A Way Out Of Food Racism And Poverty

If we want to deal with the food system, get the junk food and the processed food out of our community. Plain and simple, plain and simple.

Welcome to Dr. Mark Hyman's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. That's Pharmacy with an F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations that matter. And today's conversation, I think, matters a lot because it's about the issues that face us in America in our food system, that face underserved communities, that address the racial injustices within our food system and food injustice in general. And we have an extraordinary guest today, Karen Washington, who is a farmer, an activist, a food advocate, and she lives in the Bronx, where she has been growing food for decades and decades now in abandoned lots and community gardens and has built farmers markets and has actually now builds a whole farm up in Upstate New York, in Chester, New York, where she's got Rising Root Farm and brings that food to underserved communities in the Bronx and New York. She's also co-founded Black Urban Growers or BUGS, which is an organization supporting growers in both urban and rural settings. She's really a leader in the food movement and is bringing together all sorts of voices that have not been heard and that need to be heard about food injustice and how do we address these issues systemically? In 2012 Ebony magazine voted her one of the 100 most influential African-Americans in the country. She was a recipient of the James Beard Leadership Award, which is no small thing in 2014. She serves on the boards of New York Botanical Garden, Soul Fire Farm. We've had Leah Penniman on the podcast from Soul Fire Farm and the Mary Mitchell Center, why Hunger and Farm School New York City.

So welcome, Karen. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Well, Karen, you've been doing this work a long time. And I know your story starts with you eating a tomato and how it woke you up to the fact that most of the stuff that we eat isn't really food. It's some kind of industrial product that resembles food but actually isn't full of the juicy nutrition and taste that we are lacking. And so what happened with that tomato and tell us that story? How that got you connected to from a girl who grew up in the projects in the Bronx to being an urban farmer and a farmer?

Yes, I always tell that story because my parents weren't farmers, my grandparents weren't farmers, nobody in my family were farmers. And my relationship to food was that my mom was a good cook. Oh my goodness, she could slam three meals a day. And the fact that food came from a grocery store, duh. And so when I moved to the Bronx, I had a big backyard and had three options, either to cement it, put a lawn on it, or grow food. And I said, what the heck? Let me grow some food. So there's four things that I want to grow. I had to grow some collard greens because that's a staple in the African-American history cuisine. I wanted to grow eggplant because it was funky eggplant, really?

Yeah.

Green peppers and tomato. And so I put the seed in the ground. nurtured it, watered it, and to my amazement, it grew in a vine.

Who knew?

First of all, it grew in a vine. What? A tomato on a vine? And it was red.

And it didn't come in a box.

It didn't come in a box wrapped in cellophane. And when I bit into it, it just changed my world. I just, there was a taste that I've never tasted before, and it really got me growing everything from trying to grow pineapples to avocados, you name it.

Yeah, probably that pineapple growing didn't go so well in Bronx, right?

No, but it gave me that inspiration to try and grow more things. So that's how I got started.

Yeah. So you grew up in the Bronx, which, you know, as you said before, is the most unhealthy of all the 60 plus counties in New York State is the unhealthiest county in the state. And there are a lot of reasons for that. I love you. You were involved in the medical profession for a long time. You were a physical therapist for most of your life, and you were taking care of people with chronic illnesses in the Bronx, and you saw that up close and personal. So from your perspective, growing up in that environment, seeing what was going on in the food community there, in the challenges around affordable housing, education opportunities, work opportunities, what are the drivers of of those poor health outcomes from your perspective?

Well, first of all, you know, when I started growing food, I just couldn't concentrate on just growing food because so many things were happening around me living in the Bronx for over 30 something years and being a physical therapist. I saw the relationship between food and health. I saw the relationship between food and education and the environment and housing and how they all intersected. And then I realized that, you know, talking to especially a lot of my patients who were older, who came from farms, and realizing that at one time their parents and grandparents lived till they were 100 years of age, and now here they are, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, succumbing to strokes, end-stage renal diseases, and right then and there it sort of clicked in my head, that there's something wrong with our food system because here were people who grew up on farms who were healthy. Now all of a sudden because of what they were eating, we're getting these diet related diseases. And when I would go into their homes as a physical therapist, I was like a holistic physical therapist because I couldn't really work and do my job unless I looked at their medication and looked at the food that they were eating.

So I-- you- look at their medication cabinet, you look at their fridge.

Oh boy. And when I-- Fridge biopsy. That fridge and that fridge and the kitchen. Cabinet and open that cabinet door and we see cookies and chips in the freezer, ice cream in the refrigerator, soda, and it was like, what the heck is going on here? Yeah. And so because, like I said, going to my, going to my neighborhood and going to the bodegas and seeing the colors of fruits and vegetables, but yet it was potato chips, it was cookies, It was sodas. And then I got to thinking that, wait a second, there's got to be some sort of thing that is going on, especially in low-income neighborhoods. Because when I would go to my white friends' neighborhoods and go into their stores, walking in there, you would see fresh vegetables and fruits, and you would never see, you would never see the type of food that I would see in my neighborhood. That's number one, number two, on my block in my area, you can go every block to see a fast food small. But when you go to my white neighborhoods, to the suburbs, you gotta take a car to drive. And so, you know, it just got me thinking about the food system and what it was happening, not only in my neighborhood in the Bronx, but in so many of my friends' neighborhoods that lived in Detroit and Baltimore and Philly. We were having these same conversations about what we're seeing in our food system in low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color.

