This article again had a lot of information. A lot of these articles all circle back to the problem with racial and economic exclusion. I never realized how big of a problem this still is. Historically the development of food systems was shaped around racial and economic segregation. But times have changed a lot so why we are continuing to deny poor and color communities' access to healthy nutritious food is unbelievable. They state in the article that this exclusion was not accidental but rather a product of racist policies.
During the 20th century many working class neighborhoods -where many communities of color often resided- were pushed out of areas with strong agricultural economies so they became isolated from the wealthier areas. Retailers and grocery stores began to avoid those areas leaving the poor and colored communities without access to obtain healthier and fresh food, leaving them to eat out at the fast food and convenience stores which was full of processed foods.
Unfortunately, it is still like this today, often times from what I have seen living near Allentown. I often have to drive through the city where the poorer communities reside, and I also see just convenience stores and liquor stores. There also tend to be a lot of ethnic grocers in these areas as she stated in the article. But I never see any big-name grocery companies in these areas. It just makes you think that it is on purpose because of how often we actually see it.
I just find this all so unfair to these communities because just because of some one's money or color and their skin shouldn't be an indicator if you get to have access to healthy fresh food rather than processed food that has been sitting on the shelves for days.
2 comments:
Businesses make decisions based on profit VS risk. If areas have higher crime rates or lower purchasing power, it’s understandable that businesses would not invest there. If people don't have money to spend the store will make less profit and crime will be higher.
If we want more grocery stores to move into these communities, we should focus on reducing crime, promoting family and American values, and encouraging job creation so that these areas become more attractive for stores. The solution is fostering self-sufficiency rather than relying on blaming the "system" and "white people".
I feel I came to a similar realization when reading this article, people think that the idea of segregation was abolished along with slavery but we still see it today. It’s not as blatant as signs and restrictions keeping people from going places, now it’s laws, legislation and policies that make it so much harder for people of color to have access to what they need. I know exactly what you’re talking about when you mention Allentown as well. I’m from Salisbury, a little borough right next to Allentown. Growing up as kids there was the “west side” and the “east side” and the west side was a generally higher income area and was a majority white, and on the other hand the east side was lower income and had a plethora of mixed races. I never really paid much attention to it as a kid because we all ended up together in the same middle school and high school and grew up together. So in the past classes I’ve said things along the lines of “racism isn’t the issue” or something like that, but segregation very much is. A big thing I noticed was that the race issue seems to be looked at in several ways by our generation. So it depends on your experience and upbringing. We know racism is taught you aren’t born that way, and I feel my parents and many others have done a wonderful job at teaching kids that racism isn’t ok. To get to the point, when kids of mixed culture and religion are together it can be pure, and the more we open our kids eyes to what the world really is, the more progress we can see with the generations to come in my opinion.
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