afford one.