by: Jenny Huang
Introduction
The United States food system is plagued with inequalities and inequities that affect African American food culture and societal issues. These inequalities contribute to high rates of food insecurity, health issues, and discriminatory practices. Furthermore, the foundation of the United States was built on the oppression and exploitation of workers; the food system is no different in that it falls victim to a capitalistic society that places value on profits over the well-being of individuals. The marginalization of African Americans in America’s food system is a case of the past in the present; while colonialism is seen as a thing of the past, its effects can still be observed today shaping society and contributing to existing inequalities.
Historical Context
The Columbian Exchange from the colonial era contributes to and sets the foundation for a capitalistic food system that disproportionately affects African Americans. The Columbian Exchange was the transfer of diseases, ideas, food crops, and populations between the New World and Old World following Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the Americas in 1492 (Nunn and Qian 2010:163). An important aspect of the Columbian Exchange was the transfer of food, which enhanced and influenced different cultures in both the Old and New World. Africa was introduced to new crops from the Americas, such as maize, potatoes, cassava, sweet potatoes, squashes, and tomatoes (McNeill 2023). Food crops from Africa that were transferred to the Americas consisted of coffee beans, sugar cane, rice, watermelon, yams, sorghum, millets, and okra (McNeill 2023). The Columbian Exchange was the beginning of the establishment of crops and plantations in the Americas, which required a need for labor and subsequently lead to the transport of slaves from Africa to provide such labor. It was through this exchange that European empires imposed capitalism and colonialism on the New World with the goal of extracting profits (Constance 2019:82). The practice of commodifying crops during the Columbian Exchange continues to manifest in the modern day, in which agricultural corporations grow crops such as corn, soybeans, etc. at high volumes at the expense of the environment and workers.
The Atlantic Slave Trade was pivotal in the forced migration of Africans to the Americas. The beginning of the practice was based on the justification that slaves were non-Christians. Later on, the practice was justified by defining superior and inferior races (Wilson 1957: 410). The development of a superior and inferior race cemented the idea and social construction of race. By making Africans seem less than human, it justified the Atlantic Slave Trade, which consisted of inhumane practices, from poor conditions during transport and on plantations in the Americas to the separation of families and overall, loss of humanity and dignity. Between the years 1501 and 1867, approximately 13 million African people were forcibly taken from their homes, placed onto European and American ships, and trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean. The men were given little space, locked spoon-ways together, naked, and forced to lie in urine, feces, blood, and mucus, with limited fresh air (Equal Justice Initiative 2022). Alexander Falconbridge, a British surgeon who was involved in the slave trade, accounts that the slaves didn’t have much room and compares their situation to being in a coffin, in which they were uncomfortable and couldn’t move with ease. On the voyage, a form of resistance was the refusal of food. Alexander Falconbridge (1788) commented:
“Upon the Negroes refusing to take sustenance, I have seen coals of fire, flowing hot, put on a shovel, and placed so near their lips, as to scorch and burn them. And this has been accompanied with threats, of forcing them to swallow the coals, if they any longer persisted in refusing to eat.”
Mustakeem continues to describe the horrors of the Atlantic Slave Trade in his book, Slavery at Sea, in which he deciphers the deeper implications of the colonial practice:
“Much more than simply hollowed wooden structures, slave ships evolved to become physical and economic symbols of technology, power, and authority transcending geographical boundaries…The aggressive management of slaves took different forms at sea…this history of racialized terror and confinement of black people with uninhibited economical potential and exploit in carceral spaces found its deepest roots in the bowels of slavery at sea” (Mustakeem 2016:190).
This trauma from the past transcends time and is embedded in the victim’s psyche. As shown by Jamaica Kincaid’s piece from A Small Place:
“But nothing can erase my rage–not an apology, not a large sum of money, not the death of the criminal–for this wrong can never be made right, and only the impossible can make me still: can a way be found to make what happened not have happened?”
In her piece, she conveys emotions that embody the anger and frustration with the practices of colonialism, which treated slaves like capital, and still to this day, the wrong has not been made right:
“Well, it’s because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were the commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this is so strong, the experience so recent, that we can’t quite bring ourselves to embrace this idea that you think so much of.”
Plantations that developed in the southern parts of North America relied on the labor of black slaves. The reliance on black slaves and an established hierarchy resulted in a deep social divide between rich white and poor black communities, which is a consequence of the past that permeates American societies today, even after the abolishment of slavery in 1865. Segregation that took place thereafter reinforced the social divide between black and white communities. Gradually, African American communities in the Americas drew on a combination of African tradition, encounters with European culture, and experiences in the New World to create new identities. The newly developed identities would “prove to be a great enrichment of cultural life and would contribute to the global culture of modern times” (Hardy 2020).
