Racist violence in our communities: Sustain responds

Violent, racist behaviours go against everything that the Sustain alliance stands for. Our projects, policy advocacy, networks and local food partnerships strive to bring communities together. The good food movement creates inclusive, welcoming, equitable and generous places that put good food at the heart of community.

Our networks – working with people from diverse backgrounds and identities – cultivate community gardens; teach children about food; and provide nutritious meals for people who need them. Through our alliance campaigns, we advocate for living incomes for everyone; policies that address health inequalities and poverty; and approaches that help make good food accessible and affordable. We seek to tackle head on the structural causes that are deepening poverty, lowering living standards and stoking the unrest, fear and anger that is now being exploited.

Throughout it all, our movement celebrates ethnically and culturally diverse food – and the fabulously diverse people who grow, make and serve it – dished up with ladles-full of compassion and love. Not hate. It is chilling to see that so many of the towns and cities experiencing the racist violence are also places that are members of the Sustainable Food Places network. Solidarity, friends, we have so much to offer.

The violence and aggressive, racist behaviours appear to be targeted mainly at Muslims, especially women wearing hijabs, Black people, people of colour and people seeking asylum. Such violence and Islamophobia are profoundly traumatic. For those of us working in the charity, community and voluntary sectors, the people being targeted are our friends, colleagues, neighbours, family members, beneficiaries and clients – all of them deserve our care and respect. 

This is a time for all of us to ask ourselves, how can we – as individuals and as organisations – step up and be actively anti-racist, in our words, policies and actions? 

Violent assaults on people seeking asylum and the places where they are living or receiving support are shameful. People seeking asylum have more than likely already experienced the very worst of human behaviours – violence, displacement from their families and homelands, or discrimination due to their political views or personal characteristics – sometimes exacerbated by the policies of Western nations that fuel conflict and inequality. In the UK, people seeking asylum should be treated in a way that recognises and respects our common humanity. Cities of Sanctuary, and local centres run by mosques, churches and community groups should inspire us to provide a human-centred and dignified welcome.

It has been heartening to start seeing many thousands of people across the UK coming out in peaceful demonstrations of opposition to racism and Islamophobia. We have seen communities marching together in peaceful resistance to the violence. The photograph at the top of this article shows local community members in Hackney, East London, gathering outside a local veg box pickup point to resist a potential violent attack on the neighbouring mosque. This veg box scheme run by Growing Communities, a member of the Sustain alliance, also provides fruit and vegetables to local initiatives that offer good food and a warm welcome to refugees. Peaceful resistance and deliberately inclusive policies and actions can happen everywhere. We can all share these and help positive action multiply. We live in community, let’s act as community. 

The conversation about what has happened is only just beginning. Anti-racist solutions must follow. In the good food movement, let’s talk about the skills, assets, privileges, positive attitudes and opportunities we can bring to the table. In solidarity. 

Things we can do 

Support the people we work with. Make sure people are safe and supported, especially Black people and people of colour, and of faith, who are likely to be most affected. 

Turn up. Peacefully resist and oppose, in a multitude that is bigger than the mob, and in any way that we can. Love is stronger than hate.

Listen and learn. Listen to accounts of the history and impact of racism and colonialism; learn what we can do to make things better.

Become consciously anti-racist. In our own lives, and as institutions and organisations, set out what it means to be anti-racist in our words, policies and actions. 

Things we can do as the good food movement

In the good food movement, we can make our own work inclusive and anti-racist. There’s a huge amount to be done to address the structural causes of racial injustice – we’ll share more thoughts on this in due course. For now, here are some tangible things that we can do in our food system:

Get serious about supporting the real Living Wage. A staggering 3.7 million UK employees were paid below the real Living Wage last year (of which 818,000 work in the retail sector), meaning that millions of people – a high proportion of whom are Black people and people of colour – receive inadequate income to be able to afford the basics. Support Share Action in their call for supermarkets to pay the real Living Wage.

Continue to campaign for an end to poverty and gaping inequalities in income and opportunity. This includes backing Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation asks to Government to Guarantee our Essentials, ensuring our social security system is fit for purpose and ending the impossible choices for millions of people across the country in receipt of Universal Credit who cannot afford essentials such as food.

Join us in saying Yes to school food for all, to level the playing field and make sure that a nutritious meal that fuels better learning, sociable connections, and wellbeing becomes a normal part of the school day for all children, whatever their background or household income.

If you are involved in community food growing, learn more about taking an anti-racist approach. Many garden leaders and diversity experts have contributed to these helpful resources. 

Take action to oppose the immigration condition ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’, which throws many people seeking asylum into extreme food poverty – sometimes for years. This policy is inherently racist and inhumane. As a first step, support Sustain in responding to a current government consultation that could enable new parents in the refugee, immigration and asylum system to get Healthy Start payments to buy milk, fruit and vegetables so that they can feed their young children. Currently, many of these children go hungry. Get in touch.

Demand that people seeking asylum are able to receive adequate income, food and facilities to enable them to feed themselves and their families. Sustain is working with local authorities and community groups to improve the food experience for asylum seekers, which is currently dire. Please join in: read the report; get in touch; persuade your local authority to take up the recommendations in Sustain's report.

Building on the work we are doing to try to become an anti-racist organisation, Sustain is offering alliance members a programme of support to progress in anti-racism, diversity and inclusion. Please do join in: get in touch.

Other resources

The following sources of information and support have been suggested to Sustain. We have not vetted these, so are not offering them as endorsements as such, but are passing them on in case they may be helpful:

Migration Exchange have shared a blog with advice for organisations in the migration sector, and funders on actions to protect communities from far-right violence.

Hope not Hate have a list of community resources, and information on what you can do about anti-migrant protests. They have developed guides to online safety and security for temporary asylum accommodation, drawing on their work with organisations working in the refugee and migration sector - register to download on this link to Hope not Hate.

NEON have offered comprehensive advice on messaging and framing communications at this time: Far right violence, a messaging guide. We have endeavoured to learn from and follow Neon's guidance in this article.