October 9, 2024 • 36 mins
We are still talking about food apartheid. The fact that some people in some places have more food choices that they need, while others have no good food choices at all. And on this episode, we are focusing on how food apartheid shows itself in the United States. Trust me, it’s not an accident. People are making decisions that keep healthy foods in some neighborhoods and keeps them out of other neighborhoods. It’s not right.
So let’s talk about it on this episode of the Environmental Justice Lab.
Resources:
USDA's Legacy of Discrimination - Environmental Working Group
How corporations buy - and sell - food made with prison labor - The Counter
Supermarket Redlining
Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community:
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: theenvironmentaljusticelab@gmail.com
Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support
So let’s talk about it on this episode of the Environmental Justice Lab.
Resources:
USDA's Legacy of Discrimination - Environmental Working Group
How corporations buy - and sell - food made with prison labor - The Counter
Supermarket Redlining
Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community:
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: theenvironmentaljusticelab@gmail.com
Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Justice Lab. I am your host, Doctor Leslie Joseph. Thank
you so much for joining me on this episode. I'm
so glad you're here. We are still talking about food apartheid,
and in the last episode, I kind of gave an
overview of what it was. We kind of talked about
how it could look and what it means for it
(00:20):
to exist in the world. And I promised that on
part two I would give you examples of food apartheid,
specific ways that we see it operating in the US
and throughout the world. And so there was so much
to get into I couldn't just do a second part.
So this second part we'll be just talking about food
(00:43):
apartheid in the United States specifically. That's where I live,
that's where I'm from, That's what I'm familiar with, and
I see it happening all around me, and so I
want to talk about it on this episode today and
in part three, there's gonna be three parts to this,
we will talk about food apartheid around the world, because
(01:05):
it's not just in America. It's not just in developed countries.
Developing nations other parts of the world also experience food apartheid.
So I want to get into all of that stuff.
I don't want to leave anything on the table. So
this episode we're talking about food apartheide in the United States,
how it looks, what the results have been, and what
(01:29):
we need to do to really confront and address these
issues because they are important issues that affect all aspects
of life. And to have a food apartheid system in
place in a developed country where we are claiming to
be a place that's free, that has liberty for everyone,
(01:51):
a place where everybody is supposed to have equal access,
equal opportunity to be whatever they want to be. Living
in a place where there is food apartheid running rampant
prevents that and it keeps this country, in any other country,
from maximizing all it can be because when any of
(02:14):
us are struggling, when any of us don't have what
we need, we all lose out on what you can
offer and what contributions you can make. And so on
this episode today we are talking about the specific ways
that food apartheid shows up in the United States. Stay tuned.
(02:35):
This is the Environmental Justice Lab. I'm with Justice Lab,
(03:01):
I'm doctor Joseph, and we are talking about food apartheid
in the United States. We're talking about how it shows
up and what it does in the United States. And
it won't take you long to drive around the city,
to drive around the outskirts of a town to see
(03:25):
food apartheid in action, to see where the supermarkets stop,
and where the convenience stores begin, and where the dollar
stores are located, and where the dollar trees and ninety
nine cent stores are found, where you start getting fast
food restaurants instead of full service restaurants. You can drive around.
(03:51):
It won't take you long, and you'll know right away
that we have two systems of food in our country
to a pro coaches to provide the food that we need.
And so I'm calling and most food activists and advocates
are calling these systems and these disparities food apartheid. Like
(04:16):
I said last time, we're going beyond the idea of
food desert. We're leaving behind the idea that there's just
simply insecurity surrounding food present in these communities, and we're
actually working to identify what specifically is taking place to
(04:37):
create these types of food environments. And it's clear to me,
it's clear from the research, it's clear from the practice
that food apartheid is what is going on all across
this country. Are listed three specific examples of food apartheid
(05:01):
in the US. I'm sure there's more. And as you
listen to this, think through it, and I'm sure you
can identify other ways it shows up. I got three
for you today thinking about food apartheid. How we get food,
how food arrives, and how it's produced. I got three
ways that food apartheid is present in the United States.
(05:26):
Number one the USDA, the United States Department of Agriculture.
There have been multiple reports, multiple investigations into the ways
in which the United States Department of Agriculture distributes its funding,
how it subsidizes farming, and how it supports farmers as
(05:50):
they work to produce the food that we need. And
so I got a couple of facts here. I wrote
down in a nineteen ninety four report that the USDA
actually on itself. This wasn't an outside group. This was
them looking internally at their processes, at their programs, and
evaluating how money is distributed and where it goes. They
(06:13):
determined from their own investigation that minority farmers received less
than their fair share of money from the USDA when
it comes to crops when it comes to disaster payments,
when it comes to loans and subsidies, if you were
a black farmer, if you were a minority farmer in
the US working with the USDA, you didn't get what
(06:36):
the white farmers got. It's just the fact. The research,
the review in their report says it very clearly. Here's
some of the facts that they lay out. They say
that the largest one percent of loans that the USA
gave out, so the biggest ones, all went to white
male farmers and their farms. They also found that on average,
(07:03):
the loans given out to black farmers were worth twenty
five percent less than those given to white farmers. Just
think about that. So just in general, just the loan
amounts or just lower, and there's no reason for them
to be lower. There's nothing unique about these farms that
(07:24):
would require you to shift the way you make payments
and provide loan support to these farmers. It was purely
because of race, purely discrimination. That is the reason why,
and that's the only reason why that was the case.
Another one, another fact, ninety seven percent of disaster payments
(07:48):
went to white farmers, while less than one percent went
to black farmers. Think about that. A hurricane comes through,
a drought happens, you can't crops, you can't support your family.
