Food insecurity is one of America’s most insidious problems. In one of the richest nations in the world, one in 10 people live in food-insecure households . But these households are not a monolith. Food insecurity occurs in pockets across the country and in a wide array of situations. Perhaps most importantly, food insecurity disproportionately affects Americans of color and functions as a reminder of systemic injustice that must be corrected.

Food deserts are “geographic areas where residents’ access to affordable, healthy food options (especially fresh fruits and vegetables) is restricted or nonexistent due to the absence of grocery stores within convenient traveling distance.” Food deserts occur disproportionately in low-income neighborhoods and among communities of color. Decades-old redlining initiatives prevented Americans, particularly Black Americans, from moving upward economically. According to Tufts University professor Julian Agyeman, “A process of ‘supermarket redlining’ has seen larger grocery stores either refuse to move in to lower-income areas, shut existing outlets or relocate to wealthier suburbs. The thinking behind this process is that as pockets in a city become poorer, they are less profitable and more prone to crime.” Food deserts are the vestiges of previous government practices designed to systematically prevent racial equality. If grocery chains refuse to enter more impoverished areas and if the residents in those areas are intentionally prevented from building wealth, then a vicious cycle emerges in which grocery stores may never be willing to branch out into less wealthy neighborhoods.

Moreover, food deserts often occur in conjunction with “food swamps” — areas with food options that are overwhelmingly less healthy, such as fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and drugstores. While intervention in food deserts is usually aimed at increasing access to healthy foods, in food swamps, there is also a strong focus on reducing access to unhealthy food. Routine consumption of fast-food explains why minority and low-income communities have higher rates of diet-related conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, than other Americans. Food deserts emphasize the already present distinction between the diets of higher-income and lower-income Americans, with higher-income Americans eating multiple more servings of vegetables, whole grains and other healthy foods. On the contrast, lower-income Americans drink “5 more sweetened beverages” a week. Moreover, the dominance of large corporations, such as McDonald’s, suggests that it is far easier for producers of fast-food to multiply in lower-income neighborhoods where consumers can more easily afford cheap goods rather than fresh produce, than it is for smaller grocery store chains or mom and pop shops to sustain themselves.

But even the term “food desert” is flawed — it conjures up images of barren lands in a vague Old West setting when, in reality, food deserts often occur in urban settings like New York City, where about 750,000 people live in food deserts. Activist Karen Washington has proposed an alternative moniker — “food apartheid.” Washington argues that “food desert” is an “outsider” term that is prescriptive rather than nuanced while “‘food apartheid’ looks at the whole food system, along with race, geography, faith and economics.” Washington’s “food apartheid” rejects the notion of monolithic, spontaneous food deserts and instead recognizes that lack of access to food is not simply spontaneous. It is rooted in programs of systemic racism, like redlining, that have purposely created and barricaded poor communities of color from adequate food supplies.

It’s important to recognize that a food apartheid doesn’t just concern food moving from the market to the consumer — an unjust food system also includes the skewed access farmers of color have to subsidies. For many years, the USDA systemically favored white farmers by denying or delaying loans to Black farmers. A 1994 USD report found that “loans to Black male farmers were, on average, worth 25 percent less than those given to white males. And 97 percent of disaster payments went to white farmers, while less than 1 percent went to Black farmers.” Today, only 45,000 of the 3.4 million farmers in the United States are Black, as opposed to 1 million in the early 1900s, but farm subsidies are still overwhelmingly given to white farmers. People of color are excluded from the food system not only in the production stage but also in the distribution and acquisition stages.

Advertising and the selection of goods within grocery stores, even those that are not in food deserts, also play a role in the nation’s nutrition gap. Activists posit that a lack of education is partially to blame for why lower-income Americans consume more unhealthy foods than higher-income Americans. Some goods, like vegetables, are widely known as healthy, while foods such as white rice are not as evident. Advertising for fast-food and junk food is also viewed overwhelmingly by people of color — “Black children and teens viewed about 75 percent more fast-food TV ads in 2019 than their white peers… between 2012 and 2019, fast-food restaurants increased ad spending on Spanish-language TV by 33 percent.” It is a combination of all of the aforementioned factors — a lack of wealth, a lack of education and a lack of protection from predatory advertising — that prevent Americans from making better nutritional choices.

Binghamton University and surrounding areas are denoted by the USDA as a food-insecure region, because it is a low-income tract where residents are significantly far from a supermarket. It is unclear, however, whether the income measurements are skewed because the vast majority of people living in this tract are students. Regardless, students know the struggle of reaching the local Target or Walmart all too well, having to transfer from bus to bus and walking on narrow sidewalks bordering Vestal Parkway. In 2021, however, Binghamton’s North Side ended a 25-year designation as a food desert when Greater Good Grocery opened. Funding “came from state and federal grants and donations from local foundations,” emphasizing the feasibility of a collective solution to food insecurity.

But Binghamton’s recent triumph is also a reminder that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for food insecurity. Efforts focusing solely on opening new grocery stores in other food deserts have been underwhelming. Though nearly a hundred grocery stores have opened in Pennsylvania since 2001, for instance, many residents still struggle with diet issues. Similar proposals to impose soda taxes and zoning laws with quotas on fast-food restaurants have proven controversial and ineffective. More thoughtful reform — including more emphasis on nutrition education and stronger connections with local communities — is needed rather than throwing money at the issue and searching for the least intensive solution. Caution should be exercised when attempting to address the issue of food deserts — real change can only be brought about by a recognition of Karen Washington’s food apartheid, a far more complex interpretation of all of the factors that lead to nutritional inequality. Rather than linking food insecurity with unpopulated “deserts,” initiatives should be taken to humanize those in need. Lack of access to food impacts real people in real situations, particularly people and situations that have been affected by systemic racism and government mismanagement. Efforts addressing food insecurity should be coupled with efforts to eradicate the lingering effects of redlining, efforts to hold government agricultural agencies accountable and more.

Food is a human right. Allowing millions of Americans to eat themselves into dire health issues because they cannot help themselves is an immoral status quo.

Kathryn Lee is a sophomore double-majoring in English and economics.