October 5: Radical Care (due before class)

Discussion Prompt

The first reading on radical care was written before the COVID pandemic And yet it is eerie how much it seems to speak to our current crises in terms of gaps of care. I am asking you to comment here on a passage or quote that struck you as particularly striking in terms of your understanding of our society-wide struggle with COVID. Find a quote and write about why it struck you.

One thing that struck me about this article was how important the act of feeding people figures in this discussion as a mode of care. The second short article is from the New York Times written by Chef José Andrés about his organization to provide food in the wake of disaster. You may have first learned about him in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017. In many ways, the federal government's failure and even indifference to dealing with the human suffering caused by that catastrophe was a harbinger of our current situation. How does this kind of activism reveal the gaps of care that it is attempting to fill in? What kinds of "otherwise" can we imagine? What kinds of roles should federal and local governments take? Civil society groups? Individuals? How do we understand the political aspects of allocating risk and responsibility? What issues regarding food access have you encountered during this period and what coping strategies have you practiced or observed in your community?