“Farmers’ markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized.”
Professors from San Diego State University recently criticized farmers’ markets for being “white spaces” that contribute to the oppression of minorities.
Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco, two geography professors at SDSU, criticized the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” in a chapter for Just Green Enough, a new anthology published by Routledge in December.
The anthology, which features contributions from a variety of professors, aims to highlight the harms of “environmental gentrification,” a process in which “environmental improvements lead to…the displacement of long-term residents.”
According to Campus Reform, Joassart-Marcelli and Bosco argued that farmers’ markets in urban areas are also exclusionary, because oftentimes, many residents cannot afford the food and “feel excluded from these new spaces.”
The duo also alleged that 44 percent of San Diego area farmers’ markets cater to “households from higher socio-economic backgrounds,” which, in turn, helps to increase property values and effectively “[displaces] low-income residents and people of color.”
Farmers’ markets are environmental improvements that can lead to gentrification, Bosco and Joassart-Marcelli argue, saying farmers’ markets are “exclusionary” since locals may not be able to “afford the food and/or feel excluded from these new spaces.”
This social exclusion is reinforced by the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and the “white habitus” that they can reinforce, the professors elaborate, describing farmers’ markets as “white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized.”
Paul Plante says
What a load of academic horse****.
Here to the north of you, there is a farmer’s market in the city of Troy, New York, and you see many “people of color” or actual black people there, just as you see white people.
“People of color” or actual black people are not kept out or turned away.
So where do these ivory tower academics come up with this horse**** that farmers’ markets are “exclusionary” since locals may not be able to “afford the food and/or feel excluded from these new spaces,” and this “social exclusion” is reinforced by the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and the “white habitus” that they can reinforce, with these brainless professors describing farmers’ markets as “white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized.”
“White spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized?”
What a crock of crap that is.
What do they think these farmers are selling?
Up here, it is kale, and okra and collards and carrots and chard and potatoes and bread, which is food black people eat as much as white people eat.
And the people who shop at the farmer’s markets are the locals.
Why?
Because the food is fresher than the crap you see on the supermarket shelves.
Why else would they flock to a farmer’s market?
To get turned away because they have black skin?
How silly, how ridiculous.
Thomas D. Giese, Ph.D. says
I fear that the self righteous standard bearers of perpetual moral out rage will soon come across the CBBT and take over the Eastern Shore after it becomes known that Cape Charles has a farmers market. These people will consider it outrages that we have available, fresh, healthy, local, nutritious foods. So let’s be prepare for the onslaught in the spring. I suggest a preemptive strike.Our own pc brown shirts will make sure there are Safe Spaces available, watch carefully for Trigger words, and ban any vendor caught in an act of micro-aggression. As a show of good faith, any violator will be put in the newly installed dunking chair, and will be subjected to 25 to 100 dunks depending on the severity of the PC violation. No drownings will be allowed until after the 3rd violation. It would help if we all read George Orwell this winter! Happy New Year: is that still an appropriate greeting?
Andy says
Hey Tom, Happy belated merry Christmas and happy new year
Little Lee Lee says
It is funny how Blacks want their skin color to not be noticed. ‘See Me’, not ‘My Skin Color’……but every chance they get, they remind you of their Blackness. They have done a fine job of Self-Segregation after being allowed to attempt Integration.
Ctnc says
If 44% are in ”nice” neighborhoods, then where are the other 56%? Seems like they’re spinning the facts with the right words to support a preexisting agenda….
Paul Plante says
One has to seriously wonder, with this comment of theirs that “Farmers’ markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized,” whatever that gibberish and tripe is supposed to mean, if these two professors from San Diego State University who recently criticized farmers’ markets for being “white spaces” that contribute to the oppression of minorities, Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco, both geography professors at SDSU who criticized the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” in a chapter for Just Green Enough, a new anthology published by Routledge in December, are card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America, for they certainly seem to have imbibed not only of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Kool-Aid, but to have inhaled its noxious fumes, as well.
It would not be surprising if they were, because as the Democratic Socialists of America tell us, many Democratic Socialists of America members work in such sectors as health care, social services and teaching.
And for those unfamiliar with the movement, in “Resistance Rising: Socialist Strategy in the Age of Political Revolution- A summary of Democratic Socialists of America’s Strategy Document – June 2016” posted by William Thompson on 06.25.16, we are told as follows:
2016 was a game changing year for leftists and progressives.
