Black Indigenous Chefs Are Reclaiming Identity Through Food — One Dish at a Time by Michael Harriot
Black Native food workers are passing down culinary traditions, restoring lost connections and feeding body and soul. Read on Substack
Crystal Wahpepah (Photo courtesy of Crystal Wahpepah)
The Indigenous food movement has seen a renaissance in North America, with restaurant openings, cookbook releases and community initiatives that announce the presence, expertise and heritage of Indigenous food workers. Amidst this moment, Black Native food workers have seen both the beauty and the harshness of living at the intersection of Blackness and Indigeneity, as the dominant settler colonial culture of the United States often tries to erase or flatten all parts of their identities.
But those attempts at erasure have also provided moments of reflection and insight, and a realization that the mission of Black Indigenous food workers is profoundly spiritual and political healing work. For Stephan Oak, a Black and Lakota forager and woodworker who lives in Detroit, the threads of connection that Black Indigenous people hold in their family stories that are “steeped in violence, but also steeped in love and resistance” are also guides that allow them to connect in the past, present, and future — a shared cosmology.
Crystal Wahpepah, who is Black and Kickapoo and the executive chef and owner of Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, Calif., says that often, through representation and education, Black Native people in the food industry come to a deeper peace about their identity and heritage. At Wahpepah’s Kitchen, over cornbread dishes from the Ute and Kickapoo people, wild rice from the Great Lakes tribes and bison from the Great Plains, people often find themselves.
“I meet so many people who are Black and Native but never felt connected to their Indigenous side, and when they meet me, they start talking about it, about culture, about those things that have been lost,” she says. Wahpepah is also opening a new restaurant, A Feather and a Fork, which is also the title of her upcoming cookbook.
That loss is something felt in both Black and Indigenous communities and can often feel pronounced because of family separation through residential schools, land expulsions, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the domestic slave trade that broke up Black families across the country. “Because of colonial violence, there’s a fractured relationship to home or your connection to your ancestors,” says Oak. “The intent of the colonizer is to stop you from looking … to accept the identity of the conditions they’ve placed on you.”
Food is one of the ways Oak and others are reclaiming autonomy over their identities, especially as governments use food as a weapon by depriving communities of affordable, culturally relevant food. Oak points out that even amidst food deserts on reservations and urban Black communities, people find ways to be more self-sufficient and connect back to the land, which helps them reconnect with the essence of who they are. (snip-MORE; lots more but not too long)
Crystal Wahpepah’s wild rice salad with strawberries and pecans (Courtesy of Crystal Wahpepah)
Lez Out July might be drawing to a close, but one WNBA fan made damn sure that it’s not going out without a bang, pun semi-intended. And by that, we mean that someone launched a lime- green dildo onto the court at an Atlanta Dream game last night.
The incident occurred during the fourth quarter of the Dream’s July 29 game against the Golden State Valkyries at the Gateway Center Arena in College Park, Georgia. With a minute left on the clock and both teams tied at 75 points, the drama was already high. Perhaps that’s why one attendee felt inspired to launch a dildo into the air and onto the court with truly impressive velocity.
(embedded tweet; I can’t get it, see it on the page, linked in headline)
At about 17 seconds into the above clip, you can see slowed-down footage of the dildo’s journey, seemingly tossed from somewhere high up in the stands and bouncing across the court into the sidelines. And yes, we did get a close-up shot of the “object” in question, as the commentators called it. Absolute Cinema, if you ask us.