And did the people who were suffering from diabetes or patients, did they understand that what was in their fridge and what they're eating was causing them to be sick? Or were they just trying to just get by and kind of eat it best they could?

The thing about it is that when you're on a fixed income, you try to stretch those dollars. And so you try to spend as be somewhat proactive in what you can spend getting, you know, a buck for your dollar and most cheap, we know most unhealthy food is cheap. And so, you know, I didn't want to go there and be, you know, the sergeant and reprimand. I just wanted them to see the relationship to between food and health. That's number one, but also to understand that You know, if you're a diabetic, you know, there's a whole concept with diabetes. You should know about that because you're diabetic, sugar becomes like a drug. You know, you want it more. You want it more, you want more sugar. If you're a dialysis patient, you know, you're limited to amount of liquids, but you want more water and more. And so even though you would try to, you know, talk to the patient, and they would understand, don't get me wrong, they understood their disease and what was happening. But when depression, you know, sets in and when you trying to stretch your dollars, sometimes you just say, you know, what the heck? You know, what the heck?

So you think it's a lack of education or lack of skills or knowledge?

I don't think it's a lack of education. What I think it is, is that if you gave people healthy food options, they would take it. But there's no healthy food options. You know what I used to say is, time and time again, people will tell our community, if you want to be healthy, all you got to do is drink water, give up soda, drink water, eat fruits and vegetables, plant a little garden, without looking at the systemic problems instructing the institutional and structural problems that reinforce racism in our society.

Yeah.

And no one talks about that.

No, it's true. I mean, I remember working with my friend Chris Kennedy and Sheila Kennedy in South side Chicago, where they created a program called Top Box. It was a non-profit that got food basically at wholesale from distributors, right, from the meat packers, the farms. They packaged it up in boxes. fresh food was 35 bucks for a family of four for a week of fresh food. And they brought it into the churches in the South side of Chicago. And you could see from the church, there was no grocery store in St. But you could see literally from the church parking lot, probably five or six fast food restaurants just circling around. And the whole parking lot was filled with people, mostly African-Americans hungry to get real food if they had access. And I think, you know, that's something you probably have witnessed in your community is when you bring these foods there. People want it. And it's not that they're avoiding it, it's just they don't have access. Is that fair to say?

That's absolutely correct though. Yeah. Absolutely correct. And I say that because you can't tell people to eat healthy, eat fresh fruits and vegetables if they don't have that option.

Yeah.

And so for me, you know, I've been trying for years, started a, you know, a farmer's market, Low-income farmers market in the Bronx. We're going on our 18th year to do just that, to provide our community with the access of fresh fruits and vegetables. And why does it always have to be in affluent neighborhoods and not in our neighborhood?

Yeah, so true. I think most people don't realize the extent of health disparities. And it's often passed off as genetic or whatever. if you look even at America in the 1960s, African Americans had healthier diets than whites. And if you look at pictures from back then on the marches, there were no people who were overweight of color back then. It was pretty much everybody was slim and it was just not an issue. And all of a sudden in a generation, we've seen the incredible sort of speed of these diseases ravaging this community. So if you're an African American, you're 80% more likely to have type 2 diabetes, four times as likely to have kidney failure, three and a half times as likely to get amputations as whites. Same thing if you're Latino. And in COVID-19, we're seeing incredible racial disparities where African Americans and Latinos are three times as likely to get it and die of it as whites. And it's not just because of genetic susceptibility. There's these structural racism issues that I think are embedded in our society, whether it's the essential workers who are mostly brown and black who have to endure commutes and working in close quarters and whether it's food packing plants or farms, migrant farmers, they're the ones who are getting sick or whether it's because they live in more crowded housing and can't isolate or whether they just don't have access to the same kind of health care, they're not getting the same type of health care and testing, you're less likely for African American, for example, to get tested for COVID. If you have symptoms, then if you're white. So there's all these embedded problems in our system. And I think that, you know, the framework that you have described, is quite different than we typically think of this idea of food deserts. We talk about food deserts as this sort of natural phenomenon, like a desert is a natural thing, but it's not a natural thing. It's a designed problem and you refer to as food apartheid. So can you talk about this concept of food apartheid and how do we begin to break down this food apartheid issue?