We are finally reemerging as a vital and powerful force after an extended period of stagnation and demoralization, and we face a political landscape more favorable than perhaps at any time since the 1960s.
Even more surprising were the rise of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the British Labor Party in 2015 and the phenomenal success of Bernie Sanders’ “political revolution” during the 2016 United States’ presidential election.
end quotes
And actually, the Democratic Socialists of America are nothing new; they have been here for a long time, but now are becoming emergent, with such political powerhouses as Bernie Sanders and New York state governor Young Andy Cuomo, who likely will be our next president in 2020, in their ranks.
That Young Andy Cuomo has drank the Democratic Socialist Kool-Aid and is carrying their water for them with his “free” college tuition program in New York state can be seen from this excerpt from “Resistance Rising: Socialist Strategy in the Age of Political Revolution – A summary of Democratic Socialists of America’s Strategy Document – June 2016” posted by William Thompson on 06.25.16, as follows:
Free public higher education is a key example of what we might call a “transformative” reform that helps to popularize the idea of socialism and to make further, more dramatic reforms possible in the future.
Beyond its inherent benefits, such a campaign would also show people that socialist policies are both desirable and achievable.
Gaining free public higher education could serve as a crucial step in making democratic socialist politics more attractive to a wider cross-section of the U.S. public.
end quotes
So the Democratic Socialists of America are definitely here, and in New York state, the home of Hillary Rodham Clinton, they are making their political power known.
So it is not a surprise that they would include as one of their causes the harms of “environmental gentrification,” a process in which “environmental improvements lead to…the displacement of long-term residents.”
Afterall, under the heading “Democratic Socialism as Radical Democracy,” the Democratic Socialists of America inform us as follows of one of their many goals for this nation:
DSA believes that the fight for democratic socialism is one and the same as the fight for radical democracy, which we understand as the freedom of all people to determine all aspects of their lives to the greatest extent possible.
Our vision entails nothing less than the radical democratization of all areas of life, not least of which is the economy.
end quotes
Which takes us to Joassart-Marcelli and Bosco arguing that farmers’ markets in urban areas are exclusionary, because oftentimes, many residents cannot afford the food and “feel excluded from these new spaces,” while the duo also allege that 44 percent of San Diego area farmers’ markets cater to “households from higher socio-economic backgrounds,” which, in turn, helps to increase property values and effectively “[displaces] low-income residents and people of color.”
Farmers’ markets are environmental improvements that can lead to gentrification, Bosco and Joassart-Marcelli argue, saying farmers’ markets are “exclusionary” since locals may not be able to “afford the food and/or feel excluded from these new spaces.”
This social exclusion is reinforced by the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and the “white habitus” that they can reinforce, the professors elaborate, describing farmers’ markets as “white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized.”
end quotes
And that goes back to “Resistance Rising: Socialist Strategy in the Age of Political Revolution – A summary of Democratic Socialists of America’s Strategy Document – June 2016” posted by William Thompson on 06.25.16, as follows:
The democratic socialist project also entails addressing a wide range of oppressions in law, culture and society that limit people’s capacity for self-determination.
end quotes
That “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and the “white habitus” that they can reinforce, the “white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized,” fit right in there with a wide range of oppressions in law, culture and society that limit people’s capacity for self-determination, and so, it is only natural that they would be singled out for our opprobrium (harsh criticism or censure), and plenty of it, which fits in with this goal of the Democratic Socialists of America, to wit:
Finally, racial/ethnic and sex/gender-based oppressions may well continue in a socialist society.
Hence a wide range of programs to dismantle the privileges associated with whiteness, maleness and heteronormativity would have to be developed, and antidiscrimination policies in the workplace and in social organizations would have to be intensified.
end quotes
Tear down those “white spaces,” people!
Put an end to that “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and the “white habitus” that they can reinforce, the “white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized,” and the world will be a much better place because of it.
And that will fit in with this goal of the Democratic Socialists of America, who incidentally are going to provide vital services such as health care, child care, education (from pre-K through higher education), shelter and transportation to everyone on demand, free of charge, and further, in order to ensure that the enjoyment of full citizenship was not tied to ups and downs in the labor market, everyone would also receive a universal basic income — that is, a base salary for every member of society, regardless of the person’s employment status, to wit:
Further, capitalists have consistently used appeals to white racism, and tensions at the intersection of gender and race, to maintain divisions among the working class.