In the Americas, African culture began to shape into the African American culture we know today. It was during the colonial era that a culture was created from a combination of African, European, and Native American food, spices, and methods of cooking. In some cases, slaves had the opportunity to tend to their own gardens and to grow their own food. But the freedom to shape their cuisine was carefully control by what slave owners allowed the enslaved to grow, procure, cook and eat (Miller 2013:19). Food such as pork, meal, and molasses arosed to create the stereotype of soul food. Pigs were easy to raise, corn grew easily throughout the colonies, and molasses was a byproduct of sugar and thus, these foods became staples to enslaved communities. It was stated in Hog and Hominy:
“Many of the traditions that shaped African American eating habits originated in West African cultures. For example, the southern African American tradition of eating dishes like grits and hot water cornbread can be traced back to West Africans, who regularly ate porridges such as kneeling, made first with millet and other indigenous grains and, after the 1600s, with corn that Portuguese slave traders introduced from the Americas.” (Opie 2008:18).
Cooking was a way for slaves to maintain a sense of identity; they maintained an African tradition of one-pot meals that contained starches, and stews of leafy greens that was seasoned with either smoked or pickled ingredients. In order to escape the dullness of a slave diet, creativity and originality was needed to enhance foods such as corn and pounds of pork (Harris 2011:100).
After the end of slavery, policies and structures began to form that contribute to modern-day inequalities and injustices. This conveys that the mechanisms of colonialism are manifesting themselves in the present day. Although colonialism is in the “past,” it continues to shape the present. Stoler conveys in her piece, Duress:
“Colonial pasts, the narratives recounted about them, the unspoken distinctions they continue to “cure,” the affective charges they reactivate, and the implicit “lessons” they are mobilized to impart are sometimes so ineffably threaded through the fabric of contemporary life forms they seem indiscernible as distinct effects, as if everywhere and nowhere at all” (Stoler 2016:5).
The systematic oppression, racialized structures, and policies in the U.S are all a remnant of the colonial era in which practices of colonialism dehumanized and devalued African American lives and culture. Jim Crow laws, gentrification, discrimination, sharecropping, and redlining are all examples that impact the inequalities African Americans experience. Discriminatory policies continue to affect African Americans and hinder social mobility in the modern day. America’s food system is one way in which colonialism is manifesting itself in the post-colonial era.
U.S Food System
Racism and structural oppression is ingrained in our current society causing communities of color to experience economic disparities that contribute to food injustice. Societal dilemmas such as poverty, homelessness, frail educational infrastructures, mass incarceration, gentrification, pollution, and health disparities reflect the shortcomings of capitalism and the remaining legacy of institutional racism” (Sbicca 2018:341). Since the nineteenth century, U.S agriculture has consolidated small farms into larger agribusiness corporations, and to aid in the process, the U.S. government created loans and subsidies so that farmers could pay for agricultural technology. However, U.S. government loan programs were discriminatory as exhibited by the class action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Pigford v. Glickman. The lawsuit showcased unfair distribution of loans based on race; African American farmers were misinformed about government programs, denied loans, and given inadequate or randomly reduced loans (Alkon 2019:353). Furthermore, practices such as redlining continue to reinforce structural inequalities. Redlining refers to the practice of public and private entities refusing to provide services to neighborhoods because of their racial and ethnic makeup. After World War II, private loans were made available to whites, allowing them to fix up existing housing stock or move to newly constructed suburbs. In this way, whites could build up wealth; however, these loans were denied to African Americans, who became part of increasingly segregated communities (Alkon 2019:351). Discriminatory practices have left African American communities vulnerable to disparities in the food system. The U.S food system is currently plagued with food insecurity, lack of food sovereignty, increased obesity, and environmental degradation (Hatanaka 2019:16).
The shortcomings of the food system in the U.S. disproportionately affects different races and ethnicities. Influenced by factors such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of household assets, African American communities face hunger at a higher rate than other communities. Discriminatory politics and practices have led African Americans to be more likely to live in poverty and more likely to face unemployment (Hake, Engelhard, and Dewey 2022). Studies have shown that black children are more likely to experience hunger than children of other races. Furthermore, while the U.S has a poverty rate of 11.4%, within the Black community, the poverty rate is 19.5% (Hake, Engelhard, and Dewey 2022). African American communities have access to fewer opportunities and financial resources. This can be attributed to past events and structures that continue to disproportionately affect African American communities.