Mark, you know, I don't understand why, especially during this climate right now here, in 2020, when all of a sudden people just woke up and realized Black Lives Matter, you know what I'm saying? That's number one. And people know for a fact, where does the cheap subsidized processed food go into? They know, I mean, it's not rocket science. They know for a fact that it goes into poor neighborhoods, mostly neighborhoods of color. So, you know, let's cut the BS when it has this conversation, because everyone because it's not going to their neighborhood. So everyone knows that there is a difference between what is in white affluent neighborhoods and what is in poor black and brown neighborhoods. That's number one. And, you know, I'm infuriated by that conversation because all of a sudden people act like they're dumb, like they don't know. And they know exactly the difference when it comes to food and housing and education based on color, demographics, and how much money you make. And so when the term food deserts was first brought to our attention in my community, I sort of backed off of that. I'm saying, wait a second, we live in a food desert? First of all, who coined the term that's number one?

Why is it people probably?

Why is being used? There's some woman in the UK coined it. And then of course the USDA and everyone picked up on it because when you say food desert, it sort of like softens the tone of the food disparities we see in our society. And so for me it says forget food desert because people in the desert would say, wait a second, we can't food.

Yeah.

And so I coined the term food apartheid only because I wanted people to first of all, what does that mean? But also look at the food system along race, the color of one skin, look at the food system of demographic, where does one live and look at the food system or how much money you make your affluence, you know, and economics and wealth. And when you start talking about food apartheid, I wanted people to start having that conversation around these issues because It's time and time again we go over and over again about the school system when we all know for a fact where does a cheap and subsidized school enter each and every day? And I'm sick and tired of having that conversation because for me it's about action. How do we change it? How do we stop spinning our wheels talking about hunger and poverty and food deserts and pre-existing diseases and diet-related diseases. You know, at one time you look at this country, and even in the world, it was more plant-based. And as we started to add more animals, we become more animal-based in our food. And as a result, at one time we were 2,000 calories per capita. Now over 3,800 calories per capita. and you can see what was happening in other countries as we've gone from plant-based to animal-based, the intake of calories.

And as you said, mostly starchy, sugary calories, that's it.

Sugary calories, how we've paid farmers to grow subsidies such as corn. Corn is a billion dollar business to turn into high fructose corn syrup. That corn that you see is not for us, it's for food and it's for feeding cows that really can't digest it.

And ethanol, stupid.

Right. So let's get off this bandwagon about the food system and yeah, it needs to be fixed. No one needs it doesn't need to be fixed. This is exactly what it's supposed to be doing because we know for a fact you ask any person, you know, in this country, well, would you rather, you know, shop at a low income neighborhood or would you like to go to like the Whole Foods, which are in Trader Joe's? and see. So, I'm done.

It is fascinating. I saw this clip on Instagram of a woman talking to a largely white audience, I think almost all white audience, saying, how many of you in this audience would like to be treated in the way that African Americans are in this country and have their experience? And not a single person stood up, should stand up. she said, I don't think you understood my question. Would anybody who would like to be treated as an African-American in this country just stand up? No one stood up. She said, well, you all know the problem. You, you're just pretending you don't know. And I think it's, it's easy to look aside and ignore it. It's easy to blame people. And I think there's a lot of focus on personal responsibility. You know, people just aren't eating well because they don't want to. But there really are structural issues of access, the structural issues of of skills, of knowledge, of tradition that are just obscured the ability for people to reclaim their health and their traditional food waste. And I think that's what you're doing in the Bronx. That's what you're doing with your farm. And I think it's interesting to hear from you what has that experience been like over the last few decades of being in those communities and trying to change the way people think about food and their health and access. How is that giving you insight into maybe how to solve this problem on a bigger scale?

