Sherita Mouzon of Witnesses to Hunger: Philadelphia was featured on the Philadelphia Inquirer discussing her experiences with racism and discrimination, their insidious relationships with poverty and hunger, and her collaboration with the Center for Hunger-Free Communities to publish reports addressing Philadelphia’s duty to intervene.

How are racism and hunger related?  Being mistreated at school, on the job, in health care and beyond, translates to lower wages and exclusion from society.  When employers discriminate, people of color make lower wages than white people.  When health-care providers discriminate, people cannot get the health care they need, and when the courts and the police are biased, they are more likely to put our family members behind bars, which  damages their prospects for economic security.

 

In this city of “meds and eds,” employers, teachers, professionals, and city officials are clearly regenerating poverty and hunger through their actions. But we can change this. How?  Ending racial profiling, “stop and frisk” tactics, and criminalization of minor offenses; implementing a fair funding strategy for  schools,  developing equitable school discipline policies, and tracking patient outcomes by race and ethnicity and holding health care professionals accountable.