The Food Apartheid Series Part 2: Food Access
This is the second in a three-part series providing context surrounding the issue of Food Apartheid. Food apartheid involves more than just our proximity to grocery stores, it lives on as the product of racism intermingling with the founding principles of our food system. It tells the story of labor, land, and access. Though violent, the context is available for us to draw from, to understand this regenerative cycle of hope and restoration. A continuation of our journey through history and our food system, here is part two.
Food Access
She welcomed my sister and I into her home before the sun came up. She stood there in her housecoat and watched as we tried to quickly move from our mother’s not-yet warm vehicle and into her antique living room on the West side of Detroit. Her hair was covered, except for some almost grey patches near her ears. Her voice always crept out weathered, yet warm in her thick accent, “My girls! What did you eat for breakfast?”
We were her girls. During the summer, every snow day, late evening, and early morning. Sister Grizzle is what the people at church called her. She was the teacher for the infant and toddler bible class and a regular caregiver to many children in the congregation. That included us, and because we belonged to her generations of latch-key children, we called her Mommy Tis. Mommy Tis taught us a lot of things. She grew fruits and veggies all over her home and backyard, we did math drills every morning, and the state capitols in the afternoons. Mommy Tis also gave me my first lesson in access.
One day, for a reason I don’t remember, it was just Mommy Tis and I. It was the middle of summer and I was beyond bored until she told me to gather my things and to wait on the front porch. Soon, another older woman from the church arrived and we hustled into her old tan Crown Victoria. Mommy Tis had grabbed several vinyl and cloth bags and was speaking to her friend excitedly about wherever it was that we were going.
She turned around after about fifteen minutes and told me I had time to take a rest. Curious about my whereabouts, I instead looked out the window as the scenery changed from a busy cityscape decorated with pavement, to a seemingly desolate rural area with tall grass, that eventually gave way to houses bigger than I had ever seen and perfectly manicured sidewalks.
We pulled up to a grocery store and stopped in the parking lot as the women flipped through their sale papers one last time. I remember wanting to ask why we drove so far away just to go to the grocery store. We went inside, and as we walked up and down the long isles of produce, Mommy Tis pointed out every single vegetable or fruit that we couldn’t get at the store near us. She pointed out that this food would last longer because it wasn't covered in bruises or already close to spoiling. I helped her fill her bags with cucumbers, tomatoes, pineapple, papayas, plantain, and a host of other life-giving foods.
I got to eat a plum on the way home as I wondered quietly to myself. I had so many questions. Why was that food different? Why was it so far away? Where did they get it? Why didn’t our store have the same thing? Later that evening while recapping our days, I told my parents the name of the store I went to that day. I don’t remember the name of the store now, but I do remember that my parents were shocked that we drove so far. The store we went to was easily 40 minutes away, but I remember my dad said it was “worth it for the good produce”.
After that, the trips to our local grocery store felt dark. It was 5 minutes away by car, which was a privilege in and of itself. Now, the floors looked dirty, and the bruises on the peppers and cucumbers outweighed the fresh flesh. The smells from the meat and fish department became sickening, and the sticky wheels on the carts etched in me feelings of despondency and frustration.
There was nothing I could do as a child. I couldn't pay for gas to get to the “good produce”, or even investigate why our produce looked the way it did. There was nothing I could do to change that because I was facing a barrier I didn’t know was so deeply rooted in the hatred of my existence. This was my first lesson in covert racism. The good produce was simply not accessible to me. I had no idea up until that day that I was living in a world where all food wasn’t of the same quality, and I certainly didn’t understand that it was based on a system of race and class.
In order to meet the basic requirements for being accessible, food retailers must take into account: proximity and ease of transportation, availability and versatility of nutrient-dense food, affordability based on the LOCAL sociocultural environment, quality, and finally cultural relevancy.
Black Americans are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to accessing safe, affordable, and dependable produce. Factors like, access to affordable housing, higher rates of incarceration, and limited access to higher-paying jobs are just a few barriers Black People face disproportionately. This leaves us a higher rate for diet-related illness and other health disparities. It is no wonder that food insecurity is most prevalent in minority neighborhoods because grocery stores follow the same code of red-lining that housing does and are generally not owned by those living in the community. This highlights a history of Black People being denied access to owning and operating stores and ultimately being excluded from local economic gain.
Many independent grocers feel as though the community simply does not want their services. To that, I would say it’s very challenging to patronize an establishment if they seek to only make money and not actually improve or enrich the community around it. New development, especially if it is not tailored and priced for the local community, can signal gentrification. To take this further, grocery stores tend to sell products that cater to the community of people they seek to please, not the one they reside in. Oftentimes, individuals and families have to go to a different store out of the way to find specialty ingredients for culturally relevant dishes. In this way stores and corporations are not just responsible for deciding if communities get to eat, but also what they eat when they do. This is cultural erasure and racist at its core.
As we take on the fight to end hunger, we must also take up the fight to end racism. We cannot take on the first without the latter. Our food system has become too wound up and run by racist ideals, thus leaving those living in the margins starved, and deliberately so. These are not issues that can be solved with just health literacy. It is not productive to just teach communities to be resilient if we don’t address head-on the reason communities feel the need to keep their guard up.
Resilient against whom or what, and why? It is the system that keeps individuals and families hungry, not the lack of health knowledge. In addressing the situation holistically, we remove the individual burden of overcoming barriers to maintaining a healthy diet, and place it rightfully on the backs of those who have control over where the food is. A solution to the food access problem lies in creating sustainable, community-specific changes that are rooted in calling out and destroying racism in all forms.
We can start by supporting and developing more Black and Brown Community Supported Agricultural Initiatives (CSA), and organizations designated to putting food on plates. We can demand grocers be held accountable for their part in the food crisis while coming together as a community to make the changes we want to see by creating and sustaining culturally relevant market spaces. The list of internal work goes on and we should not feel discouraged in doing it, but until the external barrier, that is racism in our food system, is addressed, we will continue to see a separation of food from the people.
A few years after that day with Mommy Tis, the market closest to us shut down, and we had to start driving to the other side of the city. In the years that followed, my inconsistent relationship with food developed into my love of all things feeding hungry bellies, and my mission to return individuals to food autonomy developed. Food sovereignty allows for communities and individuals to decide their food fate. We believe in giving food back to the people, we’re hungry. Are you?
Follow along for part three in our Food Apartheid series: Labor
Additional Resources
https://civileats.com/2020/07/07/how-black-communities-are-bridging-the-food-access-gap/