Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Michael Bennett

Author:Michael Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2018-02-23T05:00:00+00:00

WITHOUT FOOD, YOUR ASS IS GOING TO DIE

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

—Muhammad Ali

I love to eat. But I don’t live to eat. I eat to live. This issue of food and what is known as “food justice” has been a journey for me, from growing up spending summers on a Louisiana farm, eating only healthy foods straight out of the earth that I picked with my own hands, to going through a long period where nothing I ate was healthy. Everything was processed: the quicker and greasier, the better. Then in the NFL I started to take nutrition seriously, and my performance on the field changed. But it was important to much more in my life than football. Eating with a healthy mind-set changed my sleep, my state of mind, and even my skin.

I’ve moved from just thinking about eating healthily to seeing food as an issue that demands activism. It didn’t happen by accident. I was invited to a government forum on the problem of childhood obesity in in the United States. This was a life-changing experience, although probably not in the way the organizers of this event wanted it to be. The childhood obesity forum brought together people from different areas to address this pressing issue. There were political officials, nutritionists, and school superintendents on the scene, but there were also representatives from McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi. I was sitting there, listening, taking it all in—and slowly I started to get irate, like I could’ve taken a shit on the table, I was so mad. The people from McDonald’s, Coke, and Pepsi were talking about kids as the source of the problem, as if kids were stupid for choosing to consume the companies’ products: the nasty crap they push kids to eat and drink. I was thinking, They are talking about me. If I were still a kid, I would be the very stereotype they are branding as the source of the problem of this national health crisis.

Imagine the nerve: here’s McDonald’s and Coca-Cola talking about how they want to help these kids to not be a problem. I’m thinking, You guys are the problem! How are you even here at a roundtable to discuss nutrition? Who the fuck let you in?!? I had to speak right then and there. I started chewing their asses out in that room. I said, “What you guys are saying is not true! If given the opportunity and the right resources, these kids would eat right. I don’t care what y’all are saying. They drink sixty-four-ounce cups of soda because this is what they have, and what you guys are pushing on them.”

That day I was so damn mad, I decided to start my foundation. I went straight home to Pele and said, “Did you know this is going on? The fucking people sitting in a room making decisions about childhood nutrition are the ones who benefit from obesity.” That’s why my foundation deals with every aspect of food, from the earth to the plate.

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