The USDA is there to help. They're there to provide
disaster assistance to keep you afloat as you rebuild and
(08:12):
re establish your farm. But their own report said that
ninety seven percent of the payments for disasters went to
white farmers and less than one percent went to black farmers.
This is what observers and investigators are calling a legacy
(08:36):
of discrimination. It isn't just a one time thing, It
isn't a one shot deal. This is a situation where
the USDA has a long standing, long term approach that
is infused with discrimination, that's infused with racism, that seeks
(09:01):
to ensure that white farmers, no matter what size their
farm is, that they have whatever they need, whatever is
required to continue, while black farmers are left to fend
for themselves, even as they operate within the systems that
the USDA puts in place in order to support farming
(09:25):
and food production. It's a legacy discrimination and it's happening
in the United States. The black farmers sued, they sued,
they settled. I think there was a big payment that
went out, but even now, decades later, the same issues
are present. Farm subsidies, disaster relief loans, all of these
(09:49):
things are still disproportionately provided to white farmers instead of
black farmers, regardless of the size, regardless of the need
that each of those farmers have. This is the legacy
of the USDA. Now, I'm not as plugged then to
agriculture and farming as I'm sure a lot of you
(10:10):
are listening, but I even I can tell that this
is not the way to manage a food system in
a country, and it's going to lead to impacts down
the line that reduce and restrict what's available to the
people who need it the most. And so we can't
(10:32):
continue to allow this legacy to continue without calling it out,
without without confronting it directly, and without ensuring that it's
well known that this is the way this agency is operating.
We can't do that. And so that's my first one
the USDA. The second one, which always seems to be
(10:56):
popping up when we talk about any kind of justice
issue is prison labor. Prison labor. So apparently you can't
sell products and goods across state lines that were produced
by prison labor. You're not allowed to make products using
(11:17):
prison labor and then sell it to other states, other countries.
You can't ship it out. It's against the law in
the United States, except for this one instance where they
carved out a loophole to allow food companies to do it,
to allow food and agriculture businesses to use prison labor
(11:42):
to process and produce their food so they can ship
it out all over the world. And so now we
have these huge ag companies, these huge food companies using
prison labor. Now, mind you, we're talking about prison labor.
(12:04):
So these prisoners aren't getting paid, and if they are,
it's very little. It's way below minimum wage. They have
no worker protection when you're working as a prisoner in
the prison, right, So you're in the fields picking, and
you're in factory processing, and you're packaging and doing all
this work for little or no pay with no legal
(12:27):
protection because you're incarcerated. And these companies can use that
labor to produce what they make and send it everywhere
and take advantage of the fact that they can use
laborers that aren't getting paid anything to produce their products.
(12:49):
And now you can suppress the price of those products.
You can produce whatever you think would sell quickly, and
so all this processed food, all these unhealthy items that
you are trying to promote, are more readily available because
of how low it costs to produce them, because you're
(13:12):
using prison labor to produce them. And on top of that,
you're exploiting a population of people who we all know
is disproportionately black people, Hispanic people, people of color. You're
exploiting them because our criminal justice system is more criminal
(13:38):
than just It's unfortunate but true, and as a result,
we have a disproportionate number of people of color in prison.
And now you have these companies coming in and using
them as their labor. They're not hiring regular factory workers
out here outside of prisons, people who are looking for jobs,
(14:01):
people who are concerned that jobs are not available, We're
not hiring them. We're hiring prison labor because it's cheap,
it's always there, and it allows me to make my
products at such a low price that can do whatever
I want as a large corporation. And so not only
(14:23):
are you exploiting the prisoners and their labor and their
hard work, you're also shipping out the kind of food
that we really shouldn't be eating. It's not healthy for us.
It's not worth our money to buy these types of foods,
these high fat, full of sodium, this candy, high sugar
(14:46):
stuff that is going to just harm us physically. You're
producing it in mass quantities using prison labor, and so
it creates in apartheid system. In this case, it's on
the few on the food production side and the labor side.
You're creating this two tier system because clearly, clearly, if
(15:08):
you had to hire a regular employee, it would cost
you more. You'd have to provide a minimum wage, you'd
have to provide insurance, workers compensation, all types of protection
to ensure that that worker would be able to do
the job. But if you go to a prison and
(15:28):
use those workers instead, all that goes out the window.
And so it's a big problem. It's a big problem.
And so that's my second one, prison labor. We got
the USDA with their legacy of discrimination. We got prison
labor with the exploitation of people incarcerated and the suppression
(15:51):
of food pricing and the mass production of these awful
foods that we're eating all around us. And the third
thing I got for you in the United States is
supermarket red lining. Now, you might not be familiar with
that term. You might have heard of red lining as
it relates to housing and living conditions way back pre
(16:16):
civil rights, where people were barred from living in certain
parts of a city and those areas were red lined,
and only black people could live there because they couldn't
get loans to live anywhere else, so they were relegated
to these parts of the town. That's housing red lining.
But now we have supermarket red lining, right, And supermarket
(16:40):
red lining is when you have these large supermarkets, these
large grocery stores who were uninterested in having their stores
in inner city areas, urban areas and low income neighborhoods
and communities of color, all these places where there's a
need for that food. These large supermarket chains don't want
(17:02):
to be there, and instead they want to put their
stores in the more affluent, wealthier, wider areas of a
town and service to people that live there, out in
the suburbs, out in some of these gentrified areas. You
push people out. You bring in these nice, fancy, high
(17:26):
end markets and grocery stores to service the influx of
typically white, affluent people who are living there. And so
it's important to recognize that it's not a coincidence that
when you drive around a community of color, a black
neighborhood and this bank neighborhood, that you don't find a
(17:48):
large supermarket there, you don't find a healthy food store there.
