How Fast Food Chains Supersized Inequality
Fast food did not just find its way to low-income neighborhoods. It was brought there by the federal government.
BY MAX HOLLERAN
Supersizing Urban America, a new book by the historian of public health, Chin Jou, shows that fast food did not just find its way to low-income urban areas: It was brought there by the federal government. In the wake of the 1968 riots, Nixon’s law-and-order presidency began programs that doled out federal funds to fast food franchises. The administration asserted that black-owned businesses serving fast food would help to cure urban unrest by promoting an entrepreneurial spirit in poor communities. The federal subsidization of McDonald’s and other chains to enter urban markets previously considered too poor or dangerous was meant to promote “black capitalism.” It did make a select group of black entrepreneurs wealthy, but it was mostly a boon to fast food giants searching for new market demographics.
Like “ethnic” advertising in the alcohol and cigarette industries, fast food companies sold a dream of middle class affluence to communities of color that were nonetheless still excluded from the housing and education that would make those aspirations a reality. Jou’s book shows conclusively that obesity and diet in America have little to do with personal responsibility, and everything to do with public policy.
https://newrepublic.com/article/144168/fast-food-chains-supersized-inequality
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