White Supremacy Culture as it Exists in Food Systems
Food system actors must understand how white supremacy culture narratives function to center whiteness across the food system.
Why should we care?
Well, a lot of reasons, but in short, white supremacy culture narratives create oppressive cultures in organizations and communities of white people who consider themselves allies, perpetuating white supremacy and feeding into systems that hold whiteness and white ideals as the default. White supremacy culture and whiteness are pervasive in our daily life, including within the food system. Consequently, policies. programs, and relationships fail to resonate with BIPOC communities, and systemic inequity is reinforced.
What are these white supremacy culture narratives?
In this specific conversation:
Individualism: the belief that people should be able to solve problems or accomplish goals on their own. In the food space, it is a focus on helping individuals who have fallen on hard times over structural issues contributing to food insecurity and hunger.
Paternalism: interfering in someone’s ability or opportunity to make decisions. It has the objective of improving welfare of individuals or communities yet involves making decisions without the consent of those concerned. In the food space, it is the belief that BIPOC communities cannot take care of themselves and need solutions prescribed to them.
Neoliberalism: a policy model which replaces entitlements with market-based solutions to social problems. In the food space, neoliberalism is rooted in American ideals of personal responsibility and hard work as the solution to hunger and that it is the responsibility of communities to care for those in need, not government.
Universalism: assumes that values held by whites are normal and widely shared, meaning everything is grounded in whitened cultural practices, and that the non-conforming must be educated on the ideals. In the food space, universalism means whiteness fuels and dominates the conversation on how and why the food system should be reformed, with organizations programming around those whitened assumptions.
These narratives help perpetuate the existing structures of power and privilege.
You know, the ones we’re trying to dismantle.
Unlearning these narratives and learning new ways to engage with each other is a daily practice and an opportunity to be compassionate, creative, and innovative!
Control, punishment, shame, and other destructive tendencies perpetuate oppressive, violent, and honestly life-threatening systems. White supremacy culture shows up on the daily but when we can recognize it, we can change it, and WE MUST ALSO change our reactions to it.
I recommend reading the recent post from @SHARONRANPARK (Instagram) titled “an invitation” for more information about engaging our creative capacity for internal transformation (a process that is generative, and in constant dialogue with reality and your personal social relationships!)
Additional white supremacy culture narratives can be found in the Showing Up for Racial Justice link in my bio. @JRRRROCK (Instagram) also has slides that provide an overview with antidotes!
Some specific examples from food systems work and their parent white supremacist narrative:
Figure 1: Intersection of White SupremacyCulture Narratives and Food System Narratives
If only they knew focuses on healthy food and cooking education instead of structural problems, such as inequities in food access.
Vote with your fork promotes the idea that individual consumption will signal a person’s values in the food system, while ignoring structural forces dictating who can access and afford food.
Communities can’t take care of themselves centers the idea that low-income and/or BIPOC communities need someone else to provide services and make decisions.
Failure to listen identifies an issue with organizations failing to engage with the community they serve and listen to what the members want and need.
Build it and they’ll come focuses on food retail approach as the solution to food issues and centers the conversation on food access as opposed to community-based ownership and wealth building strategies.
Pull yourself up by the bootstraps is rooted in the belief that people need to take personal responsibility and work harder to get out of hunger and poverty.
Focus on food charity emphasizes solutions to hunger that center on a charity approach rooted in the idea that hunger is an individual responsibility problem.
“Good food” vs. “bad food” involves white dominant culture determining what is considered ideal, ignoring other cultural insight.
What can we do?
Remember that paradigm shifts require individual commitment to understanding our failed systems in addition to demands for systemic change (and abolition, and radically loving communities, and the rejection of capitalism... but more on that later.)
Research how racism, anti-Blackness and white supremacy are built into the food system, AND in particular into your local community. Ask yourself, what inequities exist in the food system? How do these impact food insecurity and hunger rates in the United States? Whose labor and land was used to create the American agricultural system?
Pay attention to how whiteness has influenced your experiences in the food system. Think about things like: how many grocery stores do you have access to in your community and who owns them? How hard is it for you to find and afford culturally appropriate foods at the grocery stores you do have access to?
Understand that “colorblindness” is not real — society and the food system are not race-neutral spaces. Think through who holds the decision-making power in the food system and who benefits from the actions of those decision makers and institutions. Who most benefits from policy, programming, and capital decisions? Are these benefits equitably distributed? Why not?