Well, I think for me, I see myself as an agitator as well. I've been gifted, I guess, with the ability to say what I want to say. I've never been beholden to like a nonprofit or a job that's sort of like, you know, Karen, you can't say that, oh, you know, the funders are not going to like that. So I've always been a person of very independent in what I've been able to say and do. And so that conversation I would have with my patients was really, really mind-blowing because, you know, after a while they would sit down and say, Miss Washington, you're right. You know, I was, you know, my parents were never sick a day in their life and look at me, you know, and they would want to change and I would bring them fresh fruits and vegetables from my farmer's market at the end of the day because I think I wanted them to to care, you have someone to care about them, but then also to take action. I mean, talk is cheap, people talk about full justice and full sovereignty, but for me, in order to do this work, you have to be actively involved in dismantling some of the social injustices that you see. And so for me, doing like the farmer's markets, going around and speaking at different venues, I think my biggest accomplishment has been through the BUGS conference is the impact that it has on young people. On the younger generation of Black and Brown youth. And I say that because growing up as a youth, if I was to tell my parents that I wanted to be a farmer or anybody, they would look at me like I was crazy. I mean, even to think about going on a farm or visiting a farm or wanting to be a farm, because for so long growing up, farming was equal to slavery. You know, you're working for the man, this and that. And so now, and that was a history that was embedded in, in my head, you know, but since I've been older and really been in the food world and to really understand the history of the African-American experience in this country and how African American enslaved people built the agricultural system in this country with seeds in our hairs and knowledge around crop rotation and irrigation and medicinal herbs and tools. All of a sudden, there's a resurgence of inquiry, especially from our youth, getting the history right. And once you plant that seed in their head and understand that What we've done wrong as African Americans is that we moved away from the land. And as we moved away from the land, you can see what has happened to us. Our history is that we are agrarian people. This is in our DNA, this is our blood. We are people of land and food. And so when you start talking to that to young people and have them understand their place in history, their place in In agriculture, all of a sudden a light bulb goes off. And it says, wait a second, I've been taught that farming has been slavery when in fact it's my people who brought farming to this country. I should embrace it. I want to embrace it. I want to understand more. And then I don't want to be like my parents and grandparents who are now stroke, end-stage renal diseases, amputations, you name it. I want to lead a more healthier life, that's number one. But then I also want to go back to the land. I want to go back to the land because there's a history around stolen land, there's a history around wealth building that has been taken from us. And so we're trying to right that wrong and put that knowledge back into the hands of young people so they understand the importance of growing food, the importance of going back to the land, the importance of what it means to be in community, what social capital and communal wealth wealth means to us. And so the whole dialogue has shifted and the concentration has been on our youth. So for me to see the overwhelming youth that want to farm is extraordinary. Hi everyone.

Hope you're enjoying the episode.

Before we continue, we have a quick.

Message from Dr. Mark Hyman about his.

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They need to fix the heirs property laws that is really stifling families that have land in the South, especially those that don't have a will, I'm struggling out with my family. We have 18 acres down in South Carolina and looking for the will from my grandmother, it's hard. And so, you know, you have to go to probate. There's so many things you have to do and they need to fix it so that people that are on the land have a way of succession, have a way of getting that land and holding onto that land. that people know that's in their family without all the hurdles of trying to find a will and trying to go to probate and trying to testify that, you know, it belongs to your family. Because as we speak, Black land loss is being done each and every day. And so we need to fix that system, the heir's property system, so that Black families can maintain and maintain the legacy of the land that has been given to them. That's number one. Number two, I try to have this conversation with young people, Black and brown young people, if they have land in the South, if they have land in Puerto Rico, Latin America, you name it, is to hold on to that land because a lot of times the land also is being lost for non-payment of taxes. And so getting people to understand, you know, pay those taxes, even if you live up in the North and your land is in the South or your land is in Latin America or the Caribbean, make sure that you pay those taxes. And I think people are starting to understand the importance of land ownership. Also, we talk about reparations now. I mean, that's something that is a conversation that's being brought up. I know whites don't like to hear that conversation, but it's going to happen anyway. There is land that people know, stolen land that people have in their family. And there's a lot of whites that understand that need of reparation and are willing to give back land ownership to people of color.

Let's talk about reparations because I think there's different concepts of it. One is like in Nazi Germany, there were reparations paid to the Jews in monetary compensation to each family. But it seems to me that you've talked about a different way of helping these communities by empowering them with investment, with entrepreneurship training, with helping them start businesses, with creating autonomy within their communities and providing the services allow them to thrive and be autonomous as opposed to being dependent on social services and all these other prop ups that don't empower these communities to emerge from their situation. And wouldn't reparations be better served by paying for those types of investments in those communities and empowering those communities to do it for themselves?

Well, I think it's a double-edged sword. My mantra has always been economic development, fiscal responsibility, communal wealth, and social capital. I've always talked about that. I always say, give us three things: give us opportunity, give us access to capital, and give us land. And people who once deemed powerless become powerful. But I think also there are people that know that within their family that that land has been stolen. You know what I'm saying? I mean, there's a new generation that that's starting to surface again, Black Lives Matter. And so I think in the best interest of history that those people that feel that they would like to give back land or, you know, have land that they feel that they can part with, why not? Why not have that opportunity of family members, especially if there's no legacies, you know, you one person, you have no children, you know, you have no one to leave that land to. Why not leave it to Black and Brown people who know that they will take that land and do well with it by farming it? And so when we talk about the reparation conversation, a lot of people are fearful. Number one is that, oh, it's the monetary value. But I'm trying to look at it as, you know, get back the land, you know, get back the land, you know, there's so many people have so many acres of land. You mean to tell me if you have thousand thousand acres of land, you can't give at least a tenth of that land back to people who want to grow food, especially young people, or if you are the lone survivor of a family, instead of having that land go to a state, why not donate that land to young farmers, especially farmers of color that want to farm that land. So there's different ways of looking at reparations, but at the end of the day, you know, I mean, we're having this conversation about stolen land, we're having this conversation now about land equity and what that means. And we need to have those hard conversations. We need to have those hard conversations about how this country was built on, you know, and It's going to be a difficult conversation, but it's a conversation that we need to have. And right now we're in the midst of taking back the history that for so long has been taught in our schools, that have been drilled into our minds about attitudes around land and racism and wealth and getting people to understand that the history of this country was built on the backs of indigenous enslaved people. It's a difficult conversation to have, but we must have that conversation because we have to write a wrong that for so long has been going on with false narratives.

