Addressing Environmental and Food Justice Toward Dismantling the School-To-Prison Pipeline Anthony J

Addressing Environmental and Food Justice toward Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline Anthony J. Nocella II • K. Animashaun Ducre • John Lupinacci Editors Addressing Environmental and Food Justice toward Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth Editors Anthony J. Nocella II John Lupinacci Fort Lewis College Washington State University Durango, Colorado, USA Pullman, Washington, USA

K. Animashaun Ducre Syracuse University Syracuse, New York, USA

ISBN 978-1-137-50824-9 ISBN 978-1-137-50822-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50822-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940565

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

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Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Nature America Inc. New York The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A. This book is dedicated to all youth around the world that have been forced to live in a polluted community and eat unhealthy food as a result of oppression, exploitation, colonialism, and capitalism. CONTENTS

Foreword xix

Preface xxiii

Acknowledgments xxv

1 Introduction: From Addressing the Problems to the Solutions of the School-to-Prison Pipeline Through a Food and Environmental Justice Perspective 1 Anthony J. Nocella II , K. Animashaun Ducre , and John Lupinacci

Part I Transforming the School System 13

2 They Got Me Trapped: Structural Inequality and Racism in Space and Place Within Urban School System Design 15 Travis T. Harris and Daniel White Hodge

3 The Rochester River School: Humane Education to Confront Educational Injustice and the School-to-Prison Pipeline in Rochester, New York 35 Joel T. Helfrich

vii viii CONTENTS

4 Where We Live, Play, and Study : Assessing Multiple Adverse Impacts of Schools Near Environmental Hazards 53 K. Animashaun Ducre

5 Race and Access to Green Space 71 Carol Mendoza Fisher

6 Education that Supports All Students: Food Sovereignty and Urban Education in Detroit 93 John Lupinacci

Part II Transforming the Criminal Justice System 113

7 An Environmental Justice Critique of Carceral Anti-ecology 115 Shamelle Richards and Devon G. Peña

8 Industrialized Bodies: Women, Food, and Environmental Justice in the Criminal Justice System 137 Caitlin Watkins

9 Mothers, Toxicity, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline 161 Sarah Conrad

10 Hip Hop, Food Justice, and Environmental Justice 177 Anthony J. Nocella II , Priya Parmar , Don C. Sawyer III , and Michael Cermak

Afterword 193

Index 197 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Michael Cermak is an urban environmental educator, scholar, and activist. His pedagogy and research explore the role of race and culture in teaching about environmental issues in urban schools (K-12). His dissertation research entitled “Hip Hop Ecology: Investigating the connection between creative cultural movements, education and urban sustainability,” explored how youth learned environmental science when taught with environmentally themed hip hop music. He is a professor at Middlesex Community College and is co-founder and instructor for The Green Dragons, an organization that combines food justice and martial arts in the Boston area. Sarah Conrad holds a degree in Philosophy from the department of Philosophy and Religion Studies’ interdisciplinary environmental ethics program at the University of North Texas. She teaches applied ethics at St. Cloud State University. Her areas of specialization are social and political philosophy and applied ethics, especially as they relate to environmental justice studies and critical theories of race, gender, sexuality, and ability. She is preparing a manuscript that recommends a restorative environmental justice for women harmed by work programs in prison. Her fi rst fi ndings on the issue were published in Peace Review: a Journal of Social Justice . K. Animashaun Ducre is Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies (AAS) at Syracuse University and author of A Place We Call Home: Gender, Race, and Justice in Syracuse . She also served as 2011 Fulbright Scholar in Trinidad and Tobago. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment in 2005. Ducre has been a committed advocate for environmental justice for over two decades, starting with Greenpeace in the 1990s.