It's not a coincidence. These are decisions that are being
made at every level, at the business level, on on
the city planning level, on the state level to try
and ensure that access to these foods. These places are
(18:11):
specific to certain parts of a city or certain parts
of a state. It is not a coincidence, and it
is not just a result of market dynamics or free
market activity. It is an intentional, deliberate disinvestment from these communities,
(18:32):
a deliberate, an intentional disinvestment from the people who live
in those communities who would love to come to your
store and go grocery shopping and provide for their families.
But it's a deliberate disinvestment from those areas. And we're
calling it supermarket redlining, we're calling it food apartheid. That's
(18:58):
what we're calling it. That's what it is, because there's
no other reason to not put your store there, because
people are going to shop there. People are going to
eat there. People are going to purchase the food because
they need it to eat and to survive, and so
why not. The only reason you would avoid those areas
is because of your view of the people that live there,
(19:19):
your view of what you believe would happen to your
store if you placed it there, Your view of the
ways in which that community is developing and growing and thriving.
Even that's what's driving your decision making. So when you
come to, for instance, the northeast side of Columbia, where
(19:43):
I do a lot of teaching, where I go to church,
where a lot of our friends are, you have to
drive miles and miles and miles to find one store,
one supermarket. It's only because you don't want to put
your store there. It's only because you believe that people
who live there aren't worth having the kind of support
that your store could offer. Because they're shopping at the
(20:05):
food line, and they're shopping at the food line, in
the in the piggy wiggly and whatever else is near them.
They're going there and buying food and bringing it home.
They're going to Walmart. But you don't want to put
your store there because if your view of the people
that live there. It's food apartheid, it's discrimination, it's racism,
it's all those things, xenophobia, all those things are playing
(20:28):
into your decision making as a supermarket chain as to
why you are not investing in these areas with your stores.
That's just what it is. And I've read a few
things that talk about how well, you know, finding the
space is challenging. You know, having to purchase multiple lots
(20:52):
to have one big store is not usually available. You know,
the people there wouldn't be able to afford or the
kind of food that would be available to them in
those stores. You know, the development in these areas are
keeping a lot of people out because they don't see
(21:12):
the future of the area, and they don't see growth
in a way that would sustain their store there, and
so so many reasons to not do something. Whereas when
I see a new complex and new development popping up
in some suburb somewhere, the plans are already laid for supermarket,
(21:36):
for plaza, for all these stores to come and serve
people who haven't even gotten there yet. Meanwhile, we live
in places and we see areas where people have been
there for hundreds of years and have no access to
the food that they need, no opportunity to get what
they want, just nothing, nothing at all is supermarket redlining.
(22:02):
It's food apartheid, and it's harmful. Let's and then you
know what, let's talk about that. So what are the results?
What happens in the US when food apartheide runs rampant?
When we see what we see, what happens? Well, guess what.
(22:22):
The first thing that happens is you get a bunch
of food swamps. If you remember from last episode, the
food swamp is an area that is just overrun with
convenience stores, overrun with unhealthy food options. You see them
so many of them in black neighborhoods, so many of
them in communities of color, and very few of them,
(22:45):
if any, in white neighborhoods, no matter what income level
you have, from the trailer park to the rich suburb,
you don't see food swamps as much in white neighborhoods.
Why is that? It's because of your view of the
people that live there, Because guess what, we all need
(23:09):
to eat. We're all going to buy food, and we're
all going to make something for our families to support them.
With the absence of a supermarket, the absence of a
grocery store that's healthy, These unhealthy places just flood the block.
Gas stations and convenience stores flood the area. Dollar stores,
(23:34):
Dollar Trees, Dollar General, Family, Dollar, so many dollar stores
all over. They flood the area. Fast food places flood
the area. All of these places are just swarming in
these communities that are devoid of healthy food options because
(23:56):
they know that you're going to need to eat something,
You're gonna have to buy something, and so let's send
the store your way. Let's build some stores your way
where the food is cheap, unhealthy, and harmful, and you'll
eat it because you have no other choice. You have
(24:17):
no place to go to get healthy food. You don't
have access to either a supermarket or even transportation to
get to a supermarket. So you're going to the pharmacy
to get your milk and bread and cheese and snacks
and cereal and milk. You're going to that convenience store
that calls itself a grocery store, that calls itself a
(24:39):
fresh market. It's not, it's not. That's all you have.
All you have are big bags of chips, sugary cereals,
and milk, and if you're lucky, you might find a
banana or two, maybe an orange, nothing else. You live
in a food swamp because of this food apartheid system.
(25:03):
It's the system that created this environment. This is not
a coincidence. It didn't happen on its own. Decisions are
being made and city planners are planning their cities in
ways that facilitate this two tiered system of food quality
(25:24):
and food access. That's what happened. That's the result of
food aparthide. Another result is just bad health. You're just sick, right,
You have poor health outcomes, your overweight, diabetes, heart disease, asthma,
cardiovascular illness. All this stuff happens because you live in
(25:47):
a place where you can't get the food that you
need in your body is not able to manage because
it's lacking. Right, you live in an area with overweight
people who are malnourished. Think about that for a second.
You think about malnourished as not having food at all
(26:07):
and being really skinny and emaciated, and we can see
your ribs, and that's not how malnourishment goes in the
developed world. Here, you're malnourised because you don't have nutrients
that you need for your body to grow and develop
in a healthy way. And so although you're eating whatever's
(26:28):
around you, your body doesn't have what it needs. It's
not getting it from the food. It's mauld nourished. You
don't have it, and so you're tired, you're fatigued constantly,
you weigh more than you should, you have trouble breathing,
trouble doing regular activities. And that's just from the food.
