Black Queer Chef Kia Damon Addresses Food Scarcity By Feeding LGBTQ+ Community

If there’s one thing we can say about Ms. Rona, it’s that she exposed quite a few of the systematic issues that plague this country, with poor, Black, brown and marginalized groups being hit the absolute hardest. Whether it was racial injustice, lack of access to healthcare, or food scarcity the problems were glaring. And for one Florida-born, New York-based chef, Kia Damon, she couldn’t sit idly by and not do anything to help. 

Damon, a queer Black chef, decided to launch a non-profit initiative, Kia Feeds the People to address food scarcity specifically in the LGBTQIA community. 

We had a chance to speak to Kia recently. During our conversation, she shared how she broke into the male-dominated culinary world, giving with integrity, and her partnership with EFFEN Vodka. See what she had to say below. 

MadameNoire: What was your first foray into cooking?

Kia Damon: I come from a pretty cooking family. Which I think is a common story for a lot of young Black women. But my folks didn’t necessarily let me cook with them, growing up. I was given the task of making a pot of rice once. And I failed miserably and they never let me cook again.

But it wasn’t until I had gotten a little bit older, like pre-teen-ish and both of my parents were working. We were too old for daycare. So we had to figure out what to do. I started making meals for my brothers. And it was very experimental at first.

Being from Orlando, I live in a hospitality town so a lot of the jobs I picked up were a hostess at a restaurant, or a cashier at Universal or a cook at another place. It was a regular rite of passage for Central Florida kids.

But the most major part was when I got much older and was trying to foray into a vegetarian lifestyle. My mom was like, ‘That’s great but I’m not making a second vegetarian meal for you.’

At the time, I was like, ‘Wow, my mom is so cruel.’ But now that I’m older, there was no way in the world that my mom was about to come home from work, cook for my dad and my brothers and then make me vegetarian lasagna. I really had the game twisted.

So I started cooking and having to get groceries for myself. And I started to build a real sense of independence. And my family started to rely on me more to cook for anniversaries and mommy’s birthday, doing prep for Thanksgiving. And one day, it was like I’m really good at this.

The thought that I had to be a certain type of person with a certain type of background to do this—I was like, ‘Wait, these are things I learned watching my mom and grandma.’ I just don’t have the culinary language. So I’m just going to do it. I feel good about myself when I cook. I feel like I have a skill and a purpose that I can offer this world. So I grabbed onto to that and said I’m going to do it. And I did it.

 

MadameNoire: Once you become a professional chef, it’s such a male dominated field, even though women cook everywhere, all over the world. What was that like transitioning into that space?

Kia Damon: That was a big culture shock. I was not prepared for it, I will say. I definitely went out into the world very happy go lucky, nothing’s going to stop me. And I remember trying to get a prep position at a restaurant in Tallahassee. It was run by an alumni from the Culinary Institute of America. I couldn’t afford to go there but I thought I could study under this person. So I went there with my resume and I got shut down so quick. And I was like, ‘Oh! Interesting.’

He was not trying to see what I’m about. I didn’t grasp that at first until I found my way into other kitchens and I would go in for a back of house, prep position, willing to work my way up and they’re like, ‘We’re going to put you at the register.’ Then the pieces started to come together and the naïve-ness started to fade away. I realized, I’m going to have to work ten times as hard, even though everyone talks about how the women in their family taught them to cook.

But us actually going in when it’s time to do it for money, when it’s time to make a career out of it, people are like, ‘This is no place for you.’

So I had to work ten times as hard to prove myself even once I came into a position of leadership in New York and Manhattan. People who were supposed to be my employees weren’t even giving me the time of day. It was tough. It was really discouraging.

 

MadameNoire: You said even in leadership you had problems. So was it that people were not used to listening to women?

Kia Damon: It was definitely that. I don’t even have to guess because I was told at specific times, ‘These guys are a little older so they’re not used to having to listen to someone like you.’ I was like a Black woman?! What am I supposed to do with people not wanting to respect me or give me the time of day? Even in a position of leadership, I never felt like, ‘Well, I’m a boss by title, y’all treat me as such.’ I’m like no, I want to learn, get to know everybody, learn from each other. I came in very, very humble. Even though I know that people who are sous chefs or executive chefs don’t get the same kind of thought. So I humbled myself and still it was not enough.

