Fast food has become a major source of nutrition in low-income, urban neighborhoods across the United States. Although some social and cultural factors account for fast food’s overwhelming popularity, targeted marketing, infiltration into schools, government subsidies, and federal food policy each play a significant role in denying inner-city people of color access to healthy food. The overabundance of fast food and lack of access to healthier foods, in turn, have increased African American and Latino communities’ vulnerability to food-related death and disease. Structural perpetuation of this race- and class-based health crisis constitutes “food oppression.”
– Andrea Freeman, Fast Food: Oppression Through Poor Nutrition 95.CAL. L. Rev 2221 (2007)
My girl A. is taking a fundraising class, in which she has had to create a company/cause and fund it. She’s focused on fresh food for the disadvantaged members of her imaginary town, and is working on funding the heck out of it. It’s a Real Thing, though – last summer, the food banks for the combined Bay Area counties partnered with community supported agriculture and farmer’s markets to allow struggling folks to have fresh fruit and veg. No one is asked for I.D. – they’re just allowed to fill up two bags for their households. Gotta admit – I got a little misty about that. AND, this past week, a group who works with Whole Foods, who, as far as I know, didn’t participate in stuff like this, contacted the food pantry at our church. Which is huge. YAY!
Both of those things came to mind when I saw this video. It is both terrifying in content and cool in execution. YouthSpeaks in conjunction with UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations have put together this rap about …the other white powder. Sugar: more likely to kill a drug-proofed urban kid than crack. Though popular culture and Fast Food Nation have talked a good game, information hasn’t trickled into the cities, which are plastered with fast food and liquor stores and 7-11’s on every corner. Where money is tighter and cheap/quick/filling is sometimes the sole aim, no one really talks about how bad not having easy access to fresh foods and no limits on carbs can be. Structural perpetuation of disproportionate advertising and availability of fast food in a community – it might be hard to imagine that people are doing it on purpose. You might be tempted to argue that people can choose their poisons, that no one is culpable for anyone’s health issue or responsible for anyone else’s problems. I’d encourage you to read this paper before you decide. It’s not the only one out there, or the newest, but it focuses on a part of Oakland, CA I got familiar with because of grad school… and there’s something to this idea.
And, that’s my Big Think for today.