In the article “Food has played an important role in America's social justice movements,” by Martina Guzman wrote about this protest that involved this Chef called Nezza Bendele, she is a woman that cooks for social activists because she wanted them to have food in their stomachs when they are fighting for justice. Then, Guzman goes and talks about how in the 1950’s and 60’s people were fighting for rights women were a big part because they helped other activists have food. There was also talk about how the Black Panthers were the first ones to have a breakfast program that gave food to children that went to school. Next, food and justice are connected by other ways like art and have a museum that was in Detroit. They also speak about how people
Imagine working in the hot sun or being apart of child labor. You would be exhausted or want to escape. You would want better food because they provide you with so little. You would have been wishing for a better life. No one wants to work at a young age. They just want someone who cares for them. However, two people fought to stop these unfair laws. The biography “Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers’ Rights” by Judith Pinkerton Josephson is about an elder who is named Mary Harris Jones. She protested against child labor because these children were injured and she thought it was unfair. The Cesar Chavez Foundation (CCF) wrote the biography “About Cesar” to tell us how he fought for the farmers rights to give them fair laws. Both of these people fought for justice because they wanted better rights for workers. However, Cesar Chavez made a larger impact on the world we live in.
American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous could apply to many different things though. Our food is dangerous to the consumer, the workers and farmers, the animals and the environment. Walsh gives examples of each of these in his article that leads back to the main point of how dangerous the food we are consuming every day really is. He goes into detail on each of them but focuses his information on the consumer.
...st through a 22-day hunger strike. During this time, however, doctors tortured her and forcibly fed her. When reporters released stories regarding her situation and the many others who followed in her footsteps, the public was outraged and “the women received widespread sympathy from the public and politicians” (18). Though militant in her tactics, Alice Paul accomplished what she set out to do – gain the public’s attention by any means necessary.
In the essay she uses quotes, and information from many reliable sources that make the essay more of a reality. In her essay, she uses one quote that says, “”Families are struggling in a way they haven’t done for a long time,” says Brian Loring the executive director of Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County, Iowa, which provides lunches for more than two hundred kids at five locations during summer months.” This is one of her many resources throughout the article. Her great use of research, and resources helps persuade the reader this is an actual ongoing problem within America that needs to be taken care of. She also uses information from many different states from New York and Iowa to Washington and Connecticut. Her use of more than just one place in America gives the readers more knowledge that this isn’t just happening in one place, but it is happening all over America.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) works to expose the issues they face on a day-to-day basis. They try to share information so that people can realize the injustice they go through. This leads to people developing compassion and may cause people to do some relief work like giving money so the farmworkers can pay for their high rent bills. This is represented by the first stage. The CIW also has a motto of “Justice not Charity.” The quote leads people to realize that there is a structural problem and that charity alone, will not solve their problems. The root causes must be dealt with so that they can earn their rightful justice. People even do marches and write to managers in supermarkets as to attack the root causes. This is represented by the second stage. While knowing that supermarkets and food chains are the root causes of the injustice, we can only feel anger towards them because we want the farmworkers to have justice. I was so angry at the franchises that I stopped taking my business there. With time, I concentrated my anger so that it was not with specific people, but with the root cause. The third stage deals with realizing that only the poor can help themselves and that we cannot help them. This can be shown by the CIW; the CIW has helped expose their cause by protests, presentations, and even producing a movie on Netflix. They are the people directly being oppressed and they help us understand their problems. Their insight helps us live in solidarity with them. The fourth stage ties in with this idea. The CIW is full of human beings such as ourselves; we understand that they make mistakes just like we do. Due to this, we can come to an understanding that we all need to be treated equally and with dignity. Solidarity is possible because we acknowledge our own and their backgrounds and the role we play in the
According to the “Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet” on Feeding America’s website, in 2014 there were over 48 million Americans living in food insecure households, which included 32 million adults and 15 million children. For over 35 years, Feeding America continues to be in the forefront in solving this crisis by providing food to people in need through a nationwide network of food banks. In the late 1960s, Van Hengel established the nation’s first food bank and years later established the first national organization of food banks, Second Harvest. Second Harvest was later called America’s Second Harvest the Nation’s Food Bank Network and in 2008, the national organization changed its name to Feeding America.