So do you think, Karen, that we can do this through grassroots efforts like yours alone, or do we need to address some of the structural problems on a policy level? Because you've got, for example, our agricultural system that is designed to do exactly what it's doing, to produce a lot of cheap disease-causing calories in a way that's harmful to humans and harms the environment and climate. And it's not broken, it actually is working exactly the way it's designed. And in order for the kind of thing you're talking me to take hold, it really requires a change in the financing of our agricultural system and the ways in which farmers are to do the right things as opposed to the wrong things, and in changing some of the sort of policies that are undermining the development of a new agricultural system that's regenerative as opposed to destructive and extractive. And how do you see that happening in a way that's sort of parallel to what you're doing?

I think it needs the grassroots of voices to change policy. Look what is happening now. I mean, it took the grassroots movement for people to realize, wait a second, we need to look at the system as a whole, we need to look at race in this country and the implications race has woven itself throughout our institutions, our way of life, our history, you name it. And so in order for a policy shift to happen, you have to have the voices of the people, the people coming together and being outraged at what is happening for politicians to listen, because listen to me, This has been for 400 years, like all of a sudden black lives matter, and the only reason why black lives matter is because of the fact of the outcry, the outcry of grassroots people saying enough is enough. For all of a sudden the policy and politicians just sort of, wait a second, we have this huge movement of people voicing their frustration Of the system of a political system, of an economic system, we need to start to listen. And so what you're starting to see is a shift in policy starting to listen. This is why it's so important on the grassroots level that we're trying to get people to understand the power of voting. Yeah. The power of voting. And not only in the federal level, but also the local level. You know, the understanding the politics around policy. And that starts with educating people, having their voices at a local level. Vote, vote. Make sure that when you do vote, that you make the candidates First of all, you have them come out and speak on their issues, and then whoever is elected, make them accountable. You know, people ask me for so long, Mark, they say, Carol, why don't you run for office? Why don't you run for office? And I say, heck no, because you need people to make politicians accountable. And so even though there's policies and laws that are set that are made, it's the people. You know, what we've done, we have given up our power. We've given up our power to the government, to politicians. We have given up our power. And it's time, folks, for us to take back that power. Because the only reason why they're in office, the only reason why they can do the things that they do, because we let them. We let them. We're not holding people accountable. And so what I try to educate people at a local level is that when we have people who are running for office, go out, hear them, ask questions, and when they are in office, make sure that they are accountable for the things that they said that they were going to do for your community once they got into office.

Office.

Two things that will stop any movement is silence and complacency. Because just because you voted somebody in, now you're going to sit back and allow them to do whatever they want to do without the checks and balances that is needed to make sure that they're doing the right things. And I think that is going to change. I think people are going to be more accountable and the people that they put in office. And then if they're not doing their job, get them out.

Do you know the data on the voting in the Bronx? Because in Ferguson, for example, 60% of the community is African-American and 3% of the voters are registered African-American. We look back at the amendment to the Constitution after the Civil War that gave voting rights to African-Americans. And then we look at the Voting Rights Act of 1965 after Selma. We look now at what's happening, for example, even last week with the Supreme Court ruling that they were still making voting difficult by requiring two witnesses, a notary, and a photograph ID. It's a pain in the to actually even be able to get registered to vote. And on top of that, people feel just so disenfranchised. with a very bright young woman at Cleveland Clinic who is African-American, about 25 years old. I said, Are you gonna vote? She's like, Nope. I'm like, why aren't you gonna vote? She said, what doesn't matter? My vote doesn't matter. And I think people just feel so disconnected and powerless. And I think one of the interesting things as a doctor to note in terms of the risk factor for disease is that more than diet, more than smoking, more in lack of exercise, the biggest determinant of your risk of death is your social determinants or your lack of a sense of control, your lack of a locus of a sense of control within yourself over your own life and agency. And how do you overcome that piece? Because I agree, I mean, if you think of every disempowered person who is in this country, black, brown, poor, white, whatever, if they actually voted, overwhelmingly we'd have a different country. We'd have a different government, right? And so how do we kind of get that sense of empowerment and sense of control back in these communities just feel like they can actually make a difference.

Because you have, because people have lost their sense of history. We have to start talking about, we are doing that. I mean, I love Stacey Abrams really working on, you know, and checking out voter suppression. I think even with our own community, we have to understand that there's a history behind voting, that there are people within our community, and this is a conversation we have within our Black community, that have died for that right, that died for the right. And that it's scary now as the country is starting to become more black and brown.

Oh, yeah.

There is this sense of urgency for whites to control power. And so trying to get young people, black and brown people in general, to.

Understand.

