As we at GRuB reflect on anti-black violence and the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor at the hands of the police and white vigilantes, we are moved by grief, anger, love, and resilience to take organizational action against the trauma of racism in our communities. We pause to honor the vast number of lives taken by police violence in the making of this country and acknowledge its basis in our history of racism, oppression, and enslavement. We stand in solidarity with the families of those lost to anti-black violence and with all those who are striving for justice, dignity, and healing in this time. 

GRuB’s vision is an equitable world where we are all nourished by healthy relationships, resilient community, and good food.  Our food system creates unequal access to nourishing and culturally appropriate food and is based on unfair wages and working conditions for farmworkers and food service workers. This is the violence of racism in another form. It is the legacy of a food system built on the backs of enslaved Africans, the removal of Indigenous people from their land, and the exploitation of immigrant and migrant laborers in service of capitalism. It is a system that undervalues the work of feeding our community and the people who do that work. We acknowledge the Black, Indigenous, and Latinx leaders who have for centuries fought for freedom from this system and established powerful community-led projects that inspire our work at GRuB. 

We cannot address health and food justice without taking a firm and active stance for racial justice.   

In the past, GRuB has been too silent on issues of racial violence both locally and nationally. We need to do more—individually and in community—transforming our systems, assumptions, and  practices and centering the leadership and experiences of people of color.

Recently, GRuB staff and board members have been digging deeper into racial equity. We need to become more transparent, proactive, and inclusive, even while we’re making mistakes and figuring out the right words, actions, and pathways. We know this work has to happen both as individuals and as an organization, and we recognize that members of our community have varied experiences of racism, food, and land. We realize this work begins locally and personally, and that each of us has our own inherited history and present experience that we are called to acknowledge, address, and heal.  

This healing may take varied forms individually—self-care, getting grounded, connecting to the land, sharing food with loved ones, staying curious, listening and believing each other, showing up to protest, and leaning into the conflict, pain, anger, and grief of racism.  And, we must take steps towards healing and growth organizationally.   

We invite the entire GRuB community to act in sustained ways for structural change. In the coming time, GRuB will: 

• Amplify the voices of people of color, and respond to the needs and requests of organizations in our community led by people of color and Indigenous people.
• Offer learning resources connecting food justice, racial justice, and the history and impacts of racism in this country. 
• Provide offerings from our Cultivating Community Leaders programming, youth programs, social-emotional curriculum, and plant teachings so that people have more tools to care for themselves and their loved ones.
• Create community spaces for people to gather together with their grief, anger, hope, and learning.   
• Continue building awareness of how racism, privilege, and inequity shows up within GRuB and initiate action-based alternatives.  

Our team has begun compiling a list of organizations and resources which moved us. Please join us in continued engagement through learning, seeking understanding, and action.