Black Residents Navigate an Unequal Food Landscape in Washington, D.C.

Renee Catacalos

doi:10.5304/jafscd.2020.093.011

Abstract

First paragraph: In Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C., Dr. Ashanté Reese guides us through the interconnected issues that affect the food landscape in many low-income Black communities, through the words and experiences of residents of Washington, DC’s, Deanwood neighborhood. In examining residents’ “geographies of self-reliance,” she uses the neighborhood as a prism to refract the intertwining and contradictory forces hidden within the inaccurate label “food desert.” As she says in her concluding chapter, “The neighborhood functions as an intermediary space where macro-level processes, such as where resources are placed, can be connected to micro-level processes, such as how residents determine what to buy and where to buy it from” (p. 131). . . .

Highlights

In Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C., Dr Ashanté Reese guides us through the interconnected issues that affect the food landscape in many low-income Black communities, through the words and experiences of residents of Washington, DC’s, Dean
In examining residents’ “geographies of self-reliance,” she uses the neighborhood as a prism to refract the intertwining and contradictory forces hidden within the inaccurate label “food desert.”
In the Introduction, “Black Food, Black Space, Black Agency,” Dr Reese examines how decades of intentional anti-Black policies intersected with the development of the term “food desert” and argues that “food apartheid” may be the more accurate way to describe neighborhoods like Dean-Volume 9, Issue 3 / Spring 2020

Summary

Introduction

In Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C., Dr Ashanté Reese guides us through the interconnected issues that affect the food landscape in many low-income Black communities, through the words and experiences of residents of Washington, DC’s, Dean-. Black residents navigate an unequal food landscape in Washington, D.C. Review by Renee Brooks Catacalos, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders *

Results

Conclusion