Your vote means power. Things are starting to change in a favor that this country eventually is going to be predominantly black and brown. And so we will, and I used to, I hate that word minority because pretty soon we're going to be the majority. You know, because I always tell people we are the majority underserved. I hate that term minority because nowhere am I a minority. I tell people I'm the majority underserved. but it's starting to have again, it's again, everything is designed for people to feel disenfranchised and say your vote doesn't make a difference because that's being put in your head. But now taking back that narrative and saying, yes, your vote can make a difference and it can change as the population becomes more black and brown, we can see Better days, we can see our future, we can see our voices. Don't give up that power of voting because that power of voting so many people gave up their lives for. And so now again, taking back that old narrative and turning it around and empowering people why it's important and essential to vote, especially this election.

Oh, yeah.

You know, when you have a president that says to Black and brown people, that he's been the only president that has made Black people's lives much better. You gotta say, are you drinking a Kool-Aid? So again, we have to be very careful about the distortion of narratives that are being played out and really hone on to the facts. The facts is that our voice I'll vote, I'll vote, vote will make a difference.

Yeah, it's so powerful. I think this is going to be an interesting moment in history. We're going to look back on and see, you know, did we actually stand up and make the changes we need or did we just go back to the same old, same old?

We can't go back. First of all, we can't go back. COVID has changed everything. So let's look in terms of health, we can't go back. So many people have died. This is a disease that has really waken up the world globally to prepare that this is not the first pandemic that's going to happen or disease is going to happen. It has opened doors for us to question the way we live, our planet. It's questioning all these things, all these dynamics, all these intertwined and how globally we're all connected. And so we cannot go back in isolation and think that whatever happens, you know, it's just gonna happen to China, it's just gonna happen to the UK, it's just gonna happen to-- we're all interconnected. And this pandemic has shown that. And so how do we prepare ourselves for the next wave? that's number one. And then also, how do we again look at what is happening, how this disease has ravaged people of color, low-income people, and how do we move on from that sort of narrative to start looking at our health system and now our food system and our economic system, because it all interconnects. When someone says the world has changed, we're not going back, people know who the essential people are, quote, essential people are, and then so how do we move forward in such a way that justifies a new economy for people, a new way of living, addressing some of the racial injustices, the health injustices that we see, because Mark my word, Mark, we're not going back. If you think we're not going back, think again.

So if that's true, help me understand something that I struggle with, which is, as I look at whether it's Native American communities, Hispanic communities, African American communities that are ravaged by chronic disease at a far greater rate. And as a doctor, I see this. I do understand that there are the structural issues around access to employment, education, opportunities, capital, land. Those are really embedded structural problems that have to get fixed. But this story keeps going in my head that I want to just bounce off you to see if it's true, which is that the food that is in these communities is creating such dysfunction biologically that it affects kids' ability to learn and have academic achievement. It affects behavior and we know the violence and behavior we see in kids and adults is driven by food. The evidence is there. I write about it in my book, that it affects their brain function. We know that these diseases cause disability and inability to work and function in society. And so if all this is true, if it starts basically in the womb with what mothers are eating and then what kids eat, eat in their communities and what they, you know, struggle with academically and then behaviorally and then, you know, the, the, the whole sort of incarceration rates for African-Americans is five times out of whites. I mean, is that related to the food? And do people actually, do people actually in the communities understand that the food is keeping them down and preventing them from thriving and being successful? Is that, is that kind of a dumb idea or is this something that actually people are starting to think about?

It's inherent racism. You just can't talk about the food. I mean, it's the food, it's the water. Look what is happening. I just saw, I was just watching a, I think it was 60 Minutes yesterday. 60 Minutes was just talking about Flint and Newark, the water and the impact lead has had on children.

Environmental racism, yeah.

And so we just can't just focus on the food. We have to look at systemic racism that has been weaving in this country for so many years. And it has hit on every aspect of people's daily living. And it comes from racism at the workplace, racism at education, racism at food, Environmental racism, all the isms that are there is based on racism. And so for me, if we want to deal with the food system, get the junk food and the processed food out of our community. Plain and simple, plain and simple. I even went to my council person and I said, you know what? They need to be lost for zoning. Zoning. Why do I have to see, why in low-income neighborhoods do we have to see every block within walking distance to some fast food restaurant? Zoning. Zoning.

Around schools. I mean, you wouldn't let drug dealers.

Set up around schools. Exactly. Zoning.

Get it out.

Get it out. I would love, and I say this time and time again, I would love to see a vegetarian restaurant in my neighborhood, a vegan restaurant. a juice bar. Why? Why don't we see those things? And again, it's planned. It's planned. The next McDonald's, the next Wendy's, it's planned to come into low-income neighborhoods. And so again, we have to bring that attention is to get these things out of our communities. Stop talking about you know, problems with food and problems with the environment. You know what the remedy has been in our community now that you've seen so many fast food restaurants? You see now mom and pop drugstores. You see CVS. You see, because, okay, so now we have this food condition and we have these diet-related diseases and we're going to fix it with medication.

