Racial disparities in the Detroit food system

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Gardens, nonprofits, farms and new businesses have recently bolstered Detroit’s food system but critics say it remains plagued by an old city foe — racism.

A quick look at the city’s history — discrimination of early black migrant workers, race riots over social conditions, “white flight” to the suburbs — paints a picture of racial complexity unrivaled by other major cities.

Photo: Earthworks Urban Farm — Capuchin Soup Kitchen

Detroit’s population is more than 80 percent black. But despite their majority, people of color lack access to food and justice in its distribution, according to some of the major players in the city’s food system.

And they’re doing something about it.

Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System is a group plugged into the city’s food and nonprofit world. Members hold monthly meetings and workshops to build an awareness and understanding of how race constrains the city’s food system.

Inadequate food and health problems

A disproportionate number of black and Hispanic Detroiters suffer from poor health linked to diet.

“We see racism in the food system mainly through chronic health conditions,” said Shane Bernardo, outreach coordinator with Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit. “Diabetes, obesity and heart disease disproportionately affect people in Detroit — especially African Americans.”

Heart disease in 2009 killed 302.7 Detroiters for every 100,000 people. That compares to 231.4 for Michigan and 211.1 nationally.

Seventy percent of the city’s population is obese or overweight, according to the Michigan Department of Community Health.

Detroit’s distinct lack of healthy food options has been much publicized. The city is often labeled a “food desert.”

Fast food restaurants and convenience stores dot the city's landscape. Photo: Photos by Mavis (Flickr)

Roughly 550,000 Detroit residents — more than half of the city’s population — must travel at least twice as far to reach the closest mainstream grocer as they do to reach a fast food restaurant or a convenience store, according to a 2007 study.

Detroiters lost many more years of their life due to lack of healthy food than their suburban counterparts, according to the same study. This disparity is rooted in historic racism, according to Bernardo.

“Detroit is one of the blackest cities in the country, and has one of the most racially-segregated metro areas,” Bernardo said.  “White people left the city and discriminatory policies locked black people in.”

Bernardo points to the housing and lending practices in the Detroit area, spanning back to World War II and the subsequent GI Bill, when black soldiers ran into problems trying to move to fast-growing suburbs.

Suburbs grew — full of grocery stores and other amenities — while the city became more vacant, poor and empty of healthy food.

“This started the divide between whites and blacks,” Bernardo said.

This divide is worsened by poor public transportation, said Lila Cabbil, coordinator for Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System.

“People have no access to food,” Cabbil said. “And whenever we talk about rapid transit, suburban communities worry about black people having access to their communities — so people in the city remain stuck without options.”

Nonprofit structure doesn’t reflect the city

Detroit’s industrial roots are increasingly replaced by those of fruits and vegetables.

Farms and gardens continue pop up throughout Detroit. Photo: Brian Bienkowski

There are approximately 2,300 gardens within the city, according to Charity Hicks, secretary of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.

Food nonprofits sprout up as quickly as the gardens. But some critics say these solutions are as racist as the problem they’re trying to fix. The organizations lack the employee diversity that reflects the people they try to help, Hicks said.

“People are approaching the work with very good intentions,” Hicks said.  “But it’s a continuation of the status quo.”

Two of the more prominent nonprofits in the city — The Greening of Detroit and the Capuchin Soup Kitchen – lack people of color in leadership, management and administrative positions, Hicks said.

“When the Greening of Detroit folks were pressed about their leadership, they went and hired a bunch of young, black Americorps members for grunt work,” Hicks said. “But if you look up and down their management, they’re still very white.”

Greening of Detroit officials refused to comment for the article.

Earthworks Urban Farm is a program of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. Bernardo and others have been a part of the Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System group, and Earthworks continues to “explore who controls and influences the food in Detroit,” Bernardo said.

Hicks credits food, social and environmental nonprofits for trying to improve conditions for people in the city, but the “do-gooders are trying to save the natives, when the natives need to save themselves,” she said.

The nonprofits miss out on the resources and the voice of the community by not hiring from within, Cabbil said.

Food nonprofits are creating jobs mainly for white people who typically don’t live in the city, while there’s a community expertise that could be tapped into, Cabbil said.

The nonprofits are necessary though because “the challenge for Detroit is that it faces so many challenges,” said Simone Lightfoot, consultant on regional urban initiatives at the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center.

But they can still alienate the very people they’re trying to help.

“Food issues have been around for a very long time in Detroit,” Lightfoot said. “It’s just recently become vogue, so you have people who’ve been in the city, struggling with this, saying ‘where have you been our whole lives?’”

Sparking a change

The Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System meetings have drawn approximately 200 — 300 racially diverse people, Hicks said.

The group’s mission is to start the conversation about racial food inequality.

“There is no quick fix for legacy racism,” Cabbil said. “The group’s purpose is to first initiate awareness, and then understanding.”

Smaller groups discuss racial issues and how they can bring the deeper understanding of other races back to their organizations or businesses.

The group also holds an annual workshop looking at how the city’s power structure affects people economically, and, ultimately, their food options.

“There are implications to who owns the land, who rents the land and who has access to the land,” Cabbil said.

Hicks sees the conversation as a first step in a long, difficult process of change.

“We need to walk the walk … right now the meetings are almost like a little clique of people that get it. We have to find a way to take that beautiful learning, growth and reflection and pour it out in to the other 140 square miles of city.”

