by Michelle Orge, president & CEO, Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin
There’s a difficult fact we need to accept: more food will not end hunger in communities of color. Nutrition security and food equity can only be achieved by ending the widespread institutional racist practices that continue to go unaddressed.
According to “Identifying Racism in the Drivers of Food Insecurity,” a research report generated by Feeding America – the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization – in southwestern Wisconsin, the food insecurity rate in the Black community is nearly four times higher than the white community. Similarly, the food insecurity rate in the Latinx community is three times higher than in the white community.
However, the roots of the current landscape of inequality and disproportionate levels of food insecurity run much deeper than the data. Systemic racism – the systems in place that create and maintain racial inequality in nearly every facet of life for people of color – has meant that people of color must work harder and navigate more barriers to achieve success.
Recently, a former presidential candidate said, “We’ve never been a racist country.” The persistent racial wealth gap caused by past and present discriminatory lending, hiring, and higher education admissions practices would indicate otherwise. Laws or policies like Jim Crow laws (that legalized segregation), the GI Bill (that excluded Black veterans from many of its benefits), and recent Voter ID laws (which disproportionally affect people of color) are additional examples of racism at the highest level that has spanned generations.
Additionally, food insecurity across all communities cannot be eliminated without a commitment to something more than a living wage…a thriving wage. According to the United Way’s ALICE report, Wisconsin’s minimum household income for a family of four to survive is over $63,000 per year, considerably higher than the widely used Federal Poverty Level of $26,500. However, to go from just surviving to being able to maintain a more financially stable household, that figure jumps to over $100,000 per year.
Food insecurity is not just about nutrition. It’s an economic issue.
As the largest food bank in southwestern Wisconsin, Second Harvest has an essential role in addressing the root causes of hunger. We’re focusing on root causes by shifting the narrative from an individual problem to a systemic one. Reframing the narrative can help our community more clearly see that effectively addressing the barriers to food access is dependent on policy and structural change.
We’re also actively building and supporting a vibrant network of organizations and individuals with a comprehensive approach that strengthens their ability to provide complementary services like housing, job, and clothing assistance to their communities. The barriers to nutrition security and food equity were not built in a day, and they will not be torn down in a day. But, acknowledging that truly ending hunger is only possible once the underlying social, historical, and economic conditions that lead to hunger have been addressed is an important first step.
This post was first published as a guest column in The Cap Times.
