HYDROPONICS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD BUILDING AUDACITY BUILDS THE FUTURE
In an endeavor to create a consistent source of free, fresh produce for their community food delivery program, the nonprofit Building Audacity launched an indoor hydroponics farm as part of Jean Charles Academy (JCA), their dual-language school that prioritizes and celebrates Black and brown student success. Based in Lynn, Building Audacity’s primary mission is to support youth-led changemaking and foster inclusive, youth-focused learning environments in the greater Boston area. Their program, “On the Grow,” focuses on distributing this hydroponically-grown produce to areas of high POC populations in Boston, Cambridge, Charleston, Lynn, and Lowell. Hydroponic farming refers to the growing of crops without soil; the process also uses substantially less water as compared to traditional agricultural methods and allows for up to 50 pounds of produce to be grown in just 1.4 square feet. In collaboration with Tufts University’s 2020 Green Fund Winners Kevin Cody and René LaPointe Jameson, Building Audacity has allocated 1,100 square feet of space in JCA for their crops and expects a yield of around 50,000 lbs of produce every six weeks. Not only does this growth method minimize the impact of the agricultural industry on the environment, but it also increases the accessibility of fresh produce to low-income BIPOC communities in and around Boston. To Building Audacity Founder Nakia Navarro, the construction of the hydroponic farm speaks to how Black people do not own land in the United States. According to the 2002 USDA report, “Who Owns the Land,” white people own 98 percent of private agricultural land in the United States and account for 96 percent of the owners. Despite making up 13 percent of the national population, Black people own just one percent of America’s rural land.
“Hydroponics is old—the hanging gardens [of Babylon] are actually hydroponic gardens. So our ancestors have given us this blueprint, and they’ve taught us how to sustain ourselves with it. So why not teach the hood this, right? Why not teach folks who don’t have fresh produce [...] and give them sovereignty over what they ingest? That’s why I chose hydroponics. It speaks to not having access to land and also being sovereign over what you ingest,” said Navarro. The hydroponic center also serves as a space for JCA students to learn about sustainable urban farming techniques and practices, as well as apply mathematical concepts in real-world settings. This projectbased model of learning is an essential part of JCA’s interdisciplinary curriculum and offers students a culturally-engaged pedagogy. For Building Audacity and JCA, youth are always prioritized. “When people ask me what it is like to be a youth-led organization, [I say] I feel like I’m really living our ancestors’ wildest dreams of actually listening and learning with and building something new and different,” said Navarro. Alongside the hydroponic farm and the opening of Jean Charles Academy, the organization is running several covid-relief programs that prioritize community needs during the pandemic; including a GOTVac campaign of phonathons, pop-ups, and canvassing that encourages Black and Latinx communities in Boston, Cambridge, Lowell, and Lynn to create vaccination plans; a mobile pantry, and distributable self-care kits. Building Audacity is always looking for more donations and new volunteers. For more information on how to get involved, visit buildingaudacity.org and follow @buildingaudacity on Instagram.
--------- AKBOTA SAUDABAYEVA
SURVEIL AND CONTROL
Blue Lives Matter is an inversion of racial justice terminology co-opted to reinforce a fraudulent sense of police victimhood within society. It further exaggerates the “thin blue line,” a worldview in which police are the only agents of control against the violent chaos that inherently brews under society. The “thin blue line” dates back to an 1854 British battle formation, yet its contemporary application was popularized in the 1950s by LAPD chief and unabashed racist William H. Parker. The LAPD was one of the first law enforcement agencies to adopt what would be known as SWAT teams, a reactionary to the 1965 Watts Riots that itself was ignited by the relentless violence and discrimination that Black and Latino Watts residents faced from Parker’s LAPD. White paranoia over the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party, and the emerging War on Drugs was validated by this racially charged copaganda that whitewashed the brutality of the police themselves and inflamed the narrative of all-out war with the public. The growing “War on Cops” narrative was a convenient mechanism during the politically unstable 1960s, used to increase police budgets and fund military-grade weaponry and training in order to transform beat cops into foot soldiers. The threat of ambush killings of police corroborates the “War on Cops” account and is still used as validation for increased police power and resources. According to a 2020 study by Professor of Criminology Michael White, the rate of ambush killings of police has declined more than 90% since the 1970s. 50 years ago, paramilitary police forces like Detroit’s Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets (STRESS), and LAPD’s Community Resource Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) functioned as urban mercenaries who killed
with impunity, developed to wage brutal undercover operations against low-income Black communities. In 1985 the Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a Black Liberation organization called MOVE, killing 11 people including five children. Despite their role as civil servants, police operate almost exclusively above the law. “Excited delirium” is an unofficial and unsupported pseudo-medical diagnosis opposed by the American Medical Association, yet often used by the state to defend cases of excessive and deadly force by law enforcement. This “diagnosis” is characterized by “extreme aggression” and “sudden death” and is disproportionately applied to Black men who are killed by police. During the trial of Derek Chauvin, defense attorney Eric Nelson suggested that “excited delirium” may have been a cause of George Floyd’s death. Elijah McClain was injected with an unsafe dose of ketamine by paramedics on the suspicion that he was experiencing “excited delirium.” Psychological operatives like Blue Lives Matter, the “War on Cops,” and “excited delirium” are like naming phantoms, calculated racist rhetoric that reinforces police ascendancy and turn marginalized people into enemy combatants. James Baldwin wrote of America, “We are cruelly trapped between what we would like to be and what we actually are.” Police exist under a contradictory axiom—they see the public as a vulnerable mass to protect and serve, yet also a lurking enemy to surveil and control. White fear is a reoccurring American daydream that’s unceasing grip has molded an excessively armed, irrationally violent, paranoid authority with uncheckable extrajudicial powers known as the police.
------------------------------------------------------ GRACE RAIH