In the essay “Spare Change”, the author, Teresa Zsuaffa, illustrates how the wealthy don’t treat people facing poverty with kindness and generosity, but in turn pass demeaning glares and degrading gestures, when not busy avoiding eye contact. She does so by writing an emotional experience, using imagery and personification whenever possible to get to the reader’s heart. Quite similarly, Nick Saul writes, in the essay “The Hunger Game”, about how the wealthy and people of social and political power such as “[the community’s] elected representatives” (Saul, 2013, p. 357) leave the problem of hunger on the shoulders of the foodbanks because they believe “feeding the hungry is already checked off [the government’s] collective to-do list” (Saul,
From time to time I volunteer to assist with distribution of food at a local food pantry at a local church. It never dawned on me that there all kinds of clients that needed the assistance until I required to write this paper for my Sociology class. I never noticed race or gender because I only saw that there were people in need based on individual circumstances. Hard times fell upon many of people and they sought assistance the best way they could. I noticed as I passed out bags of perishable foods, there were a number of people requiring assistance. There were Caucasian men and women but most were predominately African-American. Based on the initial observation, many of them were from different social backgrounds. Some of the clients were
In the article, “A Food Manifesto for the Future”, Mark Bittman makes his claim on how our American diet is unhealthy and unsafe towards our bodies and the environment as well. Within his piece, he includes multiple suggestions that could be implemented towards the foundation of a healthier, and safer diet. Within all these recommendations, Bittman states that, “When people cook their own food, they make better choices.” I decided to argue for this proposal, after personal experiences that I have had recently where I was able to see the difference between cooking at home, and eating out. Within Bittman’s piece, he states that we should, “encourage and subsidize home cooking”, which at first I did not understand how exactly our nation could subsidize home
The United States Department of Agriculture defines food unsecurity as the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, or the ability to acquire such food, is limited or uncertain for a household. Food insecurity also does not always mean that the household has nothing to eat. More simply stated it is the struggle to provide nutritional food for ones family and/or self. The people that suffer from food insecurity are not all living below the poverty line. In 2012 49.0 million people were considered food insecure in the United States of those 46.5 million were in poverty (Hunger & Poverty Statistics, 2012). For some individual’s food insecurity is only a temporary situation for others it maybe for extended period. Food insecurity due temporary situation such as unemployment, divorce, major medical or illness can be become more long term. The vast majority of these are families with children.
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien, director of public policy and research at Chicago-based Second Harvest says “’we’ve seen a real shift in who we serve. A decade ago, it was almost always homeless, single men and chronic substance abusers. Now we have children and working families at soup kitchens’” (Koch). These families that are feeling the effects of food insecurity will not be only ones affected by it, but all of America. Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues.
According to Roni Neff, Marie Spiker, and Patricia Truant, up to 40% of all food produced in America is thrown away (Neff, Spiker, & Truant, 2015, p.2). This wasted food is worth hundreds of billions of dollars that is lost each year in the United States alone, and creates many threats to our country. Food waste is an important and widespread issue in the United States because most of the food thrown away is perfectly fine, it could be used to feed the hungry, and the waste hurts the environment.
...rations. Segregation, which was once considered the norm, is now a thing of the past because of such demonstrations. Women were considered inferior to men and were forced to stay at home in the traditional role of housewife until the 1960s. The fact that women united together for equality allowed them to become active in politics, professional roles, and have control over their own bodies. Protestors in the 90s brought attention to inequality on a different level. The environment and economic inequality were now pressing issues. Demonstrations brought public attention to environmental, global, and economic issues. Without unity from these groups the United States would be a completely different country. It is with great admiration that I discuss the events and struggles that these people endured, for I don’t know if I would have the courage to do the same.
Over the last three decades, fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society and has become nothing less than a revolutionary force in American life. Fast food has gained a great popularity among different age groups in different parts of the globe, becoming a favorite delicacy of both adults and children.
American culture is changing dramatically. In some areas it’s a good thing, but in other areas, like our food culture, it can have negative affects. It is almost as if our eating habits are devolving, from a moral and traditional point of view. The great America, the land of the free and brave. The land of great things and being successful, “living the good life.” These attributes highlight some irony, especially in our food culture. Is the American food culture successful? Does it coincide with “good living”? What about fast and processed foods? These industries are flourishing today, making record sales all over the globe. People keep going back for more, time after time. Why? The answer is interestingly simple. Time, or in other words, efficiency. As people are so caught up in their jobs, schooling, sports, or whatever it may be, the fast/processed food industries are rapidly taking over the American food culture, giving people the choice of hot