Hunger. The statistics are staggering.
One in six in this nation are "food insecure"--they cannot afford enough to eat.
By some estimates, it is closer to one in five.
And by all estimates, children are disproportionately affected.
This is immmoral, and the nationwide effort to feed America brings together the public and private sectors, government at all levels, neighbors helping neighbors, communities using all available resources to help make sure that none of us goes hungry. As we work to feed the hungry, we must never forget that this wave of poverty and hunger is not accidental, nor the result of personal failings, but is, in the main, the product of failed policies; it is the sign of a sick body politic, a democracy in crisis, that in the wealthiest of nations, so many are poor and hungry.
Thinking about hunger in preparation for this blogathon, I realized that it is a word that describes both an acute physical state of deprivation, one that pins you into your aching body and into the pinpoint of now, with its immediate needs, and a more metaphorical kind of deprivation, the craving or longing for something more fulfilling, as in spiritual hunger, or the hunger for self-expression or wisdom or meaning, for example. For one gripped by real, physical hunger pangs, nothing seems less metaphorical than hunger, and yet is is one of the greatest poetic tropes for the quest for meaning.
The tension between the two kinds of hunger, physical and metaphorical/spiritual, also has a political edge to it. Perhaps we could even locate ourselves on the spectrum politically based on how we understand government's role when faced with the hunger of its citizens. On the right, the prevailing viewpoint may be that hunger is a personal affair, while the left may understand addressing physical hunger as part of government's responsibility, part of the foundation that allows citizens to attend to the more spiritual or metaphorical kinds of hunger--for meaning, for self-expression, and so forth.
A hungry man is not a free man.
Adlai Stevenson
Kasson, MN, 6 September 1952
The founding fathers seemed to understand the connection between the two kinds of hunger--subjected to the physical one, you are less likely to be able to feed the other ones and government is needed to protect these rights to life (not starvation) and liberty and the pursuit of happiness (not self-expressive starvation):
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The Declaration of Independence
I suppose the traumatic experience of hunger could could lock you into fear and negativity as it did with this famously oblivious heroine from pop culture:
"As God is my witness, as God is my witness, they're not going to lick me! I'm going to live through this, and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again - no, nor any of my folks! If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill, as God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."
Scarlett O'Hara, Gone with the Wind
But as eminent psychiatrist and trauma researcher Dr. Robert Jay Lifton has demonstrated, such experiences of traumatic duress or stress often task one with what he calls a "survivor mission" focused not only on personal safety and peace, but also on the broader community.
In a different context, perhaps writing of more spiritual hunger, with a feast serving as metaphor, Emily Dickinson writes of the displacing effects of hunger and bounty.
I had been hungry all the years;
My noon had come, to dine;
I, trembling, drew the table near,
And touched the curious wine.
'T was this on tables I had seen,
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.
I did not know the ample bread,
'T was so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature's dining-room.
The plenty hurt me, 't was so new, --
Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted to the road.
Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.
Does Dickinson suggest that spiritual hunger evaporates when it recognizes the bounty of life? Perhaps, unintended, she also points to the difficulty of maintaining compassion for those less fortunate when one is lost in bounty, the risk of losing perspective. I believe that progressives always try to keep that perspective in view, looking at the world also through the eyes of the deprived, the dispossessed,the neglected and abjected.
Some time back, I attended a lecture by cultural and critical theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. She was speaking about human rights and the work she was doing in rural India helping build schools and design curriculum for poverty stricken children. She emphasized that for the lower classes, education was always thought to be just a matter of learning by rote, or learning life skills, while critical thinking and the enjoyment of knowledge was reserved for the upper classes. In this way, education was serving to maintain class difference. She was working to correct this, and thus to transform the society that produces poverty.
Likewise, hunger, imho. We cannot just address the physical needs of the poor and hungry, but must also create the conditions to address the other hunger--for meaning, fulfillment, happiness, peace, joy, self-expression etc.