11 thoughts on “Racial disparities in the Detroit food system

  1. 500 years of forced free labor and 100+ years of institutional racist oppression on black people in this country so that we couldn’t work decent jobs and we are now called lazy!!…I am so TIRED of hearing “they are just lazy”! So, for “so long” we have relied on public assistance how about how long white america relied on us to do their work while sitting around enjoying the good life? (and that was not all whites though those who did not have it good still did little to help out slaves, still participated in public displays of hangings and torture of blacks) does 70 years of gov’t assistance equal AT ALL, 600 years of abuse and murder? How about how we look at how oppression is manifested in everyday lives? People all over the country are taking meds for PTSD or depression. Is it not evident that after so much torture, pain, and exclusion that perhaps the psychological effects of racism on black people in this country have created this dilemma we now face as a country?

    Oh and why is it not OK to call something what it is? I just read two articles in the last few weeks about racist acts happening on the campus of Mich U. Are Michigan residents saying that racism is not alive in well in their area? A hanging noose and the words “no niggers allowed” at a college don’t seem like a poverty issue to me. If we stop making folks accountable for the racist acts of white people and institutions, who will defend the rights oppressed blacks in this country? If we pretend in a city that is 77% black that these issues are a poverty issue and not a black issue we would be remiss and wrong! Blacks are discriminated against DAILY…STILL! If you don’t like it, do something about it!! and then we can maybe change the dialogue of these complaints. If you’re not doing anything to change the way that black and people of color in and around you are treated than you are a part of the problem. Stop hiding behind anonymous posts and work towards creating a better america for all.

  2. I’m tired of blaming racism. The real blame is laziness born from many generations of needing to receive benefits. Yes, there is a need to help people, but too many feel entitled. My parents taught me to do for myself. What is needed is a venue to help those that help themselves. If a person is handicapped to the point of not being able to physically help, then they should be helping at a desk or on the phone. We need to stop doing for others, but doing with others. I run a small food bank and see many people that need help but we are at a point that handing food to anyone only helps for that meal, teaching them to garden for themselves or for profit will help for a lifetime. Please move beyond color and face the real problem of responsibility. Thank you.

  3. When are we going to be just “people”? The fact is that people are working together to solve the food issues. Detroit has been plagued with many issues and it is going to take people who genuinely care for people working together to overcome; eradicate poverty,social injustice, and educate our youth. Then we will, once again, be competitive and be the example to the nation and the world.

  4. I think that some of the folks above are missing a crucial part of the racism problem: white people, regardless of economic class, are treated differently than people of color. Poverty is a completely different issue and intersects with Racism. Saying that racism is a thing of the past is simply not true, although racism may look different today. Accepting that white privilege IS is not an easy thing (I’m white). By accepting that white people are treated differently than people of color, we are not admitting that we, as individuals, are racist. It is the first step in eliminating racism as a society.

  5. I think that Ms. Hicks makes some salient and fair critiques of the progress of the work that is being done in the food system in Detroit. There are positives being done by both of the mason organizations mentioned but what she really is alluding tho his the “insider outside” paradigm that predominates many of the private, public or non-profit initiatives on Detroit. An inately American mentality is not looking to borrow, edit and innovate on effective work that is being implemented here or outside our borders. A program that I most recently have read about in the 2011 Stanford Journal of Social Innovation eloquently delays some if the sentiments of change that reflects all parties from all sectors along the continuum become equal parties in committing to openly developing a cohesive strategy. This requires the top level officials from funding agencies, non-profits, community groups, and state officials at all levels linked to food system. This can’t be a one time event or conference but a monthly ongoing effort for multiple years. No magic bullets when you have to craft efforts that don’t alienate or exclude any stakeholders involved in policy implementation and reform that aims to create legitimate change in complex urban systems. A good example would be .

  6. I certainly respect the frustration of black residents in the leadership of the organizations. However, knowing a bit about the efforts of the organizations mentioned, I do think that they are purposefully working to be inclusive of city residents in hiring and training for positions. A transition of people involved in empowerment through environmental or other justice movements is beginning to seep into the food system work more so – but I think it will take time for the two to recognize their complementary impetus.

    As mentioned, earthworks is working hard to address these issues explicitly by their work in “undoing racism”. A food system vision that is shared with current residents and these non-profit organizations is essential, recognized and respected – though not entirely realized. I believe that people have to be willing to participate in organizations that may not at initial be representative of the city’s demographics, and that interested youth and adults need access to resources that help them to be prepared for the work. Earthworks is also bridging that gap.

    Will the city be willing to accept a shift in demographics as some people chose to leave the city, and others come to realize their dreams there? I hope good, real and solid opportunities arise for all the people who want to be engaged in an active and thriving in Detroit. Finding ways to break the poverty cycle, which did grow out of racist practices as far back as a century ago, as mentioned above, will be key to raising the quality of life for all.

  7. Too much negativity & blame – poverty is the issue. Less talk and more action – Grow a garden.

  8. I really appreciate these ‘in-depth’ looks at what we’re doing with our new focus on local ag/food accessibilites in Michigan, This is the time to do this right!

    I would say, from my lily-white, rural northern Michigan neck of the woods perspective, this is much more about a poverty issue. The age old ‘those that have vs those that don’t’. The poverty issue knows no color and we certainly aren’t using the term poverty to attempt to bring light to all socioecomonic issues…Good food access for is is certainly one of those issues.

  9. I’d suggest that the residents of Detroit stop throwing ‘racism’ out at every turn, and they might be surprise at the help/support they would get.

    Being a transplanted Michigander, I came here longer after Detroit began its decline. But I still see too many residents blaming other people rather than themselves. Dragging up a comment about what went on right after WWII is backward looking.

    We can’t change the past, We can only influence the future.

    Lack of high quality food in Detroit is a problem. Today, that is not caused by racism. Grocers are like any business, the only color they follow is Green.

    Lots of great work going on in the city, and I certainly hope and pray it continues – Michigan needs a resurgent Detroit, Southeast Michigan needs a resurgent Detroit: Detroit also needs the surrounding areas to be supportive – and calling out the surrounding areas as racist doesn’t help anyone.

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