Facebook Publication Date: 2/18/2018 15:02
Welp.
On what I call Trump’s Humiliation Boxes:
It definitely won’t be Blue Apron.
Edited to add: please share widely! Fcbk will not let me boost, because they, again, think it might be racist.So i cannot share. Please share and share. thank you.
I have been thinking about this ever since Trump’s plan for replacing fully half of the already paltry Snap (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) funds with a box of shelf stable, carb heavy pantry items. No fresh produce. No fresh meat. Nothing that would grant a person in food need the small pleasures that the rest of us treat ourselves with. Just humiliation, judgement and a slow slide to killing the pancreas in a cardboard box.
Look. Imma say what nobody else is saying. *Middle class people eat crappy food too*.
Once more in case you missed it. *Middle class people eat crappy food too*.
When one is poor, what is also extant is poverty of options. People talk so much about poor people’s behavior.
Again, welp. Their behavior is no different than ours, or it would be were there choices.
Here in San Diego, the go to’s for what we consider healthy food in zip codes where there are people who are over represented in in SNAP benefits are both more and less limited than you think. There are fewer fast food places than the shame mongers would have you believe. There are also fewer chain markets, especially the chain markets that market themselves as ‘healthy’; no Whole Foods, or Trader Joe’s or Bristol Farms or Lazy Acres, or Sprouts.
There are independent grocers, some quite good, that offer good but limited selection, and because of lack of scale, slightly higher prices.
It’s better in whiter areas (and for those of you hipsters flooding Sherman Heights and Barrio Logan–hello gentrification!) More choice, better pricing. But there’s a secret here too.
White areas use SNAP benefits too. It’s more subtle, there is no movie-sized poster screaming ‘WE ACCEPT EBT’; usually there is no designation on the facade on the store or a sticker on the door.
But it happens. More than you think. In California, using the benefits became easier and less shaming than it used to be. No more food coupons; and then no separate machine with which to swipe your card. Now it works like any other debit card. So it’s more discreet; less a shout than a whisper.
But you still can tell. The card here in California, which shows a beautiful beach scene with craggy sandy hills (which few brown or black people will ever see) says ‘Golden State Advantage’ and it is a bit of a tell. People are still a little shamey when they use it. They cover it up, swipe quickly, put it in their wallet fast. There is sometimes an unpleasant surprise, if there are not enough funds, or if there are unallowed items they will have to pay for in cash. So unlike the soccer mom in Lululemon who makes sure we see her Amex Black, the other soccer mom who uses the benefits is all about the clean getaway.
Unless they aren’t. I have noticed that middle class people, judge others with abandon, but give themselves–and their relatives– wide carveouts. There is more shame in black and brown zip codes than there are in white enclaves.
And white (read red) states. In Alabama, for instance, fully 42% of white households use snap. By comparison, 55% percent of black households do.
But they still use it. In zip codes and states one wouldn’t expect to.
This is key. Racism has always been a cornerstone of any program aimed at the marginalized. And shame. It’s mitigated, however, when the beneficiaries are white.
As Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America says: ‘Plainly put, many SNAP recipients are President-elect Trump’s people. With 44 million Americans –living in suburban, rural, and urban areas of every state – relying on SNAP, the ‘they’ is really ‘us.’
Which is why I am not too worried about SNAP. Rabid red state politicians love to invoke the red meat of issues, that were they a category on Jeapordy, they would be ‘Things For Which To Hate Brown And Black People’. SNAP is one of them, so long as you don’t dig even a little bit deeper.
But lawmakers know the truth. There is not a single program that benefits people of color that doesn’t also benefit white people more. The face of food stamp queens may be black, to hear the media and the government tell it, but the truth is much more nuanced. In white pockets, and entire mostly white states, the face of SNAP is blond and blue. And while America can stomach Tameka getting dented cans of withered green beans, not so for the Amys and Ingrids of the plains and hollers and prairies.
And let’s not forget this–the program was once, and I think still is, under the aegis of Department of Agriculture, not HHSA. That’s the dirty little secret, and why there is more about this issue than Shaniquia and her stilletto nails. SNAP is a direct cash transfer to factory farms and packaged food producers and distributors than it is to anybody–white or black–who actually use the benefits.
I can see, and this is indeed concerning, carving out certain sections of the SNAP cohort for exceptions to the most egregious elements of the proposal–I can see them citing the logistical nightmare of delivering boxes to rural and spread out people in states and counties (because program execution and delivery is at the county level) that just happen to be majority white, while doing the program in higher density areas that are majority or significantly poc.
We will see. But perhaps racism–of the sort that grudgingly acknowledges that all is not well for white people either, and that remembers that part of the deal the gop etched with this cohort is that any draconian measures would only be for darkies–will actually have the effect of mitigating the worst of a truly shitty policy. One can hope, anyway.
But in any case it surely won’t be this:
Permalink: https://www.facebook.com/laceonrace/posts/pfbid0w6BSTeTP7JAc5WTUGaToSy6zXaUWWKSNS94mbERExcpncQifC6THjGDhZ1KJweUGl
Post Type: Photo
Caption Type: N/A
Is Cross Post: 0
Is Share: 0
Impressions: 10
Reach: 10
Reactions: 26
Comments: 5
Shares: 19