That plus not having proper mentorship of other Black women around me—it was a bad mixture of a lot of things that left me feeling lost, unsupported, and angry.

MadameNoire: Shifting gears, a little bit can you speak to me about your partnership with Effen and why you decided to work with them?

Kia Damon: Yes! I remember being approached by the filmmakers Erica Rose and Elina Street. And they had this wonderful idea of helping me tell my story as a Black, queer woman cooking food, doing what I love and supporting my community.

They showed me more about Effen Vodka and they’re doing their own part to support disenfranchised artists and really focusing on diversity in support of these artists. I’ve worked with a lot of people in my life and I’ve really felt like I was just points for a lot of people. And the support stops right at the surface. I don’t want to live that way. I want to partner with people who actually see the value in supporting queer, LGBTQIA, Black and brown artists through and through.

And I’m excited to work with Effen because they’re going all the way.

 

MadameNoire: Can you talk about food scarcity and why it’s a particular issue for LGBTQ+ youth?

Kia Damon: I could talk about food scarcity all day. COVID really blew the lid off of a lot of issues that I feel like we know exist and are privy to them. But if our own positions and resources in life aren’t affected, then you don’t think twice about it. But what people don’t realize is not only do Black and brown, working class, LGBTQ people face issues  with getting work or homelessness, there’s also a lack of access to food. None of these things are insular, they’re all connected.

And living in Brooklyn and working in the restaurant industry and the food industry, who relied on their work to provide food, I was just like, ‘Wait, what is actually going on here? This is a severe problem.’ Then here comes COVID. And a lot of these people don’t have work so now they definitely don’t have food.

The margin is so thin. All it takes it a little puff of air like The Three Little Pigs and everything you were surviving on is now gone. I think that was really heavy and exhausting to see.

And being in the food industry, I know that restaurants don’t exist in the same way they did before but I am still someone who dedicated their life to feeding people. So I find the best way to do that now, without those previous systems or resources. Even though those things are gone, my mission to my community has not changed. I just find a way to evolve to meet the needs of the people I care about, the people I see everyday.

MadameNoire: How did “Kia Feeds the People” come about?

Kia Damon: I think if we’re going way back, the inspiration is definitely my mother. She’s a very resilient, kind, firm and giving person. Kindness and firmness aren’t allowed to exist together for women. But she was very kind, very giving but she also does not play. Growing up, whenever we showed we weren’t grateful for something or careless with something, my mom would say, ‘Let’s go through all those things that you do not wear, do not touch, don’t care about anymore and we’re going to give them away.’ Then she would go through them and find socks and shoes with holes in them and ask us, ‘Now, why would you give this to somebody?’ Just because it’s something you no longer need, ‘Do you think anybody wants this?’

Those are the first seeds she planted around having compassion for other people and giving with integrity and seeing people as people and not just a mysterious population we just pass stuff off to that no longer serves us.

Once I started seeing how a lot of restaurants and fast food places just throw food away, I’d say, ‘We work for a really big corporation. What’s it to us to give food to someone that’s hungry?’ Now that I’m in New York City and seeing how magnified food scarcity and food insecurity is, I had a moment last summer when my friends were out . and they were without jobs. And I thought these folks are hungry. They’re doing all this labor and they’re hungry.

One day, I was sitting with my partner and I was like, ‘I don’t know I just want to feed the people.’ And she said, ‘Just do it. Kia Feeds the People.’ And I was like, ‘Oh!’ It was a lightbulb moment for me.

Now, what I’m mostly focused on is the basics, how to get pantry goods and organic produce and meat to these families. How do we get hot food and chef staple things to homeless people and how do we do that with dignity and respect.

I see food distribution farmers will say, ‘Here’s this food and we’ll give it at a discount but you gotta cook this kale today because it will be mush tomorrow.’

Then I hear my mom, ‘Well, why would you give that to anybody?!’

Because this is the stuff you can’t make money off of, this is what you provide to the people? That doesn’t fly with me. We have more than enough in this world and more than enough people who have capital and money to be able to support those people who do not.

I don’t think I’m doing anything radical but even though in this world it is radical to get people food, which I think is shame. It should be normalized.

You can watch Kia’s story in the video below.

 

Queer Food: Kia Feeds the People, Presented by Effen Vodka from Time Turner Films on Vimeo.