In order to overcome these divisions and forge deeper solidarities across the working class, it is essential that a disproportionately straight, white, male, English-speaking, mostly college-educated socialist organization such as DSA prioritize racial justice work and organize actively within struggles where racial, gender, class and sexual oppression intersect.
We must do so with humility and take our lead from the organizations that organize and are led by poor and working-class people in those communities.
end quotes
According to these two college professors, where racial, gender, class and sexual oppression intersect is obviously in the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and the “white habitus” that they can reinforce, the “white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized.
So it clearly is time to put an end to these farmer’s markets if we ever want to see peace and harmony again in our land!
tkenny says
Jeez Paul, you just criticized Marsh Hen for besmirching a person and there you go. Do you not practice what you preach? Have you read the book or the study? Do you know they are “Democratic Socialists of America”?
I assume you just used the opportunity to bestow your vast knowledge and “educated” us common folk.
Paul Plante says
tkenny, dude, hope you had a real good New Years, although I see you still not have availed yourself of that very good remedial reading course they have down here, because if you had taken the course, you would be able to see how silly you sound here, talking about me “besmirching a person,” in the person of these two college professors, where “besmirch” means to damage the reputation of someone or something in the opinion of others, when nothing could be further from the truth.
There was no besmirching there, tkenny.
Here is the exact quote:
One has to seriously wonder (desire or be curious to know something), with this comment of theirs that “Farmers’ markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized,” whatever that gibberish and tripe is supposed to mean, if these two professors from San Diego State University who recently criticized farmers’ markets for being “white spaces” that contribute to the oppression of minorities, Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco, both geography professors at SDSU who criticized the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” in a chapter for Just Green Enough, a new anthology published by Routledge in December, are card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America, for they certainly seem to have imbibed not only of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Kool-Aid, but to have inhaled its noxious fumes, as well.
end quotes
“One has to wonder,” tkenny, is not the same as saying they are anything, and anyway, tkenny, how would being card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization with the likes of Democrat super powerhouse Charley “Chuck” Schumer in its ranks, damage anyone’s reputation in the eyes of others?
And do I not practice what I preach?
Of course, tkenny.
Don’t you?
Have I read the book or the study?
No, I haven’t.
Do they say something different in the book or study from what is printed above?
If so, I wish you would do us all a service and use the opportunity to bestow your vast knowledge and educate us common folk.
Do I know they are “Democratic Socialists of America?”
No, tkenny, I wouldn’t be wondering if they were members of the Democratic Socialists of America if I knew for certain they actually were card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America, who incidentally, tkenny, and you sound like a dude that would be for this, are going to provide vital services such as health care, child care, education from pre-K through higher education, shelter and transportation to everyone on demand, free of charge, and further, in order to ensure that the enjoyment of full citizenship was not tied to ups and downs in the labor market, everyone would also receive a universal basic income — that is, a base salary for every member of society, regardless of the person’s employment status, and because capitalists have consistently used appeals to white racism, and tensions at the intersection of gender and race, to maintain divisions among the working class, in order to overcome these divisions and forge deeper solidarities across the working class, it is essential that a disproportionately straight, white, male, English-speaking, mostly college-educated socialist organization such as DSA prioritize racial justice work and organize actively within struggles where racial, gender, class and sexual oppression intersect, doing so with humility and taking their lead from the organizations that organize and are led by poor and working-class people in those communities.
What is besmirching about any of that, tkenny?
As to the Marsh Hen, tkenny, she called out a veteran she doesn’t even know, and using the internet as a weapon to harm him, she intentionally outed him as being someone unshaven, wrapped in rags, with mumbling erudition as a sign of mental instability due to tragic loneliness based on nothing more than Mike’s on-line psychiatric evaluation of how he sees combat veterans from his perspective, and obviously yours, as well.
By outing that veteran, Marsh Hen harmed his reputation and stole valor from him.
By wondering if those two academics were card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America, I have done nothing but wonder, tkenny.
Apples and oranges, dude, and ne’er the twain shall meet.