ix x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Carol Mendoza Fisher grew up in various cities in two urban Americas, Central and North. Educated in public schools with all ethnic and socioeconomic classes, she learned to navigate double consciousness early on. Her background formed her interest in animal rights, environmental and social justice; activism solidifi ed it. She works for the Greater Edward’s Aquifer Alliance, advocating for one of the largest aquifers in the USA. Previous work as a consultant enabled her to travel to Europe and Asia and gain multicultural perspectives. Research areas are Global Neoliberalism, green space, structural violence, and race, both independently and their intersections. Travis T. Harris is a graduate student in William and Mary’s American Studies program. He has a vast array of research interest including Race, African American Studies, Black Popular Culture, Performance Theory, and African American Religion. His dissertation will examine the manifestation of institutional racism in Williamsburg by examining Williamsburg—James City County Public Schools, the College of William and Mary, local government, churches, businesses, and other institutions. Travis also serves as the lead organizer of Black Lives Matter— Williamsburg. He recognizes his scholarly work as life work with the goal of empowering the “least of these” to thrive. Joel Helfrich is a father, educator, and an activist who lives in Rochester, New York. He teaches at Monroe Community College and Rochester Institute of Technology. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Minnesota. His dissertation is a historical investigation of Western Apache struggles over a sacred and ecologically unique mountain in Arizona from 1871 to 2002. He has worked on animal rights; environmental, historic, and sacred sites preserva- tion; and other social justice issues. He holds the conviction that a myopic focus defeats the most important work any historian does—being an informed and informative member of society. Frank Hernandez, during his 15 years in public education, has served as a class- room teacher, an assistant principal, a principal, and a district coordinator of multicultural programming throughout several Midwestern urban school districts. His research interests include the intersection of identity and school leadership and teaching, leadership for equity and social justice, and Latinos and schools leadership. Dr. Hernandez’ work has been published in journals such as Educational Administration Quarterly , Journal of School Leadership , and Education and the Urban Society . He holds a PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi

Daniel White Hodge is the Director of the Center for Youth Ministry Studies and Associate Professor of Youth Culture at North Park University in Chicago. His research interests include social justice issues at the intersection of religion and popular culture. His two current books are Heaven Has A Ghetto: The Missiological Gospel and Theology of Tupac Amaru Shakur (VDM 2009), and The Soul Of Hip Hop: Rimbs, Timbs, and A Cultural Theology (IVP 2010). He is working on a book titled The Hostile Gospel: Finding Religion In The Post Soul Theology of Hip Hop (Brill Academic late 2015). John Lupinacci teaches pre-service teachers and graduate students in the Cultural Studies and Social Thought in Education (CSSTE) program using an anarchist approach that advocates for the development of scholar-activist educators. He has taught at the secondary level in Detroit and is co-author of the book EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse, Democratic, and Sustainable Communities . His experiences as a high school math and science teacher, an outdoor environmental educator, and a community activist, all contribute to examining the relationships between schools and the reproduction of the cultural roots of social suffering and environmental degradation. Anthony J. Nocella II is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Fort Lewis College, Executive Director of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, National Co-Coordinator of Save the Kids, Co-Editor of the Critical Animal Studies and Theory Book Series with Lexington Books, Editor of the Peace Studies Journal , and Coordinator of the International Hip Hop Activism Conference. Nocella has published more than 50 scholarly articles/chapters and 20 books including co-editing: From Education to Incarceration: Dismantling the School-to- Prison Pipeline (2014), and The End of Prisons: Refl ections from the Decarceration Movement (2013). Visit him at www.anthonynocella.org . lauren Ornelas is the founder/director of Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.), a vegan food justice nonprofi t seeking to create a more just world by helping consumers recognize the power of their food choices. F.E.P. works in solidarity with farm workers, advocates for chocolate not sourced from the worst forms of child labor, and focuses on access to healthy foods in Communities of Color and low- income communities. lauren also served as campaign director with the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition for six years. Watch her TEDx talk on The Power of Our Food Choices. Learn more about F.E.P.’s work at www.foodispower.org and www. veganmexicanfood.com . Priya Parmar is an Associate Professor of Secondary Education and Program Head of English Education at Brooklyn College-CUNY. Her scholarly publica- tions center around critical literacies, youth and Hip Hop culture, and other xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS contemporary issues in the fi eld of Cultural Studies in which economic, political, and social justice issues are addressed. Dr. Parmar is the co- founder (with Bryonn Bain) of the “Lyrical Minded: Enhancing Literacy through Popular Culture & Spoken Word Poetry” program working with NYC high school teachers and administrators in creating and implementing critical literacy units using popular culture, critical media literacy, and spoken-word poetry into individual classrooms across the disciplines. David N. Pellow is the Dehlsen Chair of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His teaching and research focus on ecological justice in the USA and globally. His books include Total Liberation: The Power and Promise of Animal Rights and the Radical Earth Movement, The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden (with Lisa Sun-Hee Park), Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice ; and Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago . He works with numerous organizations focused on improving the living and working environ- ments for People of Color and other marginalized communities. Devon G. Peña is Full Professor in American Ethnic Studies, Anthropology, and Environmental Studies at the University of Washington. He is the Co-Founder and President of The Acequia Institute, a charitable foundation supporting research and education for environmental and food justice movements. Peña is author of several award- winning books on environmental justice, ethnoecology, agroecology, and labor studies. His forthcoming books include the edited volume, Mexican-Origin Food, Foodways, and Social Movements: A Decolonial Reader (2016, University of Arkansas Press). Shamelle Richards studied anthropology at the University of Washington with specializations in Medical Anthropology and Global Health and Human Evolutionary Biology. As a student in the University of Washington Honors Program and a Mary Gates Scholar, she conducted research mapping the migra- tion patterns and reproductive health outcomes of women from the English- speaking Caribbean. Her interest in migrant justice encompasses issues such as food, health, and environmental justice, decarceration, health disparities, and discrimination. She plans to pursue a Juris Doctorate and Masters of Public Health, and hopes to work as an attorney and health policy advocate for migrant populations. Don C. Sawyer III is a faculty member in the department of sociology at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, where he is teaching the university’s fi rst sociology course dedicated to Hip Hop culture. His scholarly focus is on race, urban education, Hip Hop culture, and youth critical media literacy. His research adds to the work of scholars interested in fi nding solutions to the plight of Students of Color in failing school districts and aims to center the often-silenced NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii voices of urban youth as experts with the ability to understand and articulate their lived experiences. Caitlin Watkins is a nonprofi t professional living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has worked for a number of organizations focused on social and economic justice, including Insight Garden Program, Consumers Union, and Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center. In 2013, she launched Fallen Fruit from Rising Women, a social enterprise benefi tting Crossroads, a transitional facility for previously incar- cerated women. She graduated from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, where she completed her honors thesis in Environmental Analysis entitled “Cultivating Resistance: Food Justice in the Criminal Justice System.” LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1.1 Elements of a confl ict (designed by Anthony J. Nocella II) 6