(26:50):
That's not even including the total environment. This is an
environmental justice issue, right, it's environmental apartheipe. That's the big
umbrellaare operating under with this food apart I think it's
the whole environment that's harming and challenging your ability to
be successful in whatever you're trying to do. So there's
poor health outcomes from this food apartheid system that operates.
(27:16):
You know one statistic I heard. I'm in Columbia, South
Carolina right now, and there is a neighborhood in the
northeastern part of Colombia, and every time we talk about food,
I'm always reminded that this area in northeast Columbia, South
(27:38):
Carolina has the highest rate of diabetic amputations in the country,
the whole country, in this one area in Colombia. Why
is that? Why is that it's because of the lack
(28:02):
of healthy, affordable food in the area. It's not because
the people living there don't know how to eat healthy.
It's not because they're uneducated about how to prepare food
properly and have balanced meals. It's not even because they're
(28:23):
low income. It's because there's no access. There's nothing available
for them to eat that's healthy, and so you have
poor health outcomes as a result of this system. It
needs to stop. Another issue, another result is that people
(28:44):
start to look down on where you're from, like, why
would I live there? There's no place to eat, there's
nothing to do. Everyone here seems to be in a different,
diferent mind state. What's going on in this neighborhood. What's
(29:05):
going on is we're not healthy, we're not whole, We're
not able to do the things we want to do
because we don't have the resources. And it starts with food.
When I go home to eat, what am I eating
when I'm hungry? Where am I going with my family
of four or five or six or ten want to
(29:26):
make a family meal? What are we going to do.
Are we going to go to a nice supermarket, buy
the ingredients, buy them in bulk, come home and cook them,
prepare them, and have a good meal. Or are we
going to go to the nearest fast food chicken place
and get their family meal of fried chicken, potatoes and gravy,
(29:51):
green beans and random vegetables that have been cooked in
grease all day long and eat that for dinner. I've
done that before, I've gone to different places, and growing
up we had to eat fried chicken two piece dinners
that were completely unhealthy, and that wouldn't contribute to any
(30:14):
development that I'm trying to have. But that's all that's available,
that's all we have. I remember we had a grocery
store right down the street from our house and it
shut down. It was right across the street from the
high school. It was right in the middle of all
of the school district buildings and it was gone. We
(30:37):
had to drive another ten minutes to get some food.
Growing up, I was fortunate that we could do that.
A lot of people can't. And so what kind of
neighborhood are we living in when we can't get food
to support ourselves and to feed our families. Do I
(30:57):
want to live there? Do I want to you to
come live where? I know you're trying to get out,
and as you get out, the quality of the neighborhood
goes down even further. Couse, we need you to be there.
And so food apartheid hits every aspect of life wherever
you live, and food apartheid damages all that you can
(31:23):
imagine would be good and healthy about where you're from.
And so we need to do something. We need to
say something. We need to acknowledge and evaluate the realities
around us when it comes to food. And I'm glad
there's people doing it, and I'm glad there's a lot
of people on the ground bringing attention to this issue
(31:43):
of food, talking about food, talking about the ways in
which the lack of it harms not just people but
families and communities and businesses and the economy. It's a
big problem. And so that's all I got for you today.
(32:03):
I'm trying to watch my tone, I'm trying to be respectful,
but this is unacceptable. This idea that because of your
skin color, or because of your potential location, or because
of your income level, you can't provide healthy food for
(32:29):
your family. It is just inexcusable. And the fact that
we would have actors and people in our society who
would perpetuate these systems, who would not only use these
discrimintory practices but advance them and amplify them for their
(32:53):
own benefit is just I mean, it's just appalling. You
shouldn't be doing that. We shouldn't live in this type
of a society. This is a developed country. This is
what people keep telling me, is the richest nation in
the world, the United States. Why are so many children
(33:13):
hungry and malnourished. Why are there such high rates of
obesity and diabetes and heart disease. Why do we have
such poor academic achievement in our schools? Why is that? Well,
I'll tell you why. It's food apartheid. It's not a secret.
We all see it happening. We all know what's going on,
(33:36):
and it needs to stop. And so I don't know where
you live, I don't know where you're from hearing this.
If you're from a if you're from the United States,
just look around, look around in your sea, look around
in your state, and see what kind of food systems
are operating and pinpoint the instances of apartheid that you're
(33:58):
seeing in those areas. If you live in a different
country that's developed, that's calling itself, you know, an advanced nation,
look at the food system, look at the availability of
fresh food, of vegetables, of all those things in your area,
and ask yourself if it's true that your country you're advanced,
(34:19):
you're developed, your prosperous nation is supporting and providing for
the people that live there the way that they should
ask the question. Look around, and if the answer is hmm,
I'm not sure, well then it's time for action. It's
time to bring attention to the issue wherever you're from,
(34:41):
wherever you live, and it's time to call on people
to make changes, to hold people accountable, hold city councils accountable,
hold decity makers accountable, hold people accountable for perpetuating this
food apartheid system that is so instructive and so harmful,
(35:03):
particularly the communities of color, particularly to black people in
this country, but to everyone all around the world. It's
a big problem. And so I don't really know what
to tell you at this point, because there's so many
different issues and so many different ways in which we
can have our voices be heard and make a difference.
(35:26):
Whatever moves you do that. I'm a professor, so I
do a lot of research, a lot of writing, a
lot of speaking about this issue, and partnering with organizations
that are seeking to resolve the gaps in our food systems.