Yay! So you got the drugstore and the Fast food restaurant next to each other so they can.

Without a doubt, because used to be the liquor stores. So this like move away liquor stores. Now we got something even better. We got the CVS's and the Walgreens and you name it in the mom and pop pharmacies. And it's like, it's out of control. So folks, like I said, now is the time to start thinking about your civic duty. Your civic duty is to start getting these people, start electing these people that are going to benefit and change your community. Start at the local level. You know, make these changes at the local level. Come out, you know, and stand up and try to get these fast food restaurants out of our community, bring in more healthy food options in our community, and elect officials that will stand with you and making sure things are done.

So, Karen, you get to be mayor for a day. And you get to create sweeping policy changes in your community and in New York that would have the most impact to change the system. What would be the top things that you would focus on? Because I think there's so much needs to be done. And you've been on the ground, you've been literally in the dirt figuring this out for decades. What would be the biggest impact in terms of the policy change that could happen quickly that would make a difference in your community?

Well, definitely, first thing in all school system, take out these microwave delivered foods, put in back the daggone ovens. Put the ovens, every kitchen in every public school should have a chef.

Yes, I love that.

Should have a chef. Every school should have a chef where they are cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Yeah.

That's what I would do immediately. Boom. Get the sodas.

By the way, Karen, by the way, Karen, a friend of mine is done that in Boston, and she's done it with top chefs creating delicious food within the school budget and the school nutrition lunch guidelines. that the kids love and don't throw out that makes them perform better in school and have better behavior.

Excuse me?

It's possible.

Number two, do a lot of financial education and entrepreneurship for people within their communities. And I say that because with gentrification happening, what happens is that the people that live in a community don't have the opportunity to stay in their community and build jobs and build businesses. So I would, there's an incentive is to train or incentivize the next generation of people, businesses that live in their community, stay in their community, with job training, with capital backing so that they stay in their communities. Why do I have to see people move out of our communities that have been there for years and have people come in with these new ideas of breweries and restaurants without the faces of people that live there. Yeah.

One of the most transformational economic initiatives in the developing world was the microloans for people to be able to start their own businesses and small businesses mostly for women actually it turned out.

At least microloans, low interest or grants where you don't have to pay back. And then the third thing, what's the third thing? The third thing is thinking about communal wealth and how do we build wealth within communities of color. And this is a conversation that I have all the time because, again, poor people collectively, we have enough, we have wealth, we have power. And so now educating people to start using, to start understanding the power of that monetary value that they have. I would say 90% of poor neighborhoods spend their money outside their neighborhood.

Yeah.

Extract it. So let's start thinking about people, about reinvesting in our community that have our faces. You know what? You know, I, I, we talk about food. you know, I go into my community garden, I go up and down the street and I see so many people who can cook. They out there with their barbecue, the street vendors are out there selling their wares and it's like, wait a second, we need to hone that expertise and make sure that they're given the licenses and the proper training so that they can have a businesses to stay in the community with our faces. so street vendors, people who know how to cook, making it in such a way an incentive that their ideas are shaped so that they can run their own businesses. And instead of buying food from them and a vendor on the street, they have all, they have their own brick and mortar or online sales. So, yeah, come, come live in my city, in my world.

I want to come visit. When this all comes down, I'm going to come visit. I want to take a tour of what you're doing. It's pretty amazing. I think you really taken on almost an insurmountable problem and you shed light on some of the real challenges we have in America around our food system, around the health disparities we have, around the economic disparities, around the structural embedded systems that keep the problem perpetuating. And I think maybe it's Pollyanna of me, but I do think the food issue is a way to link a lot of these things together. and to empower people to really create change. And it seems like that's the work that you've really been focused on.

Without a doubt. And I try to say one more thing. I would like one last thing I'd like to say to my white friends and allies, because for years they have been coming to me asking for advice on how to change. And I said, you know what? It's time for white people to have those hard conversations within their communities. Sit at the table. and have white people understand why is it hunger and poverty? Why where I live is so different than where other people live? You know, I always tell people, I have had the dual experience of living and working in the white world and living and working in the black world. And whites have that, they don't have that black experience. And so, if you want to know what that means, have that Black experience. But whites need to have started having those hard conversations amongst themselves. Why in the greatest country in the world where we grow enough food, we waste enough food, yet that food is not getting back down to the people that need it the most?

It's true.

I mean, have those hard conversations.

It is hard. I mean, it's a bigger conversation, I'd say, about health. and economic disparities across the board. I mean, the New York Times just did an incredible analysis of global economic and health disparities, and America has just got the most disparities of any developed country in terms of health, life expectancy, economic opportunity, wages. I mean, just all of it is just so warped in this country, and I think it's going to have to break down before we can break through it seems like.

