
A message to Charlottesville about Lee Park from your local Black farmer:
I know some folks are really feeling themselves about this whole Love Trumps Hate counter-rally to Richard Spencer's punch-worthy shenanigans in Lee Park. I'd like to appreciate it, but frankly I just don't.
I've lived in several cities and visited many more before Charlottesville. I like this town for its natural beauty, it's small size, the friendliness of its people, and its food. But folks, here's something else: Charlottesville is by far the most aggressively segregated place I've ever lived in or visited. And that seems a strange thing to have to say about a town that hosts a public university.
I say "aggressively" for two reasons. One, because of how assertive police (and the citizens who summon them) are here with racial profiling. It got so bad in 2014 - 2015 that I stopped renting farmland on estates where I could be easily seen from the road, and I stopped making food deliveries into wealthier neighborhoods because of how often police would "happen by" and sometimes even question me five or ten minutes after I got a strange look from a passerby (usually someone jogging, but occasionally someone in a car). I'm not a paranoid kinda guy, but this happened way too often to be a coincidence.
It isn't Richard Spencer calling the cops on me for farming while Black. It's nervous White women in yoga pants with "I'm with Her" and "Coexist" stickers on their German SUVs.
Second is the sheer degree of cultural appropriation going on with businesses in the city proper. It's little things - e.g. shops and other businesses incorporating wide swaths of hiphop culture into their branding while having not a single Black owner, partner, employee, or vendor. And those businesses are KILLING IT here. This is a town where Blackness advances White-owned brands and subjects Black-owned businesses to inspection by law enforcement.
Do you really think that problem comes from people like Richard Spencer?
Check out C'Ville Weekly's Instagram feed when you get a moment, and try not to notice that the few depictions of Black people are limited to sports, singing, criminal justice, or single parenthood. White people, meanwhile, are represented as political activists, chefs, cogs in the gig economy, musicians, dancers, people who get married, visual artists, songwriters, architects, landscapers, thespians, artistic directors, wedge-heel-wearing rugby players, dog lovers, farmers, firefighters, and people who play with their kids in cul de sacs.
Richard Spencer is not the editor of C'Ville Weekly.
Truth is, as a Black dude, I'm far less bothered by the flag wavers in this picture than this town's progressives assuming its race problem has nothing to do with them. The former is a visual inconvenience. The latter could leave my daughters without a father.
So please, put down the candles and instead ask yourself: why is my city like this? Why is life like this for Black people in my wonderful city? The answer is a lot closer to home than Richard Spencer or Lee Park.
D.C. Area Folks (includes Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Herndon, Centreville, Falls Church, Silver Spring, Rockville, Hyattsville, Waldorf... you get the idea)!
You've still got about 24 hours to get your orders in for door to door deliveries tomorrow afternoon. Pork selections are limited and will be limited for some time; stock up on sage sausage now while you can.
Eggs are on the menu! Get them before they're gone ![]()
Ordering link in the comments; as usual - $50 minimum, and please leave a cooler at the door if you won't be home tomorrow afternoon.
How many times I did travel this road as a boy, gazing off at the farm to the north unaware that I was staring generations into the future. Unaware that this sun would rise and set on my children; that they would learn in the same place as I to smell the botanical perfumes; interpret the songs of crow and heron and eagle; read the trees for direction; make friends of the old ones in the forest; hold the creation of Kishelëmùkònk close to their faces and breathe in its mystery
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But to be a child again in this Holy place...
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#sylvanaquafarms #sevengenerations #reflections #choptico #indigenous #farmlife #northernneck #virginia
“People who would do this to children would do anything to anyone. Before this is over, they will be called to do worse.”
This article is chilling.
https://www.theatlantic.com/…/…/06/child-separation/563252/…
Eggs are back in stock on the website!
The first 90 minutes of the Crystal City Market got rained out yesterday, so we have a rare surplus of about 20 dozen eggs.
We're delivering to C'Ville today and D.C. tomorrow; there's still time to get your orders in. C'Ville folks, try and get it in within the next 30 minutes. D.C. you've got until tomorrow morning. $50 minimum does not apply if you've already placed an order for delivery this week, so feel free to tack on some extra.
... Order at sylvanaqua dot com ![]()
We’ve been separating vulnerable children from their parents as a matter of national policy for the majority of our history. And it’s not just ancient history of families torn apart at the auction block
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The ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act) was passed just four years before I was born, responding to a crisis in which 35% of indigenous children were being removed from their parents, extended families, and communities by state child welfare and private adoption agencies
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White... people could literally purchase Indian children through the mail. It was all perfectly legal; the Bible was often cited as justification, as it had always been for “kill the Indian, save the man” policies
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Tragedies like these will forever be a feature of a nation culturally rooted in the naked pursuit of personal opportunity
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#sylvanaquafarms #itiswhatitis #resist
We're loading up for FreshFarm Crystal City (20th and Crystal Drive, Arlington VA), and we've got a bunch of new stuff:
Half-Chickens
Frenched Chicken Breast
Chicken Necks...
Bratwurst Links
Smoked Chicken Sausage
FYI: The few pork chops we have left will probably run out today and be gone for at least a month. We're also loaded up with 50 dozen eggs.
See you at the market ![]()
Sylvanaqua Farms posted 3 photos.