And so I'm doing my best. So whatever you can do,
(35:49):
whether you just post something online, whether you go to
a community meeting, whether you serve out of food pantry
or a food bank, whatever you can do, let's work
to get this apartheid system dismantled and to get people
to food that everyone has a right to have. Food
(36:10):
is a right. It's not a privilege. It's a right
that should be available to each and every person and
each and every family, no matter what, no matter what.
And that's our episode. Thank you so much for listening
to the Environmental Justice Lab. Where we are for the
people and for the planet. I'll shoe you next time.
Justice Lab. I am your host, Doctor Leslie Joseph. Thank
you so much for joining me on this episode. I'm
so glad you're here. We are still talking about food apartheid,
and in the last episode, I kind of gave an
overview of what it was. We kind of talked about
how it could look and what it means for it
(00:20):
to exist in the world. And I promised that on
part two I would give you examples of food apartheid,
specific ways that we see it operating in the US
and throughout the world. And so there was so much
to get into I couldn't just do a second part.
So this second part we'll be just talking about food
(00:43):
apartheid in the United States specifically. That's where I live,
that's where I'm from, That's what I'm familiar with, and
I see it happening all around me, and so I
want to talk about it on this episode today and
in part three, there's gonna be three parts to this,
we will talk about food apartheid around the world, because
(01:05):
it's not just in America. It's not just in developed countries.
Developing nations other parts of the world also experience food apartheid.
So I want to get into all of that stuff.
I don't want to leave anything on the table. So
this episode we're talking about food apartheide in the United States,
how it looks, what the results have been, and what
(01:29):
we need to do to really confront and address these
issues because they are important issues that affect all aspects
of life. And to have a food apartheid system in
place in a developed country where we are claiming to
be a place that's free, that has liberty for everyone,
(01:51):
a place where everybody is supposed to have equal access,
equal opportunity to be whatever they want to be. Living
in a place where there is food apartheid running rampant
prevents that and it keeps this country, in any other country,
from maximizing all it can be because when any of
(02:14):
us are struggling, when any of us don't have what
we need, we all lose out on what you can
offer and what contributions you can make. And so on
this episode today we are talking about the specific ways
that food apartheid shows up in the United States. Stay tuned.
(02:35):
This is the Environmental Justice Lab. I'm with Justice Lab,
(03:01):
I'm doctor Joseph, and we are talking about food apartheid
in the United States. We're talking about how it shows
up and what it does in the United States. And
it won't take you long to drive around the city,
to drive around the outskirts of a town to see
(03:25):
food apartheid in action, to see where the supermarkets stop,
and where the convenience stores begin, and where the dollar
stores are located, and where the dollar trees and ninety
nine cent stores are found, where you start getting fast
food restaurants instead of full service restaurants. You can drive around.
(03:51):
It won't take you long, and you'll know right away
that we have two systems of food in our country
to a pro coaches to provide the food that we need.
And so I'm calling and most food activists and advocates
are calling these systems and these disparities food apartheid. Like
(04:16):
I said last time, we're going beyond the idea of
food desert. We're leaving behind the idea that there's just
simply insecurity surrounding food present in these communities, and we're
actually working to identify what specifically is taking place to
(04:37):
create these types of food environments. And it's clear to me,
it's clear from the research, it's clear from the practice
that food apartheid is what is going on all across
this country. Are listed three specific examples of food apartheid
(05:01):
in the US. I'm sure there's more. And as you
listen to this, think through it, and I'm sure you
can identify other ways it shows up. I got three
for you today thinking about food apartheid. How we get food,
how food arrives, and how it's produced. I got three
ways that food apartheid is present in the United States.
(05:26):
Number one the USDA, the United States Department of Agriculture.
There have been multiple reports, multiple investigations into the ways
in which the United States Department of Agriculture distributes its funding,
how it subsidizes farming, and how it supports farmers as
(05:50):
they work to produce the food that we need. And
so I got a couple of facts here. I wrote
down in a nineteen ninety four report that the USDA
actually on itself. This wasn't an outside group. This was
them looking internally at their processes, at their programs, and
evaluating how money is distributed and where it goes. They
(06:13):
determined from their own investigation that minority farmers received less
than their fair share of money from the USDA when
it comes to crops when it comes to disaster payments,
when it comes to loans and subsidies, if you were
a black farmer, if you were a minority farmer in
the US working with the USDA, you didn't get what
(06:36):
the white farmers got. It's just the fact. The research,
the review in their report says it very clearly. Here's
some of the facts that they lay out. They say
that the largest one percent of loans that the USA
gave out, so the biggest ones, all went to white
male farmers and their farms. They also found that on average,
(07:03):
the loans given out to black farmers were worth twenty
five percent less than those given to white farmers. Just
think about that. So just in general, just the loan
amounts or just lower, and there's no reason for them
to be lower. There's nothing unique about these farms that
(07:24):
would require you to shift the way you make payments
and provide loan support to these farmers. It was purely
because of race, purely discrimination. That is the reason why,
and that's the only reason why that was the case.
Another one, another fact, ninety seven percent of disaster payments
(07:48):
went to white farmers, while less than one percent went
to black farmers. Think about that. A hurricane comes through,
a drought happens, you can't crops, you can't support your family.
The USDA is there to help. They're there to provide
disaster assistance to keep you afloat as you rebuild and
(08:12):
re establish your farm. But their own report said that
ninety seven percent of the payments for disasters went to
white farmers and less than one percent went to black farmers.