xv LIST OF TABLES

Table 5.1 Urban pollutant sources by Zipcode 80 Table 5.2 Suburban pollutant sources by Zipcode 80

xvii FOREWORD

David Pellow

Addressing Environmental and Food Justice toward Dismantling the School- to- Prison Pipeline: Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth is one of the most innovative, ambitious, and important books I have read in a long time. That’s because this is a project that works to achieve two broad critical goals that few others have even attempted to address: (1) a rigorous analysis of the social forces driving multiple forms of social inequality and injustice, including environmental racism, food injustice, and the school- to- prison pipeline and (2) the issuance of a call to action that embraces a transformative, caring, revolutionary strategy that seeks to link thriv- ing, safe, and nurturing schools with environmental justice, food justice, decriminalization, an end to mass incarceration, and, ultimately, the abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex itself. This is a bold, beautiful, and extraordinary vision. The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) is a concept that scholars and activists often use to describe the ways that social institutions track and narrow the freedoms, options, and life chances of Youth of Color who are frequently pushed from the highly segregated and underfunded public school system into the “criminal justice” system. I have recently come across the work of some scholars who argue that the STPP idea may be too narrow a framework because it could be read to suggest that while these two institutions are linked, the STPP does not pay suffi cient attention to the role of other social institutions that contribute to the domination of People of Color on an everyday basis. Nothing could be further from the truth in this volume. If one actually takes seriously the metaphor or image of a pipeline in the industrial extractive sense (as the editors and

xix xx FOREWORD

contributors to this book do), then one may come to an understanding that it is a metaphor that works quite well. Specifi cally, pipelines are extractive and productive in the sense that they withdraw indispensable “resources” (e.g. oil and people) from ecosystems and communities, not just for use in a particular industry, but for the purpose of fueling of a way of life : they support an entire cultural, economic, and political system. When we think of the STPP in that way, we engage its generative possibilities since it reveals how the PIC is so deeply rooted in shaping and structuring society as a whole from our homes and neighborhoods, to our schools and places of employment, and to the media and civil society and back. We have become a society marked and shaped through and through by mass incarceration, mass probation, surveillance, containment, control, data mining, and other forms of state-corporate violence. The school-to-prison pipeline is not just one dimension of that apparatus; it is indispensable to supporting it and reproducing the carceral society as a cultural reality. The contributors to this volume have moved the debate around environmental and food justice and schools and prisons forward by leaps and bounds through exploring and articulating the linkages among these issues and the movements organizing around them. To put it simply, prisons disproportionately harm the same communities that are confronting environmental and food injustice and low-quality schools: Communities of Color, working-class communities, and immigrant and indigenous communities. Prisons produce widespread damage to our ecosystems as well; so when we raise our voices and place our bodies on the line in the struggle against mass incarceration and for prison abolition, we can also begin to see how we can link that struggle with the movements for food and environmental justice and high quality education for all. The coali- tional possibilities that this volume presents and suggests are limitless and could redefi ne, reimagine, and remake the present confi gurations of a host of social change movements. The USA imprisons more people than any other nation, has some of the world’s most highly unequal and racially segregated school systems, and produces more toxic chemicals and haz- ardous wastes per capita than any other nation. The USA is also a space where lively, creative, and powerful social change movements have often emerged and raised a ruckus to paint, sing, rap, shout, dance, speak, and live out dreams of freedom for people and the more-than-human communities we share this planet with. These two historic and contemporary trends are coming together to force a confrontation between peoples’ FOREWORD xxi movements and the neoliberal structures that seek to contain, manage, manipulate, and destroy life, and that collision will shape the futures of Communities of Color, working-class communities, immigrant communities, Indigenous peoples, and the ecosystems we depend upon for decades to come. The editors and contributors to this important book are among the folks I’m counting on to help chart that path and I’m joining them on the front lines of the struggle. After reading this book I am hopeful that you will as well. Santa Barbara, CA PREF ACE

