User:VTSC3/Food desert

Article body
FOOD APARTHEID:

Due to the historical and current political structures of racially motivated food policies, communities have and continue to strive to end food apartheid. The best defense against these discriminatory practices is locally re-designing the distribution of power to alliviate the strangle hold the current system places on disenfranchised communities. The term "food desert" is misleading as to what causes these areas to experience a lack of access to healthy foods. “Food deserts” invokes the idea that it is a naturally occurring phenomenon, when it is actually due to policy decisions that limit access based on racial bias. Using the term food apartheid recognizes that the inequality of access to nutritious food is intentional and structured through systems of power and racism. Black and Latino neighborhoods have been affected the most by these systems, where they may lack access to fresh produce, healthy food options, and have an absence of local supermarkets and nearby stores that carry these items. Changing the language that we use allows us to not just recognize and address the systematic issues rooted in food apartheids, but also allows us to change these oppressive systems. Food Apartheids are not a natural occurrence but a result of systematic issues surrounding prejudices. Areas of food apartheid may have grocery stores, but the only ones available may have higher prices than the ones that were previously available. With the process of gentrification, more expensive supermarkets may take the place of affordable ones, directly affecting individuals experiencing poverty. In the U.S., compared with white families, Black families are twice as likely to experience food insecurity. Through structural policies, the U.S. intentionally underinvests in these neighborhoods with higher concentrations of Black residents, further increasing a racial divide and impacting individuals’ sources of nourishment due to racism.

GLOBAL FOOD APARTHEIDS:

Food Apartheids are a global issue. The Asia-Pacific region, even as one of the fastest growing regions, is confronted with the largest numbers of malnourishment. The solutions are rooted in policy. In the UK and North America, the emergence of food apartheids was seen as supermarkets were pulled from low-income areas. This built a lack of access to nutritious food and further disadvantaged individuals, especially when they lack transportation. By comparing cities geographical income and ethnicity breakdown with supermarket locations, a more complete understanding of food apartheid is presented.