Case Study
Washington D.C, the capital city of the United States, is a case study that represents the inequality African Americans face in the food system. The majority of the city’s poor and working-class Black residents live in wards 7 and 8 (Reese and Garth 2020:38). A history of discrimination exhibits that access to capital has been a significant barrier to entrepreneurship for black people. For instance, hucksters, a vital part of the community, referred to a person who grew food and sold it at markets from stalls or on the street from wagons. Regulations were implemented in 1853 requiring a license and other requirements. Although mobile food entrepreneurs played an important role in the community, city ordinances and concerns for public health and safety led to the establishment of requirements that became barriers to opening and upkeeping a food truck. For example, meeting the requirements for a food truck accrued up to $28,276 (Reese and Garth 2020:38). It exemplifies segregation in the city based on race, income, and ethnicity. The policies that create barriers for African American communities continue to be a remnant of the past in which the dominant white culture sets the standards and seems to know what is best and safe for society; however, in that pursuit, it alienates and fails to incorporate the humanity, needs, and dignity of marginalized groups.
A group that sought to return dignity and humanity back to African American communities in the U.S. was the Black Panther Party. In Black Food Matters, it was stated:
“The Panthers organized oppressed communities, offering tangible survival strategies for a people under siege, with food as a primary tool of liberation. Food and land have always been central to Black freedom struggles, but the Black Panthers were among the first to frame the peculiar relationship between race, advanced capitalism, food access, and health outcomes in the urban core” (Reese and Garth 2020:89).
The Black Panther Party created “survival programs” such as free food programs that aimed to reclaim their narrative by providing for African American communities themselves. The party faced repression, racism, and backlash from the government, which exemplifies the ongoing racialized systems that suppress marginalized communities. The silencing and reframing of the legacy of the Black Panther Party reflects the ideas from Silencing the Past, in which Trouillot discusses the relationship between history and power and how the production of historical narratives involves the uneven contribution of competing groups (Trouillot 1995:xix). The dominant culture framed the Black Panther Party as violent and highly politicized. The party recognized that the government was not supporting black communities, noticed that hunger was a way of oppressing black communities, and sought to feed the hungry. The framework the Black Panther Party created is still being implemented in food justice initiatives.
Appropriation of Black Food Culture
Culinary and agricultural knowledge of Black people, some of which have been stolen and underappreciated, was essential to the economic development of the United States, and supported the global economic dominance of European countries for centuries (Reese and Garth 2020:17). In Trouillot’s piece, Silencing the Past, he asserts the ways in which history and knowledge are shaped through power relations. In this case, the dominant narrative portrays African American culture as primitive and lesser than others. The dominant culture creates a negative narrative of Black culture, characterizing it as unhealthy and inferior. Furthermore, African American cooks and their culinary expertise have been omitted from the history of American food. African American communities have been cultivating, processing, and preparing traditions that form the basis of American cuisines, but their voice and formal acknowledgment have been erased. For example, the concept of Southern food omits the contributions of African American culture. The appropriation of food entails that members of a dominant or privileged group in a society adopt or lay claim to the production of and profit from Black food culture. Today, the appropriation of Black culture goes to show how the past of vulnerable groups continues to be silenced when there’s a lack of acknowledgment of the origins of foods being created and prepared. An example of the appropriation of food is barbecue. Barbecue is one of the most overlooked racialized cuisines in the United States (Reese and Garth 2020:208). The method of cooking surrounding barbecue can be attributed to Native Americans and the slave-based diet of African Americans during the late eighteenth into the nineteenth century. Barbecue has since been adopted by white Americans and propelled into mainstream society. The erasure of African American contribution and culture in the current mainstream American food culture reflects the continuation of “silencing the past” and the reinforcement of power relations in the modern day.
Conclusion
Through European and American influence, colonialism continues to erupt in the present causing disparities and inequalities that impact marginalized communities in society. Additionally, oppressive and restrictive systems of food distribution have hampered and limited food access and threatened African American food culture. The remaining question is: what does a decolonized food system look like?
Food movements in the past disregarded the injustices experienced by marginalized communities and focused on access to local and organic food among consumers. Currently, the food justice movement factors in the role of race, income, and class play in the current food system. Food justice materialized as an effort through which activists advocate for more just and fair allocation of opportunities and resources through the development of community-based food systems and social policies that focus on supporting marginalized communities. By working from the bottom up, food justice reflects a decolonized future in which the past is no longer silenced and the effects of colonialism are eliminated.
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