(embedded tweet; I can’t get it, see it on the page)
Though the commentators said that there was “no room for that type of activity,” and we certainly don’t support launched objects at concerts and games, it seems that WNBA players themselves have at least enough room to make jokes about that type of activity online. Las Vegas Aces guard Kierstan Bell quote-posted a video of the incident with, “Damn how my shit get there,” and an eyebrow-raised emoji. Indiana Fever point guard Sydney Colson, meanwhile, posted, “Sorry I did NOT mean to throw that so far y’all.” Though she didn’t include a video, that lime-green heart emoji (which is weirdly close to the color of the actual dildo) makes this an unmistakable reference. (snip-good sports, all! MORE)
July 31, 1896 The National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was established in Washington, D.C. Its two leading members were Josephine Ruffin and Mary Church Terrell. Founders also included some of the most renowned African-American women educators, community leaders, and civil-rights activists in America, including Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Margaret Murray Washington, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Mary Church Terrell The original intention of the organization was “to furnish evidence of the moral, mental and material progress made by people of colour through the efforts of our women.” However, over the next ten years the NACW became involved in campaigns favoring women’s suffrage and opposing lynching and Jim Crow laws. By the time the United States entered the First World War, membership had reached 300,000. The NACW and its founders
July 31, 1986 25,000 people rallied in Namibia for freedom from South African colonial rule. In June, 1971 the International Court of Justice had ruled the South African presence in Namibia to be illegal. Eventually, open elections for a 72-member Constituent Assembly were held under U.N. supervision in November, 1989. Three months later Namibia gained its independence, and maintains it today. More on Namibia’s independence Namibian flag
July 31, 1991 The United States and the Soviet Union, represented by President George H.W. Bush and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START I. It was the first agreement to actually reduce (by 25-35%) and verify both countries’ stockpiles of nuclear weapons at equal aggregate levels in strategic offensive arms. The Soviet Union dissolved several months later, but Russia and the U.S. met their goals by December, 2001. Three other former republics of the U.S.S.R., Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, have eliminated these weapons from their territory altogether. Comprehensive info from the Federation of American Scientists:
July 30, 1492 The same month Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain for his “expedition of discovery to the Indies” [actually the Western Hemisphere], was the deadline for all “Jews and Jewesses of our kingdoms to depart and never to return . . .” lest they be executed. Under the influence of Fr. Tomas de Torquemada, the leader of the Spanish Inquisition, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had ordered the expulsion of the entire Jewish community of 200,000 from Spain within four months. Spain’s Muslims, or Moors, were forced out as well within ten years. The edict of expulsion from Spain signed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella All were forced to sell off their houses, businesses and possessions, were pressured to convert to Christianity, and to find a new country to live in. Those who left were known as Sephardim (Hebrew for Spain), settling in North Africa, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe and the Arab world. Most went to Portugal, were allowed to stay just six months, and then were enslaved under orders of King John. Those who made it to Turkey were welcomed by Sultan Bajazet who asked,“How can you call Ferdinand of Aragon a wise king, the same Ferdinand who impoverished his own land and enriched ours?”
July 30, 1996 Four Ploughshares activists in Liverpool, England, were acquitted of all charges (illegal entry and criminal damage) on the basis of their having prevented a greater crime, after having extensively damaged an F-16 Hawk fighter jet to be sold to the Indonesian government for use in its genocidal occupation of East Timor. Seeds of Hope-East Timor Ploughshares: the action and the aftermath
I wasn’t an adult in 1972, but it was a relief to me, that there was no more death penalty! Four years later, it was back, and I cannot explain how that happened. My town had a death penalty trial almost immediately. A teacher had access to an execution film; the state was required to keep that on record for a while, whenever anyone sat on Ol’ Sparky; we viewed it before the trial (no one present was on the jury, of course.) It was medieval. And, here we still are in 2025, killing people in the names of everybody who lives here. There are ways to work against it; let me know if there is interest in comments.
July 29, 1970 Signing the contract After a five-year strike, the United Farm Workers (UFW) signed a contract with the table grape growers in California, ending the first grape boycott. Exploring the United Farm Workers’ History
July 29, 1972 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty to be cruel and unusual punishment by a 5-4 vote. The Court called the wide discretion in application of capital punishment, including the appearance of racial bias against black defendants, “arbitrary and capricious” and thus in violation of due process guarantees in the 14th Amendment [see July 28, 1868]. Influence of race on imposition of the death penalty
July 28, 1917 Anti-Lynching Parade in New York City, 1917 W.E.B. DuBois and others organized a silent parade down Fifth Avenue in New York City against the lynching of negroes and segregationist Jim Crow laws. There had been nearly 3,000 documented cases of hangings and other mob violence against black Americans since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. Read about W.E.B. DuBois Strange Fruit, the song about lynching, and the film
July 28, 1932 Bonus Marchers on the Capitol Steps Federal troops, under command of General Douglas MacArthur, forcibly dispersed the so-called “Bonus Expeditionary Force,” or Bonus Army. They were World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand money they had been promised but weren’t scheduled to receive until 1945. Most of the marchers were unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits during the Great Depression. More on the Bonus Army (It’s WaPo; you can read it for free, but you have to sign in) Film of the confrontation in Washington (Watch on YouTube for free without sign in)
July 28, 1965 Pfc. John L. Lewis decorates his helmet with good luck tokens. [Khe Sanh, February 1968.]” Life [Asia edition]. 18 Mar. 1968. cover President Lyndon Johnson ordered 50,000 troops to Vietnam to join the 75,000 already there. By the end of the year 180,000 U.S. troops will have been sent to Vietnam; in 1966 the figure doubled. In addition to countless Vietnamese deaths, close to 1900 Americans were killed in 1965; the following year the number more than tripled. Lyndon Johnson told the nation Have no fear of escalation
I am trying everyone to please Though it isn’t really war We’re sending fifty thousand more To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese — part of Tom Paxton’s anti-Vietnam-war song, “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation” Full lyrics of the song President Johnson explained: “We intend to convince the communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power.””
