About this item
The first and definitive history of the use of food in United States law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control, a Fast Food Nation for the Black Lives Matter era. In 1779, to subjugate Indigenous nations, George Washington ordered his troops to "ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more." Destroying harvests is just one way that the United States has used food as a political tool. Trying to prevent enslaved people from rising up, enslavers restricted their consumption, providing only enough to fuel labor. Since the Great Depression, school lunches have served as dumping grounds for unwanted agricultural surpluses.. From frybread to government cheese, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground draws on over fifteen years of research to argue that U.
About the Author
Andrea Freeman is Associate Professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mnoa William S. Richardson School of Law. Freeman writes and researches at the intersection of critical race theory and issues of food policy, health, and consumer credit. She is the pioneer of the theory of "food oppression," which examines how partnerships between the government and corporations lead to racial and gender health disparities. Her work has been featured on NPR, Huffington Post, Salon, The Washington Post, The Conversation, Pacific Standard, and more.