Marsh Hen says
I am a fourth generation Vet. Members of my family have fought and died in every war this nation has been involved in since and including The Revolution. So with all respect due to you….(radio edit).
Paul Plante says
You sure had me fooled there, Marsh Hen.
So, why do you hold that veteran whose picture you posted a link to in such contempt then?
Marsh Hen says
White Privilege… if we are to be accused of it, then I intend to take full advantage of it.
Paul R. Plante says
God bless America and its veterans who gave you that freedom to be all you can be.
Go for it is my thought, Ms. Hen, but that is just me.
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Ms. Hen,
Ignore him, he had the temerity to suggest that a Vet friend I know was somehow involved in the 9/11 attack on America. He is suffering greatly from loneliness and some other mental issues.
Just ignore him.
Paul Plante says
Mike oh Mike oh Mike!
Seriously, dude, how many times is it now that we have been around that same block in here?
It is past tedious, Mike.
You have got to let go of the past, Mike, for every day you keep holding on to yesterday is a day further behind you get.
And as someone both older and far wiser than you, Mike, thanks to my father, who if I was only one-tenth of, or even one-hundredth of, that would still be quite a bit, I’m telling you that you can’t keep putting off today to tend to yesterday forever.
You ought to give that some serious thought.
As to why I am here, Mike, we have been around that same block, as well.
Where else can one enter into debate with tkenny, known across the land thanks to the power of the internet as the Quintus Hortensius Hortalus of Cyberspace?
The dude is absolute top of the game when it comes to internet debating skills, Mike.
And here is where the dude is, Mike, so here is where you have to come to get your skills as a fledgling orator polished by a master acknowledged as the master of masters.
I’m surprised you forgot that already, Mike.
That is not a good sign, Mike, that forgetfulness, you know.
That’s what comes of being obsessed with the past, Mike, your brain cells aren’t marching forward, they’re falling back.
You’re like a dude in a flat spin, Mike, with an engine flame-out.
You can’t get that to relight until you get some air flowing through and you can’t get air flowing through because you are in a flat spin, and that comes from being stuck in the past as you are, always obsessing about it, the fact that it was your friend who was co-piloting the plane that flew into the World Trade Center on 9-11, according to your versi0n of what happened that day, to your detriment.
One day soon you need to finally accept that reality and move on.
And Mike, a good friend of mine who knows food, a former Army Ranger, had one of your sandwiches recently, and he thought there was way too much bread.
When you buy a submarine sandwich, you don’t want a lot of bread.
What you want is enough bread to contain what is between the bread halves, but not so much bread that when you take a bite, it isn’t mostly bread.
To him, it is what is inside that matters, whereas your focus seems to be on the outside, on the bread.
I don’t know if he would get another, to be truthful.
Just saying.
tkenny says
Heed your own advise Paul – “You have got to let go of the past, Mike, for every day you keep holding on to yesterday is a day further behind you get” We don’t need to hear anymore about Upstate New York, “corrupt” Rensselaer County, or “corrupt” Sonia Sotomayor, let it go.
Paul R. Plante says
tkenny, dude, thank you for your heartfelt thoughts and advice, which I can tell you put an awful lot of time into coming up with, and tkenny, dude, I want to tell you in all sincerity how much I appreciate you taking time out your otherwise busy schedule to put that time into those thoughts you have so eloquently and yes, passionately, attempted to express above, in your own unique way of expressing yourself.
And tkenny, when “corrupt” Sonia Sotomayor resigns from the United States Supreme Court in disgrace, then, and really, dude, you would expect nothing less from me, and only then will I “let it go,” as you say.
Why would you expect me to do otherwise, tkenny?
Why would I bow down and pray to someone who would willingly pervert justice, as Sonia Sotomayor did in 2005, burying evidence as she did of a crime committed to protect the powerful in corrupt New York state and corrupt Rensselaer County and especially corrupt Poestenkill in corrupt Rensselaer County?
By the way, tkenny, political corruption in Rensselaer County is famous to political historians, as it is a rich mine of history.
If you are interested in expanding your consciousness, tkenny, something you should give some thought to, an excellent book on the subject of Rensselaer County political corruption in the “Boss Murphy” days is “The Trial of Bat Shea” by Jack Casey, himself a former Rensselaer County Republican Party Chairman and son of a Supreme Court Justice in New York State.