July 28, 1982 San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban the sale and possession of handguns. The law was struck down by state courts, which ruled the local law to be in violation of the California constitution which gives the state the sole power to regulate firearms.
July 27, 1919 A riot began in Chicago when police refused to arrest a white man who was responsible for the death of a young black man, Eugene Williams. The 29th Street Beach on Lake Michigan was used by both black and white Chicagoans. But the man had been throwing stones at the black boys swimming there before hitting Williams. The Coroner’s report on the riot described the events as follows: “Five days of terrible hate and passion let loose, cost the people of Chicago 38 lives (15 white and 23 colored), wounded and maimed several hundred, destroyed property of untold value, filled thousands with fear, blemished the city and left in its wake fear and apprehension for the future . . . .” The city’s booming economy, especially jobs in the stockyards, had drawn many blacks during the Great Migration from the South, more than doubling their population in just three years. Only one policeman died in the chaos, Patrolman John Simpson, 31, an African American working out of the Wabash Avenue Station. Gangs and the 1919 Chicago Race Riot.
July 27, 1953 After three years of bloody and frustrating war leading to stalemate, the United States, the People’s Republic of China and North Korea agreed to a truce, bringing the Korean War—and America’s first experiment with the Cold War concept of “limited war”—to an end (South Korean President Syngman Rhee opposed the truce and refused to sign). U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower had taken office six months earlier, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin had died that March. Korean War Memorial photo: Heather Stanfield The armistice signed this day ended hostilities and created the 4000-meter-wide (2.5 miles) demilitarized zone (DMZ), a buffer between North and South Korean forces, but was not a permanent peace treaty. It also set up a system for exchanging prisoners of war: 12,000 held by the North, 75,000 by South Korea, the U.S. and the U.N. allied forces. There were four million military and civilian casualties, including 16,000 from countries which were part of the U.N.-allied forces; 415,000 South and 520,000 North Koreans died. There were also an estimated 900,000 Chinese casualties. 36,516 died out of the nearly 1.8 million Americans who served in the conflict.
July 27, 1954 The democratically elected Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, after receiving 65% of the vote, was overthrown by CIA-paid and -trained mercenaries. There followed a series of military dictatorships that waged a genocidal war against the indigenous Mayan Indians and against political opponents into the ’90s. Nearly 200,000 citizens died over the nearly four decades of civil war. “They have used the pretext of anti-communism. The truth is very different. The truth is to be found in the financial interests of the fruit company [United Fruit, which controlled more land than any other individual or group in the country. It also owned the railway, the electric utilities, telegraph, and the country’s only port at Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast.] and the other U.S. monopolies which have invested great amounts of money in Latin America and fear that the example of Guatemala would be followed by other Latin countries . . . I took over the presidency with great faith in the democratic system, in liberty and the possibility of achieving economic independence for Guatemala.” Jacobo Arbenz More about Arbenz The real coup story through official U.S. documents
July 27, 1996 Trident sub being loaded Known as the “Weep for Children Plowshares,” four women were arrested for pouring their own blood on weaponry at the Naval Submarine Base at Groton, Connecticut, on the morning of the launch of the last-built Ohio-class submarine, the U.S.S. Louisiana. The 18 such submarines carry about half of the U.S. nuclear deterrent – 24 Trident I & II missiles with a range of 7400 km (4600 miles), each with several warheads known as MIRVs (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles). Details of the action
July 26, 1953 In his first move to overthrow the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, 26-year-old Fidel Castro led 134 other young revolutionaries to unsuccessfully attack the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Castro had concluded that armed struggle was the only way to unseat Batista, who had taken power in a military coup in 1952. The Cuban Revolution is known as the July 26 Movement, and is celebrated annually there. The Moncada Barracks, still showing a few bullet holes and pockmarks from that fateful early morning assault in 1953, is now both a historic site and an elementary school.
