Food Justice is Racial Justice
Photo by: Alex Cantarelli via Pexels
As Black History Month comes to a close, we wanted to highlight a statement that is deeply rooted in the country’s history and the food system: Food justice is racial justice.
White supremacy is deeply engrained in our food system. For years, BIPOC communities have received unequal access to land, food and resources.
Food justice holds a view of the food system where healthy food is viewed as a human right and the structural barriers to that right need to be addressed. Throughout history, food and land have been weaponized and used to control BIPOC communities. It started with taking land from Indigenous people, followed by enslavement of Indigenous and African people to work the land, and more recently continued by the exploitation of Asian and Latin American immigrants. Disastrously, our current food system is based on these historical racial policies and beliefs that need to be questioned and changed.
Photo by: Sorapong Chaipanya via Pexels
Racial justice is much more than just inclusion of diversity. It requires giving more power to these marginalized communities so that they can lead and inform our values and food system. Major control over the production of their own food will help BIPOC communities fight food insecurity, which has grown extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is touching Latino and Black families twice as much as white families.
Many organizations and activists are working toward food and racial justice. We have been highlighting a few of them this past month but check out the websites below for more information on how you can help and what is being done!
Learn more about groups supporting food and racial justice:
Civil Eats: Want to See Food and Land Justice for Black Americans? Support These Groups.