Ask AI Mark and others explain why African American and Latino communities face worse health outcomes. Food apartheid, institutional racism, and historical inequities create unequal access to healthy food and healthcare.
We're seeing this tremendous increase in diseases in African American and Latino populations. It's not an accident.
Yeah, absolutely. So food apartheid is the right term because as you mentioned, if you are black or brown, you know, Latinx, indigenous, you're much more likely to struggle with diabetes, heart disease, and other diet-related illnesses. Not to be clear because we don't know how to make good food choices or know how to cook food or want those foods. It's really because of access. If you have $3 in your pocket and you live in a food apartheid zip code, you can get some hot Cheetos and blue colored drink, but you cannot get a burrito, a salad, or anything like that. Nothing. And so it's really a tragedy that is rooted in institutional racism. Because as I mentioned, in the 1930s, the federal government commissioned these maps to be made of neighborhoods that ranked them from most desirable to lend down to least desirable. And the communities of color were outlined in red as too risky to lend too risky to have a mortgage too risky to own homes. And so the wealth disparity has grown and the property ownership disparity has grown and with it these neighborhood conditions.
