#raceandjusticeconvo if I may...my intro to food was creating Afroculinaria. When I first opened my fledgling site I wanted to include a lot abt history&people&identity and I was immediately told by a white man who thought himself benevolent that I was missing the point. (Thread)
I immediately knew that Black food was powerful to others...and that she or he who had a grip on the culinary narrative had a grip on the overall narrative of what it means and has meant to be Black in America and the Black Atlantic. I also knew he was not being benevolent.
By telling any group who is othered or marginalized how they should determine the circumference of their narrative is power robbery. Food is no different. It might even be worse because people see it as "just about the food." It is not innocuous, its insidious bc food is us.
The man told me that my job was to focus on the food, put up food porn, focus on taste and techniques and leave all talk of racial injustice, systemic racism, social justice, Black identity and Black particularisms out of my work. But that would also disable my idea that food
....and this is an idea shared by many...not just me...that food is a tool to do anti-racist work, that food/culinary history is a vehicle to unravel some of our worst prejudices and power imbalances&also celebrate our culture in spite of traumas and genuine collective pain
To ignore moden hunger as a form of violence or segregated eating or the uneven or degrading disbursement of rations during enslavement&control over access to food especially as a form of violence helps us shape a historic pattern in #racialinjustice in food that has persisted
And there is also the juxtaposition of the theme of bodies of people of color as food geniuses and merely as food machines, wonderful scholarship has even been written like "The Delectable Negro" in which the most consumable of enslavement were Black Lives themselves
Food connects racial or ethnic identity w/ gender, sexuality,class,national origin, disability, nutrition, health&political social movements&a variety of disparities...
Food is inherently political&food is inherently part of how all of these wheel back to "race."
Food is inherently political&food is inherently part of how all of these wheel back to "race."
