Co-opting radical justice work for fun and profit
(edited to add: Here’s a link to a YouTube video of me reading this article aloud in case you’d prefer to listen rather than read.)
So.
Today, I received this email:
For folk who have trouble reading that admittedly tiny text, here’s the transcript:
Hi Christina,
This month, Padang & Co will be discussing issues related to persistent inequalities between men and women in rural areas and how such biases affect sustainable growth in these areas. How do we #BreakTheBias?
We would like to invite you to participate in our upcoming online event, Level the Field: Empowering Rural Women to Enable Sustainable Growth of Their Communities.
Women from rural communities in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific typically work 12–13 hours more per week than men but their contributions are often ‘invisible’ and unpaid. These women face myriad challenges, including but not limited to low-skill or low-productivity jobs, unpaid work, long working hours, poor working conditions, and limited social protection. These issues must be addressed urgently.
Join us as we discuss the intricacies of these pressing challenges with our distinguished panel:
Lishia Erza, Chief Executive Officer, ASYX (Indonesia)
Vidia Paramita, Head of Economic Empowerment, Sinarmas Agribusiness and Food (Indonesia)
Nisha Onta, Regional Coordinator of Asia, WOCAN (Thailand)
Shabnam Hussain, Cotton Insecticide Strategy Lead, Corteva Agriscience (India)
Moderator: Upma Arora, Global Innovation Programme Lead, Avery Dennison (Singapore)
The following are the event details:
Date: Thursday, 24 March
Time: 5.30pm to 6.30pm (GMT+8)
(REGISTER HERE)
“Level the Field” is a Padang & Co roundtable series that convenes specialists and industry leaders from public and private sectors to share insights and discuss sustainability issues centered on various forms of inequality in our communities. Find out more at https://www.padang.co.
Feel free to reach out to community@padang.co if you have any questions. Looking forward to seeing you online!
Best Regards,
On behalf of the Padang & Co Team,
A***
Initially, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but some instinct to double-check things pinged in the back of my mind, and I decided to check out what kinds of organizations the panelists represented.
And. Well:
ASYX: “ASYX is a supply chain integration firm based in Indonesia and Singapore, specializing in agroindustry and forestry value chains.” from ASYX’s ABOUT page (Oh boy, agroindustry AND forestry! Corporate monocrop plantations and their allied industries)
Sinarmas: “committed to be the leader in sustainable palm oil production” from Sinar Mas’ Agribusiness and Food page (Palm oil! In Indonesia!!! [really, need I say more???])
WOCAN: “WOCAN is a women-led international membership network of women and men professionals and women’s associations.” from WOCAN’s website (OK… kind of OK I guess, but keeping some strange company…)
Corteva Agriscience: “Corteva, Inc. (also known as Corteva Agriscience) is a major American agricultural chemical and seed company that was the agricultural unit of DowDuPont prior to being spun off as an independent public company.” from Wikipedia, accessed 6:44pm GMT+8, 17 March 2022. Because Corteva’s website was very vague. (Aaaand here’s a genuine mustachio-twirling cartoon villain of a company born of the DowDuPont hydra-beast, patenting seeds and forcing farmers into deeper and deeper cycles of agricultural debt through the economically and politically coercive use of their soil-killing “inputs”)
Avery Dennison: “Avery Dennison is a materials science and manufacturing company specializing in the design and manufacture of a wide variety of labeling and functional materials.” from Avery Dennison’s website (Packaging, labeling, and plastics! Allllll the plastics!)
So, what was a girl-passing individual to do?
Why, I would respond, of course!
So I did:
Dear A***,
Thank you so much for inviting me, but I must decline.
The event’s panel members, as representatives of ASYX, Sinarmas, Corteva, and Avery Dennison, are aligned with the interests of agro-industry and neoliberal hyperaccummulation, and I strongly disagree with the neo-colonial, technocratic greenwashing that the entities they are affiliated with engage in.
As a queer and neurodivergent femme person, I would also like to express my deep discomfort with how feminist rhetoric on the experiences of marginalized female-identified peoples has been used in this event as a smokescreen for the corporate capture and financialization of agriculture — deeply entwined phenomena that systemically undermine and ultimately disenfranchise women and other genders in profoundly alienating and harmful ways.
As someone who is vocal about peasant and Indigenous rights as well as food sovereignty and agroecology, I would respectfully like to request that you remove me from all of your contacts lists, as I do not see how these kinds of events align with my own aims.
I stand with the peasant farmers and Indigenous Peoples of Planet Earth.
I am not sure how you were able to find my contact details, but if you would like me to elaborate on the points I briefly mentioned, I am open to a quick conversation with you as an individual human (not as a representative of Padang & Co).
Thank you very much, and please stay safe!
Chris
Now, I’m neither rich, nor influential, but I AM Tired (emphasis on the capital “T”) of discussions on the liberation and well-being of marginalized peoples being co-opted by these kinds of interests.
I admit, because I’m currently “open to work” (and by that I mean that as a freelancer, I am struggling to keep my head above water financially like. All the time. All. The. Time.) I may have made the mistake of applying to these kinds of entities in the hopes of getting some of that sweet, sweet food and shelter.
But I don’t care anymore. Blacklist my queer brown ass. I’m not your mascot, I’m not interested in the minstrel show that is corporate representation, and I refuse to have my queer, neurodivergent, brown body be used to legitimize endeavors that actively disenfranchise queer, neurodivergent, brown, black, migrant, poor, disabled, religiously minoritized, ethnically minoritized (and a multitude of intersections and unmentioned marginalizations) groups and individuals. I used to be fine with being a dancing monkey. I was hungry and homeless. I had to be fine with it if I wanted to survive. But I’m relatively less hungry and homeless now, and that’s given me the space to refuse.
So.
I refuse.
I want to fight for a world where everyone can have the space to refuse.
Because No.
Just No.