July 26, 1967 H. Rap Brown, then head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was ordered arrested by then-Governor Spiro Agnew, who accused him of inciting a riot through his speech two days earlier at a civil rights rally in Cambridge, Maryland. At the event, Brown declared, “Black folks built America, and if America don’t come around, we’re going to burn America down . . . If Cambridge doesn’t come around, Cambridge got to be burned down.” Shortly after the speech, Brown was hit in the head by buckshot from a policeman’s shotgun. That night the segregated elementary school on the black side of town and 20 businesses burned down (there was no looting), some along Race Street, the racial divide which neither black nor white were expected to cross. H. Rap Brown following the disturbances in Cambridge, Maryland. What happened in Cambridge
July 26, 1990 The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. It prohibited discrimination based on disability in employment, in public accommodation (e.g., hotels, restaurants, retail stores, theaters, health care facilities, convention centers), in transportation services, and in all activities of state and local governments. The law did not go into effect until January 26, 1992.
Mesopithecus pentelicus thrived in the rainforests of the late Miocene, 7 million years ago. Credit: Mauricio Antón
Small, slender and short-lived, with broad noses, big, dark-adapted eyes, living underground, and in the shadows of a shattered, steamy, chaotic world. Richard Musgrove asks: will this be us in 10,000 years?
Climate change is the greatest challenge in human history – current trends could have us eventually approaching extremes not seen on our planet for 15 million years. Will a destabilised global climate wreak economic havoc, leading to societal collapse, mass mortalities, even extinction? Or will we pull ourselves out of this spectacular self-imposed nose-dive?
Which raises the question – what if we don’t? How will humanity change on a much hotter Earth?
Numbers matter
Uncharted territory approaches as we nudge the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, on track for a potentially catastrophic 2.7°C by 2100. What about 2200, or 3200?
Globally, days above 50°C have doubled since the 1980s – in Australia, Pakistan, India and the Persian Gulf – with the ‘feels-like’ temperature often higher. Even immediately reduced carbon emissions will still mean lingering planet-wide heating and associated effects for many thousands of years.
Our adaptability has led us this far, but what does evolution have in store for our species if we don’t rise to face our greatest challenge? The answer is unlikely to be in the mirror.
Nothing sweats like us (snip-MORE)
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Medicaid ‘gamers’ are the new ‘welfare queens’ by Aaron Rupar
Republicans are taking strawman arguments to absurd extremes. Read on Substack
Earlier this month, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans passed a grotesque budget bill that (partially) funds massive tax breaks for the wealthy and a ramped-up ICE goon squad by cutting cutting $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and an additional $185 billion from federal food assistance programs, all while adding $2.8 trillion to the deficit.
Not surprisingly, the bill is massively unpopular. As a result, Republicans are gaslighting Americans about its impact, particularly regarding the cuts to Medicaid, which are expected to cost 10 million Americans their health coverage.
The Medicaid cuts could result in more than 16,000 extra deaths per year, researchers say. Republicans have tried to distract from that reality with a combination of blatant lies and misdirecting rhetoric. To hear them tell it, they’re only cutting supposed waste, fraud, and abuse. So when you lose benefits, they’re here to explain why it’s probably your own damn fault.
The lazy gamer myth
Republican messaging surrounding Medicaid cuts borrows heavily from Ronald Reagan’s playbook. (snip- MORE)
Of course, there are innumerable instances when the Bible has historically been used to enforce the idea that gender is a divinely ordained binary, with male and female genders that are distinct, complementary, and assigned at birth.
Indeed, the Bible’s general attitude toward gender is expansive, with verses exploring God’s focus on the interior over the exterior, the distinction between sex and gender, the role of eunuchs in scripture, and more.
