About this episode
Kerry Kennedy - Is Your Food Grown by Oppressed Farmworkers? | Brought to you by Thrive Market , Athletic Greens , and Theragun Social injustice is all around us. With the age of COVID-19, we see it in the higher rates of illness in our most underserved communities. On a larger, everyday scale we see it in the exploitation of farmworkers we all rely on to produce our food. Of course, these are only two examples of many human rights issues that we all should be thinking about. We often make a mistake in thinking we’re too insignificant to help. We’re not politicians, lobbyists, philanthropists, so what could we possibly do? The answer is a lot—with each small step of activism we take, we send positive ripples out into our communities and the rest of the world. I was so excited to sit down with my good friend Kerry Kennedy to talk about human rights activism and how her family has historically been a part of producing positive social change. Kerry is the president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. Since 1981, she has worked on diverse human rights issues including child labor, disappearances, indigenous land rights, judicial independence, freedom of expression, ethnic violence, impunity, women's rights, and the environment. Kerry is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Being Catholic Now , Robert F. Kennedy: Ripples of Hope , and Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World . Kerry founded RFK Compass, which convenes biannual meetings of institutional investors who collectively control $5 to $7 trillion in assets to address the impact of human rights violations on investment outcomes. She serves on the boards of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Human Rights First, Ethics in Action, SDG USA, Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa, Health eVillages, Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation, Nizami Ganjavi International Center as well as several public companies. This episode was sponsored by Thrive Market, Athletic Greens, and Theragun. Thrive Market has made it so easy for me to stay healthy, even with my intense travel schedule. Not only does Thrive offer 25 to 50% off all of my favorite brands, but they also give back. For every membership purchased, they give a membership to a family in need. Get up to $20 in shopping credit when you sign up and any time you spend more than $49 you’ll get free carbon-neutral shipping. All you have to do is head over to thrivemarket.com/Hyman . I use Athletic Greens in the morning as part of my daily routine. It’s really one supplement that covers so many bases and you’d be hard-pressed to find something else this comprehensive in one place. Right now Athletic Greens is offering my audience their Vitamin D3/K2 Liquid Formula free with your first purchase. Just go to athleticgreens.com/hyman to get your free bottle of Vitamin D3 and K2 with your first purchase. The Theragun is a percussive handheld therapy tool that I can use at home on myself or you can use it on a partner. There are a variety of devices to choose from and multiple head attachments to get different kinds of targeted muscle treatments. The Gen Four series, with an OLED screen, personalized Theragun app, and plenty of power for deep relaxation start at just $199. Just go to theragun.com/Hyman to get your Theragun today. Here are more of the details from our interview: Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s social justice work and how it influenced Kerry’s human rights work (7:06) Exploitation of food and farm workers in the U.S. and New York state (17:51) How Black people were intentionally excluded from the Fair Labor legislation passed by President Roosevelt (23:34) The importance of allowing collective bargaining among farm workers (26:10) The Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ work preventing exploitation of farm workers and how their model is being replicated around the world (30:15) The Fair Food Program and how it’s different from most social responsibility compacts (36:59) Health, economic, and human rights inequities in the United States (40:24) The silver linings of the coronavirus pandemic (43:27) RFK’s moral imagination, his role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the speech he gave on the night of MLK Jr.’s assassination (48:56) Social emotional learning (57:58) Learn more about Kerry’s work at RFK Human Rights at https://rfkhumanrights.org/ and follow her on Facebook @KerryKennedyRFK and on Twitter @KerryKennedyRFK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.