According to the reviews, tkenny, and as an Irishman yourself, you should find it quite captivating, since it is a true story of an Irishman from Troy falsely accused and put to death, “THE TRIAL OF BAT SHEA,” a novel by Jack Casey, tells of the struggles of the Irish in gritty, industrial Troy, N.Y.
The year is 1894.
Boss Edward Murphy, United States Senator and New York State Democratic Chairman, runs this upstate mill city from a brewery.
Thugs and repeat voters emerge from ward saloons each election day to stuff ballot boxes and keep Murphy’s Irish Catholic Democrats in office.
When a posse of Protestant vigilantes turns out to stop the voting fraud, a young industrialist is gunned down.
The murder of Robert Ross sparks an explosive backlash.
Pious congregations cry for vengeance from the Protestant pulpits.
Suffragettes demand the woman’s vote to reform and civilize elections.
A secret fraternity dresses in black robes and hoods and fastens on to the murder to topple Murphy and seize power.
Stepping from the shadows, shrewd Yankee lawyer Frank Black accuses Bartholomew Shea of the crime, and then guides community outrage into the channels of criminal law.
But did Shea pull the fatal trigger?
From elegant mansions to immigrant slums, this drama of ambition and betrayal, of bigotry and oppression plays against the backdrop of industrial America while the Victorian age darkens.
THE TRIAL OF BAT SHEA recounts how a saloon thug steals an election, and how a political opportunist then leads a flag-waving mob and twists the law to extract the last full measure of revenge, a life for a life, in the name of truth and justice.
end quotes
That is all very real, tkenny, and an innocent man went to the electric chair for a crime everyone knew he didn’t commit, but they didn’t care, because he was “saloon Irish.”
Are you for that?
Do you know, tkenny, that equal treatment before the law is a pillar of democratic societies?
Do you know, tkenny, when courts are corrupted by greed or political expediency, the scales of justice are tipped, and ordinary people like me, and those who would depend on me to stand up for them as an expert witness in a court of law seeking relief from a polluter, suffer?
Judicial corruption means the voice of the innocent goes unheard, tkenny, while the guilty act with impunity.
Sonia Sotomayor is a corrupt judge, tkenny, she does not belong sitting on any federal court bench, let alone the United States Supreme Court.
You want me to be quiet on injustice, tkenny.
WHY?
And if you really want to hear me stop calling for “corrupt” Sonia Sotomayor to resign, you’ll join in by raising your own voice calling on her to resign.
Unless you are for the judicial corruption, and then, of course, you’ll remain silent, which is your Constitutional right.
tkenny says
Let it go, Let it goooo … Do you want to borrow my daughters DVD ?
Paul Plante says
tkenny, dude, this is a phone-in question from some of your many admirers up this way where I am, who incidentally send you their love as fans, and they wish they could get your autograph: If I should let go of my call for Sonia Sotomayor to resign, should all of these women in the Me Too movement calling for these politicians to resign be given that same advice, tkenny, to let it go, especially when the alleged groping in question took place so many years ago?
You know, get over it, move on, accept the fact that you got screwed over big time by someone in a position of power willing to abuse that power to gain something for themselves, whether it was rubbing some woman’s bum without her consent, or selling out the people of Rensselaer County to gain a supreme court seat, and get on with your life, even though based on a fraud, your career and means of earning a living have been stripped from you.
If not, then why the double standard?
From my perspective, tkenny, there is no expiration date on an injustice done.
That is why those women are coming forward, and that is why I am as well.
And give me somewhere to send it, tkenny, and I’ll send you postage paid a CD of me playing “Let it go, Let it goooo” on the five-string banjo bluegrass style.
If you like kick*** banjo music, tkenny that’ll do it for you alright.
So tell your daughter she can keep her copy, because I already got mine.
Or send it instead to Sonia Sotomayor as a message to her to “let it go” with respect to her Supreme Court seat.
That, tkenny, would be a step towards seeing justice done in this matter.
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Ya know, Paul the saddest part is, were it not for your heinous, insane perfidy regarding 9/11 and my friend the co-pilot we’d be on the same side of many of your arguments.
Sadly, that bit of lunacy; IMO, renders you a mere wart on the arse of America.
Now, go stand on your soapbox and scream at the oceans.