lauren Ornelas

More and more it seems that people in the USA want easy answers and solutions to very complex issues. There seem to be very few who are looking at the roots of problems to gain a deeper understanding of where problems stem from. Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth: The Politics of Environmental and Food Justice in the School-to-Prison Pipelines seeks to not only look at the roots of the problems but how they are connected. In our work at Food Empowerment Project, we see this when we look at the lack of access to healthy foods in Communities of Color and low- income communities. Instead of addressing the root problems of no fresh fruits and vegetables in some communities (or the lack of living wages paid to workers today, and greedy corporations that put unethical deeds on old properties), so-called solutions too often involve bringing Wal-Mart or other “big box” stores to communities. So many issues involving food access are connected, and yet society fails to unweave this web and to be critical enough to acknowledge the complexities of the issues. Instead, we fi nd a constant cycle of reliving yesterday’s problems. The Free Breakfast for School Children Program, started by the Black Panther Party in 1969, was part of the range of social programs instituted by the party at the time to directly address the services lacking in Black and poor communities. Particularly important was their Ten-Point Program: approached self-defense in terms of political empowerment, encompass- ing protection against joblessness and the circumstances that excluded Blacks from equal employment opportunities; against predatory business practices intended to exploit the needs of the poor; against homelessness

xxiii xxiv PREFACE and inferior housing conditions; against educational systems that deni- grate and miscast the histories of oppressed peoples; against a prejudiced judiciary that convicts African Americans and other People of Color by all-white juries; and, fi nally, against the lawlessness of law enforcement agencies that harass, abuse, and murder Blacks with impunity (Hilliard and Weise 2002, p. 11–12) Unfortunately, all these concerns still face Communities of Color in the USA. In January 1969, the Black Panthers began cooking for and serving breakfast to poor inner city youth in the area—part of a program they eventually set up in cities across the country. Through this program, the Panthers fed thousands of kids across the country. According to the Black Panther Party (1969), “Children cannot reach their full academic potential if they have empty stomachs” (p. n.a.). The US food system was never created to benefi t everyone. Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth provides an essential critique of these systems that the Panthers challenged in the 1960s and 70s. By looking critically at how food justice issues overlap with racial and economic issues, we at last have a starting point at which we can derive answers to complex questions surrounding domination and oppression. Indeed, we can begin to end the STPP. When as a society we seem to be attracted to sound bites and think that having true discussions can be done within 140 characters and where the angriest voice wins, Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth is a breath of fresh air in which readers fi nd a strong dose of reality and important connec- tions to critical issues that face our youth and therefore our future.

References

Black Panther Party. (1969). The free breakfast for school children . Oakland, CA: The Black Panther Party Newspaper. Hilliard, D., & Weise, D. (2002). The Huey P. Newton reader . New York, NY: Seven Stories Press.

lauren Ornelas Cotati, CA ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Anthony, John, and Kishi would like to thank fi rst and foremost our fami- lies who have supported us. We would also like to honor the Earth and all the elements and living creatures on it. We also would like to thank everyone with Palgrave, especially Mara Berkoff, Sarah Nathan, and Milana Vernikova who have been supportive, detailed, and fl exible during the process of fi nishing this book. This book would not be possible without the outstanding contributions and authors of the foreword, preface, and afterword—David Pellow, lauren Ornelas, Joel Helfrich, Carol Mendoza Fisher, Daniel White Hodge, Travis Harris, Priya Parmar, Don Sawyer, Michael Cermak, Devon G. Peña, Caitlin Watkins, Sarah Conrad, and Frank Hernandez. We would also like to thank those that wrote blurbs for the book—Rebecca J. Clausen, Jason Del Gandio, David Gabbard, Four Arrows, Joy James, William Ayers, David Stovall, Joel Kovel, César A. Rossatto, Richard Kahn, Peter McLaren, and Richard White.

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