I see the 'food desert" myth hasn't died yet
The "food desert" myth is alive and very well in virtually every locality in the U.S. that has the ..uh..."right" demographics. The tv channel in my old hometown of La Crosse, Wis. recently ran a series about how La Crosse is, you guessed it, a "food desert."
They produced a lot of anecdotal stories and some dodgy stats to try to prove their point. But the fact is nobody in La Crosse is starving or hungry because they lack access to grocery stores. There is a regular-sized grocery store near downtown La Crosse, and there are convenience stores that sell a small selection of nutritious food near the downtown urban areas where many black people live. And there are buses within a short walking distance that can transport urban people from place to place including to and from regular-sized grocery stores.
But now, since there is a growing black population in La Crosse, certain people are trying to prove that some people are being oppressed and possibly starved to death because there isn't a grocery story one block from where they live or close by.
The thing is 30 years ago when there was virtually no black people in La Crosse (still only 2% of the population) there were no stories about food deserts even though the grocery stores weren't any closer than they are now. Nobody had any problem accessing grocery stores.
But certain people..okay, raging liberals, are trying to prove some sort of racism exists because many of the black people are living in parts of the city that do not have grocery stores within a few blocks of where they live.
My wife and I live five miles from the closest grocery store. Are there going to be stories about people who live outside urban areas like we do as living in "food deserts"? I think not. Most of the people in the rural areas around La Crosse are white. And as we know white people can't be oppressed....only black or brown people can be oppressed.