This is what observers and investigators are calling a legacy
(08:36):
of discrimination. It isn't just a one time thing, It
isn't a one shot deal. This is a situation where
the USDA has a long standing, long term approach that
is infused with discrimination, that's infused with racism, that seeks
(09:01):
to ensure that white farmers, no matter what size their
farm is, that they have whatever they need, whatever is
required to continue, while black farmers are left to fend
for themselves, even as they operate within the systems that
the USDA puts in place in order to support farming
(09:25):
and food production. It's a legacy discrimination and it's happening
in the United States. The black farmers sued, they sued,
they settled. I think there was a big payment that
went out, but even now, decades later, the same issues
are present. Farm subsidies, disaster relief loans, all of these
(09:49):
things are still disproportionately provided to white farmers instead of
black farmers, regardless of the size, regardless of the need
that each of those farmers have. This is the legacy
of the USDA. Now, I'm not as plugged then to
agriculture and farming as I'm sure a lot of you
(10:10):
are listening, but I even I can tell that this
is not the way to manage a food system in
a country, and it's going to lead to impacts down
the line that reduce and restrict what's available to the
people who need it the most. And so we can't
(10:32):
continue to allow this legacy to continue without calling it out,
without without confronting it directly, and without ensuring that it's
well known that this is the way this agency is operating.
We can't do that. And so that's my first one
the USDA. The second one, which always seems to be
(10:56):
popping up when we talk about any kind of justice
issue is prison labor. Prison labor. So apparently you can't
sell products and goods across state lines that were produced
by prison labor. You're not allowed to make products using
(11:17):
prison labor and then sell it to other states, other countries.
You can't ship it out. It's against the law in
the United States, except for this one instance where they
carved out a loophole to allow food companies to do it,
to allow food and agriculture businesses to use prison labor
(11:42):
to process and produce their food so they can ship
it out all over the world. And so now we
have these huge ag companies, these huge food companies using
prison labor. Now, mind you, we're talking about prison labor.
(12:04):
So these prisoners aren't getting paid, and if they are,
it's very little. It's way below minimum wage. They have
no worker protection when you're working as a prisoner in
the prison, right, So you're in the fields picking, and
you're in factory processing, and you're packaging and doing all
this work for little or no pay with no legal
(12:27):
protection because you're incarcerated. And these companies can use that
labor to produce what they make and send it everywhere
and take advantage of the fact that they can use
laborers that aren't getting paid anything to produce their products.
(12:49):
And now you can suppress the price of those products.
You can produce whatever you think would sell quickly, and
so all this processed food, all these unhealthy items that
you are trying to promote, are more readily available because
of how low it costs to produce them, because you're
(13:12):
using prison labor to produce them. And on top of that,
you're exploiting a population of people who we all know
is disproportionately black people, Hispanic people, people of color. You're
exploiting them because our criminal justice system is more criminal
(13:38):
than just It's unfortunate but true, and as a result,
we have a disproportionate number of people of color in prison.
And now you have these companies coming in and using
them as their labor. They're not hiring regular factory workers
out here outside of prisons, people who are looking for jobs,
(14:01):
people who are concerned that jobs are not available, We're
not hiring them. We're hiring prison labor because it's cheap,
it's always there, and it allows me to make my
products at such a low price that can do whatever
I want as a large corporation. And so not only
(14:23):
are you exploiting the prisoners and their labor and their
hard work, you're also shipping out the kind of food
that we really shouldn't be eating. It's not healthy for us.
It's not worth our money to buy these types of foods,
these high fat, full of sodium, this candy, high sugar
(14:46):
stuff that is going to just harm us physically. You're
producing it in mass quantities using prison labor, and so
it creates in apartheid system. In this case, it's on
the few on the food production side and the labor side.
You're creating this two tier system because clearly, clearly, if
(15:08):
you had to hire a regular employee, it would cost
you more. You'd have to provide a minimum wage, you'd
have to provide insurance, workers compensation, all types of protection
to ensure that that worker would be able to do
the job. But if you go to a prison and
(15:28):
use those workers instead, all that goes out the window.
And so it's a big problem. It's a big problem.
And so that's my second one, prison labor. We got
the USDA with their legacy of discrimination. We got prison
labor with the exploitation of people incarcerated and the suppression
(15:51):
of food pricing and the mass production of these awful
foods that we're eating all around us. And the third
thing I got for you in the United States is
supermarket red lining. Now, you might not be familiar with
that term. You might have heard of red lining as
it relates to housing and living conditions way back pre
(16:16):
civil rights, where people were barred from living in certain
parts of a city and those areas were red lined,
and only black people could live there because they couldn't
get loans to live anywhere else, so they were relegated
to these parts of the town. That's housing red lining.
But now we have supermarket red lining, right, And supermarket
(16:40):
red lining is when you have these large supermarkets, these
large grocery stores who were uninterested in having their stores
in inner city areas, urban areas and low income neighborhoods
and communities of color, all these places where there's a
need for that food. These large supermarket chains don't want
(17:02):
to be there, and instead they want to put their
stores in the more affluent, wealthier, wider areas of a
town and service to people that live there, out in
the suburbs, out in some of these gentrified areas. You
push people out. You bring in these nice, fancy, high
(17:26):
end markets and grocery stores to service the influx of
typically white, affluent people who are living there. And so
it's important to recognize that it's not a coincidence that
when you drive around a community of color, a black
neighborhood and this bank neighborhood, that you don't find a
(17:48):
large supermarket there, you don't find a healthy food store there.
It's not a coincidence. These are decisions that are being
made at every level, at the business level, on on
the city planning level, on the state level to try
and ensure that access to these foods. These places are
(18:11):
specific to certain parts of a city or certain parts
of a state. It is not a coincidence, and it
is not just a result of market dynamics or free
market activity. It is an intentional, deliberate disinvestment from these communities,
(18:32):
a deliberate, an intentional disinvestment from the people who live
in those communities who would love to come to your
store and go grocery shopping and provide for their families.