Here are 10 Bible verses that show a biblical approach to gender that is as varied as the colors in a rainbow.
Genesis 1:27 So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Day and night. Water and dry land. Male and female. The creation poem might sound like it’s dealing in binaries, but we know that all of these things have transitional elements. Day and night contain transitions at dawn and dusk; the spectrum of water and dry land includes tidal plains and coral reefs; and people who are intersex, genderqueer, nonbinary, and more can be found between “male and female”.
Genesis 25:27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.
Jacob is described as “smooth” (Genesis 27:11) and stays in the tent where he cooks – traditional female attributes in the ancient world. Yet he is chosen over his “hairy” brother Esau, a skilled hunter, to lead God’s people, showing that God does not place value on traditional gender norms.
Isaiah 56:4-5 For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
Eunuchs were men who had been castrated, especially those employed to guard the women’s living areas. They represent clear historical examples outside of the gender binary in the Bible and are welcomed into the temple and to the community of worship.
Matthew 19:11-12 But [Jesus] said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”
The disciples ask Jesus to clarify the explanation of gender in Genesis 1 as it relates to divorce. In answering them, Jesus offers this non-judgmental example of eunuchs that invokes a range of genders. This indicates the law should be flexible enough to allow for this range, instead of being too narrow to recognize its existence.
Galatians 3:27-28 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
The apostle Paul explains that unity in Christ is what’s important, superseding the concept of gender and other identity markers.
Mark 11:17 [Jesus] was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
In this verse, Jesus is referencing Isaiah 56, when eunuchs are welcomed into the community at temple. He prioritizes welcoming all people, regardless of gender.
Acts 8:38-39 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing.
1 Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
When the prophet Samuel was charged by God to look for a new king, David didn’t seem as king-like as the other options presented to Samuel — but he was still the right choice. Once again, we see that God does not share the human preoccupation with external biological features. Our physical bodies do not determine deeper matters of our identity.
Romans 2:29 Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans but from God.
As with the example of God choosing David because of what was in his heart, here the Bible says that physical alteration (like being circumcised) isn’t what matters to God — it’s what’s in the heart.
Genesis 16:13 So [Hagar] named the Lord who spoke to her, “You are El-roi,” for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?”
Hagar changes the name she uses for God, reflecting a change in how she recognizes who God is — not a change in God’s own identity, but an uncovering that leads to a fuller understanding and affirmation of God’s identity. Similarly, someone may choose to change the gender (and the name that goes with it) that they identify with as a reflection of a greater understanding and affirmation of who they are, out of a desire that the world may better know and understand them, too.
Heather BradyHeather Brady is the audience engagement manager at Sojourners.
This is the latest installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
Even as an atheist, I’m a big fan of Jesus. I really am. What’s not to like? A tall, gorgeous man with great abs and flowing hair getting his feet washed by prostitutes. And encouraging people to love their neighbors while slaying in a loose kaftan. And Jesus was an immigrant, by the way. Let’s not forget . . .
Jesus would have loved trans people. He changed water into wine; is that not itself an act of transition? And you know how I know Jesus would love trans people? Because he loved people. He loved all people. So, of course, he would love trans people and all queer people. I mean, Jesus was followed around at all times by 12 single hot guys, all of them also sporting kaftans. You do the math. Jesus loved the gays, America. Deal with it.
The only thing our current president has in common with Jesus is that they both owe their career to their dads.
Seriously, just think to imagine what it must feel like to be trans person in America today. Our government has legislated that trans people do not exist. It is trying to erase them completely. Imagine having to stockpile your essential lifesaving medicine because your president might cut off access to it for no other reason than it makes him look strong to his base. If the government is going to declare a whole group of people shouldn’t exist, why can’t it be truly a dangerous group of people like those who take off their socks and shoes on airplanes and then go into the bathroom? Why can’t it be people who use leaf blowers at unearthly hours in the morning? Why can’t it be unkind people? Which brings us back to Jesus. Yes, of course. Jesus just wants all of us to be kind. So, for once, America, I beg you, let’s all really try to give kindness a go. Like my little mom says, “It doesn’t cost anything to be kind.” And I guarantee you any situation you find yourself in will go better with a little kindness.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. (snip)
Scottie's Playtime 