Yep. I mean, when you first had this conversation, and I had this sort of similar conversation when I was speaking to a group of predominantly white audience, and I said, if you had a chance to change places right now with me as being a black person, would you do that and raise your hand? And that one person raised their hand.

Right, exactly. That's a conversation, right? So people know. It ain't that great. I mean, and people don't realize how bad it is. I mean, you just in New York City, if you start in Midtown Manhattan, you go on the subway for every subway stop from Midtown to the Bronx, your life expectancy goes down by six months for every subway stop. That's how bad it is. In some communities, we see life expectancy 10, 20, 30 years less than in other communities in this country. It's really like living in the developing world. and it's because of these embedded issues. And, you know, they're complex and they're historical. And I think, you know, as a white guy, I've been just trying to understand the historical context of this because it's not in this vacuum that we find ourselves. And then the roots of it really start, obviously, in slavery, but they start after the Civil War and what happened, you know, to the rights that were given to the African-Americans at that time. They were totally usurped by all these other Jim Crow laws and segregation and lynching and disenfranchisement from the land. And now I feel like this sort of this food oppression issue for me is just so striking when I look at it from the outside as a doctor. I say, well, you know, we have given, you know, some ground in terms of civil rights, but they're being almost quashed by the level of disease and disability and lack of ability to learn and function that's because of the food system. And so it's almost like an invisible form of oppression. It's almost in some way internalized because these communities, from my experiences, aren't always aware that this is this is my traditional food. I mean, I remember one guy, he's a friend of mine, African American guy in New York City. He works in the Bronx and does community efforts and kids and schools and food and nutrition education. And he goes to visit his family in the South and like, why eating all that white people food? You know, like eating vegetables and fruits. And I'm like, there's these embedded sort of patterns that I think are really hard to overcome.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about how do you, how do you overcome that? Again, getting people to understand of the history of the African American experience when it comes to food. It has been embedded, the food system has been embedded for so long in terms of what we're eating now. And the only way that is going to really change it is really to educate people to understand that food for so long has been used as a weapon. against the Black community, Black and Brown community. It's used as a weapon against us. And as a result, you're seeing the diet-related diseases that is happening that's killing our population. I even make this statement that our food is killing us as part of a genocide that is happening. I hate to have to use that strong word, but I'm just saying it's part of a genocide that's happening within our communities. as food is being used as a weapon against us. Because it's something that we all need to have, but yet in communities of color, that food is processed food, junk food, and fast food. And making people aware of that fact, hopefully. Like I said, it's true.

I mean, people don't realize that, you know, while gun violence is horrible and needs to stop, that it's a fraction of the amount of people that die in these communities compared to diet related diseases that are totally preventable. I mean, it's just, it's staggering when you look at the numbers. And, and it doesn't feel like it's an issue that's really being sort of spoken about. Like, we're dying at the hands of this food system that's created, you know, a really sort of untenable situation for our community. This, this just, we can't get out of. Like, I think that, to me, is the biggest heartbreak, because it's, it's solvable. I mean, if you change diets, you reverse their diabetes. We see when we know how to do that.

Right? Right. You know how to do that. We know it gets, like I said, zoning changes laws. Get these fast food, processed food, get to get it, get it out of our food system. You know, as soon as it starts coming in the border of the Bronx and Manhattan, the low-income neighborhoods, stop these trucks and say, and, and turn them around. And again, the power of the people. It's like who's going to stand up? What legislators are going to stand up and have that vocal recognition, then something needs to be done. Throughout these presidential elections and congressional elections that is happening, even when Hillary and Trump were Talking, you know, we're running for president. Again, food was not an issue that was brought up. No. Even with the New Green Deal, again, it's not. Food is not being really lifted up. And we have been working behind the scenes to make sure that when we talk about the New Green Deal, that you've got to put food and the fact that food is essential if we're going to talk about health. within the black and brown community and that needs to change. And so. Well, that's it.

Well, I'm on your team, Karen. That's my goal. I wrote the book Food Fix as a way of connecting the dots and creating a roadmap for how we can start to reshape what happens at a grassroots level as well as a policy level. And, you know, your work is just so important in highlighting some of the challenges and being on the ground and showing how it can be done. And, you know, it's really inspiring. And I just thank you for all you're doing for for the incredible wisdom you're bringing to this conversation and to your community, which is kind of paddling upstream to try to make those changes. But, I just love your energy, your spirit, and you're pretty awesome. And, I want to visit your farm.

Yeah, definitely. Open invitation. But, thank you so much for having me.

Of course. Well, Karen, thank you. You're great. And, people can learn more about Karen at her website, karenthefarmer.com, you can go to riseandrootfarm.com, blackfarmerfund.org, if you want to support and help out what they're doing. She's on fire and she's doing the work. And, I'm so glad that I've connected with you, Karen. Thank you so much for being on the Doctor's Pharmacy. Thank you so much and have a great day. Okay, do you love this podcast? Please share with your friends and family on social media. Leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast and we'll see you next time on the Doctor's Pharmacy.