But it's a deliberate disinvestment from those areas. And we're
calling it supermarket redlining, we're calling it food apartheid. That's
(18:58):
what we're calling it. That's what it is, because there's
no other reason to not put your store there, because
people are going to shop there. People are going to
eat there. People are going to purchase the food because
they need it to eat and to survive, and so
why not. The only reason you would avoid those areas
is because of your view of the people that live there,
(19:19):
your view of what you believe would happen to your
store if you placed it there, Your view of the
ways in which that community is developing and growing and thriving.
Even that's what's driving your decision making. So when you
come to, for instance, the northeast side of Columbia, where
(19:43):
I do a lot of teaching, where I go to church,
where a lot of our friends are, you have to
drive miles and miles and miles to find one store,
one supermarket. It's only because you don't want to put
your store there. It's only because you believe that people
who live there aren't worth having the kind of support
that your store could offer. Because they're shopping at the
(20:05):
food line, and they're shopping at the food line, in
the in the piggy wiggly and whatever else is near them.
They're going there and buying food and bringing it home.
They're going to Walmart. But you don't want to put
your store there because if your view of the people
that live there. It's food apartheid, it's discrimination, it's racism,
it's all those things, xenophobia, all those things are playing
(20:28):
into your decision making as a supermarket chain as to
why you are not investing in these areas with your stores.
That's just what it is. And I've read a few
things that talk about how well, you know, finding the
space is challenging. You know, having to purchase multiple lots
(20:52):
to have one big store is not usually available. You know,
the people there wouldn't be able to afford or the
kind of food that would be available to them in
those stores. You know, the development in these areas are
keeping a lot of people out because they don't see
(21:12):
the future of the area, and they don't see growth
in a way that would sustain their store there, and
so so many reasons to not do something. Whereas when
I see a new complex and new development popping up
in some suburb somewhere, the plans are already laid for supermarket,
(21:36):
for plaza, for all these stores to come and serve
people who haven't even gotten there yet. Meanwhile, we live
in places and we see areas where people have been
there for hundreds of years and have no access to
the food that they need, no opportunity to get what
they want, just nothing, nothing at all is supermarket redlining.
(22:02):
It's food apartheid, and it's harmful. Let's and then you
know what, let's talk about that. So what are the results?
What happens in the US when food apartheide runs rampant?
When we see what we see, what happens? Well, guess what.
(22:22):
The first thing that happens is you get a bunch
of food swamps. If you remember from last episode, the
food swamp is an area that is just overrun with
convenience stores, overrun with unhealthy food options. You see them
so many of them in black neighborhoods, so many of
them in communities of color, and very few of them,
(22:45):
if any, in white neighborhoods, no matter what income level
you have, from the trailer park to the rich suburb,
you don't see food swamps as much in white neighborhoods.
Why is that? It's because of your view of the
people that live there, Because guess what, we all need
(23:09):
to eat. We're all going to buy food, and we're
all going to make something for our families to support them.
With the absence of a supermarket, the absence of a
grocery store that's healthy, These unhealthy places just flood the block.
Gas stations and convenience stores flood the area. Dollar stores,
(23:34):
Dollar Trees, Dollar General, Family, Dollar, so many dollar stores
all over. They flood the area. Fast food places flood
the area. All of these places are just swarming in
these communities that are devoid of healthy food options because
(23:56):
they know that you're going to need to eat something,
You're gonna have to buy something, and so let's send
the store your way. Let's build some stores your way
where the food is cheap, unhealthy, and harmful, and you'll
eat it because you have no other choice. You have
(24:17):
no place to go to get healthy food. You don't
have access to either a supermarket or even transportation to
get to a supermarket. So you're going to the pharmacy
to get your milk and bread and cheese and snacks
and cereal and milk. You're going to that convenience store
that calls itself a grocery store, that calls itself a
(24:39):
fresh market. It's not, it's not. That's all you have.
All you have are big bags of chips, sugary cereals,
and milk, and if you're lucky, you might find a
banana or two, maybe an orange, nothing else. You live
in a food swamp because of this food apartheid system.
(25:03):
It's the system that created this environment. This is not
a coincidence. It didn't happen on its own. Decisions are
being made and city planners are planning their cities in
ways that facilitate this two tiered system of food quality
(25:24):
and food access. That's what happened. That's the result of
food aparthide. Another result is just bad health. You're just sick, right,
You have poor health outcomes, your overweight, diabetes, heart disease, asthma,
cardiovascular illness. All this stuff happens because you live in
(25:47):
a place where you can't get the food that you
need in your body is not able to manage because
it's lacking. Right, you live in an area with overweight
people who are malnourished. Think about that for a second.
You think about malnourished as not having food at all
(26:07):
and being really skinny and emaciated, and we can see
your ribs, and that's not how malnourishment goes in the
developed world. Here, you're malnourised because you don't have nutrients
that you need for your body to grow and develop
in a healthy way. And so although you're eating whatever's
(26:28):
around you, your body doesn't have what it needs. It's
not getting it from the food. It's mauld nourished. You
don't have it, and so you're tired, you're fatigued constantly,
you weigh more than you should, you have trouble breathing,
trouble doing regular activities. And that's just from the food.
(26:50):
That's not even including the total environment. This is an
environmental justice issue, right, it's environmental apartheipe. That's the big
umbrellaare operating under with this food apart I think it's
the whole environment that's harming and challenging your ability to
be successful in whatever you're trying to do. So there's
poor health outcomes from this food apartheid system that operates.
