How Fast Food Chains Supersized Inequality

The New Republic ^ | August 2, 2017 | Max Holleran

[2ndDivisionVet]

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans there was a brief moment of shocked compassion before racial anxieties flooded the Internet. Victims of the disaster were quickly recast as looters, criminals, and layabouts. They were government “dependents” seeking even more entitlements now that they were bona fide survivors. Some of these hideous opinions drew on the physical “evidence” of the bad character of hurricane survivors: their size. The mostly black bodies crowding the Superdome, getting on rafts, and being carried away by helicopters, were too large for online critics. Obesity, while common in the US and over-represented in the South, was conflated with blackness. Black bodies fleeing New Orleans were not only linked to historic stereotypes of menace and criminality but also slothfulness, helplessness, and a tropical torpidity unwelcome in hard-working America.

African Americans are more likely to be obese in the United States than their white counterparts. The same is true for Hispanics. For some conservatives, that may be an indictment. For the rest of us, it is a public health problem. The rise in obesity in the U.S. is an epidemic and much of the root causes lie in poverty, a condition more prevalent in communities of color. In many U.S. cities, bodegas serve dinner in the form of chips and soda to low-income people living nearby who have no access to neighborhood supermarkets. For those without much money or options, fast food can be a blessing: a full meal that is quick and affordable in a safe and predictable setting. Yet, these very meals are one of the country’s biggest public health menaces. Filled with fat and sugar, fast food is contributing greatly to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.....

[2ndDivisionVet]

So no good deed goes unpunished?

[BlackAdderess]

wut?!

[Olog-hai]

NYU “urban sociology” Ph.D professor. Talk about a doctorate in nothing.

[Grampa Dave]

Did Mad Max blame Trump for Katrina?

[BlackAdderess]

Wait...

I thought that only “deplorables” were supposed to be fat and dumpy. The other groups are supposed to be fit and fabulous, or so the narrative goes.

[wardaddy]

Ridiculous article

[2ndDivisionVet]

I was a Biloxi Katrina survivor and worked with the Louisiana survivors as a supervisor at the unemployment office in Dallas, Texas. Almost every word in that first paragraph is all too true.

[CincyRichieRich]

Liberal white guilt is a smelly thing.

[rusty schucklefurd]

Good grief! How long ago was Katrina?

[BenLurkin]

Victims of the disaster were quickly recast as looters, criminals....

Yes, well, fact was....

[2ndDivisionVet]

12 years ago.

[PGR88]

There were just 405 minority franchises in the United States in 1969. By 1974, there were 2,453. This growth owed not a little to loans from the SBA. McDonald’s went from one minority franchise in 1969 to 10,142 in 1984 (mostly African American).

Not having black owners is racist. Successfully romoting black ownership is also racist.

Got it.

[wardaddy]

I don’t agree that poor people are helpless folks no can’t resist too many chips or too much McDonald’s dollar menu

They don’t resist too much cheap food because they don’t have the discipline to

And that lack of discipline pervades their lives and causes them to be fat and frequently lazy too

Ive been on the coast a lot since February dealing with a friend at Driftwood nursing home in Gulfport who was in hospice till this morning

I think there are less fat folks there than in middle tennessee which is saying something

In any event it’s not about lack of availability to less fattening food

They simply won’t resist too much food

We are so so so fat outside the upper classes where there is pressure to not be fat

My ancestry a few hours north of Biloxi where dirt poor and laden with butter and lard and sausages and fattty food galore

But they did more than collect disability and sell pain pills and eat too much cheap fast food

They worked

[CodeToad]

No one forces blacks to eat fast food. Since most are considered “poor” they should be cooking at home instead.

[marktwain]

The rise in obesity in the U.S. is an epidemic and much of the root causes lie in poverty, a condition more prevalent in communities of color.

---

When a documentary about poverty in America was unleased on the world, it was supposed to show how evil America was. Instead, the reaction was the opposite.

One person in India is quoted as saying: “I want to live where the poor people are fat!”

The idiotic writer of this historic revisionism starts with a false premise: All the evils of the world are caused by capitalism and racism. Starting with a false premise is an excellent way to reach idiotic results.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Ph. D in “hate whitey”.

[wardaddy]

I got off topic

Yes it’s true

Blacks are fat

And the whites who went in the super dome and convention center were tragically naive

I watche them go inside all laughing

I thought you guys are sure stupid

[Fiddlstix]

IT has been my experience that The New Republic is nothing more than a liberal "rag" not worth the time to read it.
jmho

[marktwain]

No one forces blacks to eat fast food. Since most are considered “poor” they should be cooking at home instead.

---

You are expecting leftists to believe that there is such a thing as free will. They do not believe in it. Everything is caused by economic determinism. They do not believe in responsibility or freedom. (unless it can be used to show White people as being evil)

They believe in power, and that they should have it.

[a fool in paradise]

Looting is okay now. Gotta get ready for the movie about the Detroit riots showing how all property is theft, man.