This is part of the meaning of Bread and Roses as far as I can understand:
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: “Bread and roses! Bread and roses!”
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women’s children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for — but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!
James Oppenheim, 1911
(This poem, written by James Oppenheim to celebrate the movement for women’s rights and published in American Magazine in 1911, is closely associated with the Lawrence textile mill strike of 1912. During the strike, which was in protest of a reduction in pay, the women mill workers carried signs that quoted the poem, reading “We want bread, and roses, too”. The photo above was taken during the strike.)
Bread: for physical hunger. Roses: for all the other kinds of hunger, the fulfillment of which constitutes our happiness. I know that we are only guaranteed the right to the pursuit of happiness, but in my book, the free pursuit of happiness is happiness.
Physical hunger binds us to the most bodily aspects of our being, and hardly gives us a moment's respite for other aspirations. Indeed, Adlai Stevenson was correct that hunger undercuts freedom.
Only seeming a world apart from Stevenson, because really there is just one love, Bob Marley recognized that even a full belly isn't enough, when the everyday conditions of poverty grind you down.
Na-na na na-na na na na;
Na-na na na-na na na na;
Na-na na na-na na na na;
Na-na na na-na na na na.
Them belly full, but we hungry;
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
A rain a-fall, but the dirt it tough;
A yot a-yook, but d' yood no 'nough.
You're gonna dance to Jah music, dance;
We're gonna dance to Jah music, dance, oh-ooh!
Forget your troubles and dance!
Forget your sorrows and dance!
Forget your sickness and dance!
Forget your weakness and dance!
Cost of livin' gets so high,
Rich and poor they start to cry:
Now the weak must get strong;
They say, "Oh, what a tribulation!"
Them belly full, but we hungry;
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
A rain a-fall, but the dirt it tough;
A pot a-yook, but d' yood* no 'nough.
We're gonna chuck to Jah music - chuckin';
We're chuckin' to Jah music - we're chuckin'.
---
Guitar solo
---
A belly full, but them hungry;
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
A rain a-fall, but the dirt it tough;
A pot a-cook, but d' food* no 'nough.
A hungry man is a angry man;
A rain a-fall, but the dirt it tough;
A pot a-yook, but you no 'nough'
A rain a-fall, but the dirt it tough.
A pot a-cook, but you no 'nough;
A hungry mob is a angry mob;
A hungry mob is a angry mob. fadeout
If you wanna listen to Bob's sweet music, here you go:
As we work together to feed our neighbors by giving money and time, let us remember to keep fighting the political fight to change the policies that produce poverty and hunger. Let us also realize that real education, including art and music and critical thinking, is vital to a healthy body politic, and healthy, happy lives.
Hope this has been some food for thought! (There were many more poems and thoughts I wanted to share; I didn't even get a chance to go into how you can be economically not poor but spiritually impovershed ...)
Thank you all!
Bread and roses!
One love.
This year, Feeding America conducted the largest ever survey of hunger in America: 2010 Hunger Report Key Findings. Download the Executive Summary and the entire report here.
49 million Americans: 1 in 6 American adults are hungry, and 1 in 4 American children are hungry.
Donate here, and ConAgra will match your donation dollar for dollar (up to a total collection of $250,000 in May.)
If you need to find a local food pantry, or if you want to volunteer your time you can find a nearby foodbank here.
Thanks so much for all you do.
- Faces of Hunger (Introduction) by noweasels.
- Urban Farms and Fisheries by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse
- Hunger in Vancouver by Chacounne
- Hunger in America 2010 by teacherken
- Food Forward -- Fallen Fruit and Foodbanks by Ellinorianne
- Voice of the homeless in Tent City 4 by rb137
Sunday, May 30: All times Eastern!
1 pm – srkp23 (You are here.)
4 pm – Timroff
7 pm - blue jersey mom
10 pm - boatsie