(27:16):
You know one statistic I heard. I'm in Columbia, South
Carolina right now, and there is a neighborhood in the
northeastern part of Colombia, and every time we talk about food,
I'm always reminded that this area in northeast Columbia, South
(27:38):
Carolina has the highest rate of diabetic amputations in the country,
the whole country, in this one area in Colombia. Why
is that? Why is that it's because of the lack
(28:02):
of healthy, affordable food in the area. It's not because
the people living there don't know how to eat healthy.
It's not because they're uneducated about how to prepare food
properly and have balanced meals. It's not even because they're
(28:23):
low income. It's because there's no access. There's nothing available
for them to eat that's healthy, and so you have
poor health outcomes as a result of this system. It
needs to stop. Another issue, another result is that people
(28:44):
start to look down on where you're from, like, why
would I live there? There's no place to eat, there's
nothing to do. Everyone here seems to be in a different,
diferent mind state. What's going on in this neighborhood. What's
(29:05):
going on is we're not healthy, we're not whole, We're
not able to do the things we want to do
because we don't have the resources. And it starts with food.
When I go home to eat, what am I eating
when I'm hungry? Where am I going with my family
of four or five or six or ten want to
(29:26):
make a family meal? What are we going to do.
Are we going to go to a nice supermarket, buy
the ingredients, buy them in bulk, come home and cook them,
prepare them, and have a good meal. Or are we
going to go to the nearest fast food chicken place
and get their family meal of fried chicken, potatoes and gravy,
(29:51):
green beans and random vegetables that have been cooked in
grease all day long and eat that for dinner. I've
done that before, I've gone to different places, and growing
up we had to eat fried chicken two piece dinners
that were completely unhealthy, and that wouldn't contribute to any
(30:14):
development that I'm trying to have. But that's all that's available,
that's all we have. I remember we had a grocery
store right down the street from our house and it
shut down. It was right across the street from the
high school. It was right in the middle of all
of the school district buildings and it was gone. We
(30:37):
had to drive another ten minutes to get some food.
Growing up, I was fortunate that we could do that.
A lot of people can't. And so what kind of
neighborhood are we living in when we can't get food
to support ourselves and to feed our families. Do I
(30:57):
want to live there? Do I want to you to
come live where? I know you're trying to get out,
and as you get out, the quality of the neighborhood
goes down even further. Couse, we need you to be there.
And so food apartheid hits every aspect of life wherever
you live, and food apartheid damages all that you can
(31:23):
imagine would be good and healthy about where you're from.
And so we need to do something. We need to
say something. We need to acknowledge and evaluate the realities
around us when it comes to food. And I'm glad
there's people doing it, and I'm glad there's a lot
of people on the ground bringing attention to this issue
(31:43):
of food, talking about food, talking about the ways in
which the lack of it harms not just people but
families and communities and businesses and the economy. It's a
big problem. And so that's all I got for you today.
(32:03):
I'm trying to watch my tone, I'm trying to be respectful,
but this is unacceptable. This idea that because of your
skin color, or because of your potential location, or because
of your income level, you can't provide healthy food for
(32:29):
your family. It is just inexcusable. And the fact that
we would have actors and people in our society who
would perpetuate these systems, who would not only use these
discrimintory practices but advance them and amplify them for their
(32:53):
own benefit is just I mean, it's just appalling. You
shouldn't be doing that. We shouldn't live in this type
of a society. This is a developed country. This is
what people keep telling me, is the richest nation in
the world, the United States. Why are so many children
(33:13):
hungry and malnourished. Why are there such high rates of
obesity and diabetes and heart disease. Why do we have
such poor academic achievement in our schools? Why is that? Well,
I'll tell you why. It's food apartheid. It's not a secret.
We all see it happening. We all know what's going on,
(33:36):
and it needs to stop. And so I don't know where
you live, I don't know where you're from hearing this.
If you're from a if you're from the United States,
just look around, look around in your sea, look around
in your state, and see what kind of food systems
are operating and pinpoint the instances of apartheid that you're
(33:58):
seeing in those areas. If you live in a different
country that's developed, that's calling itself, you know, an advanced nation,
look at the food system, look at the availability of
fresh food, of vegetables, of all those things in your area,
and ask yourself if it's true that your country you're advanced,
(34:19):
you're developed, your prosperous nation is supporting and providing for
the people that live there the way that they should
ask the question. Look around, and if the answer is hmm,
I'm not sure, well then it's time for action. It's
time to bring attention to the issue wherever you're from,
(34:41):
wherever you live, and it's time to call on people
to make changes, to hold people accountable, hold city councils accountable,
hold decity makers accountable, hold people accountable for perpetuating this
food apartheid system that is so instructive and so harmful,
(35:03):
particularly the communities of color, particularly to black people in
this country, but to everyone all around the world. It's
a big problem. And so I don't really know what
to tell you at this point, because there's so many
different issues and so many different ways in which we
can have our voices be heard and make a difference.
(35:26):
Whatever moves you do that. I'm a professor, so I
do a lot of research, a lot of writing, a
lot of speaking about this issue, and partnering with organizations
that are seeking to resolve the gaps in our food systems.
And so I'm doing my best. So whatever you can do,
(35:49):
whether you just post something online, whether you go to
a community meeting, whether you serve out of food pantry
or a food bank, whatever you can do, let's work
to get this apartheid system dismantled and to get people
to food that everyone has a right to have. Food
(36:10):
is a right. It's not a privilege. It's a right
that should be available to each and every person and
each and every family, no matter what, no matter what.
And that's our episode. Thank you so much for listening
to the Environmental Justice Lab. Where we are for the
people and for the planet. I'll shoe you next time.
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