New Episode of Mic’s ‘The Movement’ Explores Native Community’s Fight to Reclaim Health and Tradition

By Sameer Rao Feb 09, 2016

If food is a useful passageway to learning about other cultures, it is also a tool for oppressors to deny peoples their health and agency. This is a central theme in the latest episode of "The Movement," Mic’s phenomenal video series profiling stories of resilience from communities of color across the country. 

For the latest episode, released today (February 9), host and activist/writer/editor Darnell L. Moore visits the Bois Forte Reservation in northern Minnesota and speaks with several community members fighting to reclaim and promote Native culinary traditions and health. The personalities featured—chef Sean Sherman, tribal garden director Rebecca Yoshino, singer-songwriter Keith Secola and Bois Forte elder Karen Drift—all cited their own work for educating and promoting pre-colonial culinary traditions as part of fighting the legacies of American oppression. As Yoshino says to Moore, "Food and access to food is definitely used as a weapon to help subjugate." 

Watch the latest episode of Mic‘s "The Movement" above.