It’s nearing the end of processing day and I’m starving, so let’s torture myself with a few snaps of our harvest around town
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1.) Our guanciale’s gracing a new dish at Charlottesville’s @oakhartsocial (photo courtesy of same) from now until they run out
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2.) Confit chicken leg quarters from our fat boys are on the menu in a delicious sammich at @grayjayprovisions (photo courtesy of same and/or @soulapefkarosphotography)...
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3.) Lardo by our main man Eric “Irish Red” Bein over at @jacks_shop_kitchen; this one will be available at a special event we’re hosting somewhere - probably at the farm - at a date TBD that you’ll probably have an invite to if you’re reading this. There will be dogs and alcohol and fire
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Eat good, now
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#sylvanaquafarms #localeats #farmtotable #nosetotail #snouttofeather #charlottesville #harrisonburg #gangsterparty
“Throw yo damn kids high as you want” I was told on #fathersday. So I did
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#sylvanaquafarms #babytoss #freakishlytallthreeyo #lotsofinsurance #helmet? #thatswhatyourskullsfor
GET OUR MEATS THIS WEEK!
Charlottesville Area: Wednesday afternoon door to door deliveries. Order on our website (in comments, for real this time), $50 minimum, leave a cooler at the door or let your front desk know we're coming.
D.C. Area: Three options! 1.) FRESHFARM Markets Crystal City at 20th and Crystal Drive in Arlignton, Tuesday from 3pm - 7pm.
...2.) Door to door delivery! Delivery area is roughly the radius from the middle of the city out to Centreville, in every direction. We're delivering door to door Thursday afternoon. $50 minimum, leave a cooler at the door or let your front desk know we're coming
3.) If you're near Alexandria, you can usually pick up our chickens all week long at Let's Meat on the Avenue in Del Ray.
Richmond: South of the James Farmers Market this Saturday, 8am - noon. Come out and meet Annie, who will likely be staffing that market this week.
Hope to see lots of everyone this week ![]()
“You haven’t eaten in nearly 24 hours. You have the blood pressure of a diabetic because you’ve been inhaling DayQuil and popping your ears WAY TOO HARD for nine uninterrupted hours. The fact that you’re conscious and walked in here under your own power - much less drove an hour to get here after standing in the sun all morning - is a scientific miracle. I’m tempted to have you arrested and call NIH. What are you?”
The freaking hilarious African R.N. at Minute Clinic evaluati...ng and scolding me after I finally hurt enough to see a professional about eight straight days of congestion that escalated to a full blown adult ear infection, which, it turns out, is basically like a kidney stone in your brain.
This was slightly before Annie informed me that next time I go to the Richmond market ready to pass out, I need to say more than “my ear hurts.”
She’s probably at least partially correct.
Sylvanaqua Farms added an event.
Sylvanaqua Farms at South of the James Farmers Market in Richmond!
Whole Chickens and Cuts
Ossabaw Pork and Charcuterie
Pasture-raised Eggs
RICHMOND FOLKS!
We're at South of the James Farmers Market tomorrow (Saturday) for Father's Day. Treat the poor bastard! New and/or exciting:
Ossabaw Bratwurst...
Chicken Link Sausage
Porterhouse Chops
Liver Pate
Chicken Wings
Pork Rinds
I may even have a few dozen eggs ![]()
Drop by and see us from 8am - noon!
Folks in the D.C. metro area (we deliver as far afield as Herndon and Centreville, so if you’re wondering if you’re in our delivery area, just ask!), you’ve still got time to get orders in for door to door delivery today!
CHICKEN SAUSAGE AND BRATS ARE ON THE FREAKING MENU, YALL.
$50 minimum, leave a cooler out for us, and we’ll be there this afternoon. Ordering link in the comments.
...Thanks!
If you believe the consequences of racism for White people are purely moral, consider this: The U.S. doesn’t have universal healthcare, and it’s not just because of big insurance or big pharma.
It’s because southern legislators blew it out of the New Deal, believing it would lead to integrated hospitals and other social services. This was around the same period most of the rest of the developed world adopted nationalized healthcare.
White people today are one random health e...vent away from complete financial ruin because grandpa thought he’d get cooties from Negroes.
Seriously.
Racism has a long half-life. And like a broad spectrum antibiotic, it doesn’t just poison its target.
We're headed to Charlottesville for door to door deliveries today! Chicken gizzards are on the menu, pork chops are running out, and whole chickens are on sale ![]()
Remember to leave out a cooler for us, and the $50 ordering minimum. Will be delivering in the early afternoon to late evening.
Thanks; and order at sylvanaqua dot com.
Taylor and Matt breaking down a Sylvanaqua Ossabaw at Let’s Meat on the Avenue the other week. This exchange began with Taylor detailing his distaste for bone saws and ended with Matt gesturing at a customer with a wiggling raw pig kidney, which may be the funniest thing I’ve seen in months. This is the place to get our birds in the DC area, btw, if our door to door service doesn’t work for the week
👍🏽
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#sylvanaquafarms #localbutcher #wholehog #butcherhumor #ossabaw #nosetotail #delray #alexandria #virginia



































