Posts by Alex Kent

My work as a member of the Amherst Food Co-op board of directors has made me more keenly aware than ever of the need to make dismantling racism a cornerstone of the Co-op. By their nature and long history, cooperative enterprises are necessarily political in nature. Cooperatives came into existence in response to injustice, inequity, and unfairness. Scholars like Jessica Gordon-Nembhard and her magisterial study of African-American cooperatives Collective Courage: A History of African-American Cooperative Economic Bottom Practice, speak to the indispensable role that collective enterprise has played in communities of color.