He has been laying the groundwork since he opened his neo-soul food restaurant, Indigo, by building out a market of preserved and canned pantry items supplemented by produce from the modest garden next door. A more accurate phrase, they say, is “food apartheid,” because while a desert implies an organic state of bareness, an apartheid is the result of deliberate, systemic racism. You say ‘food apartheid,’ and you get to the root cause of some of the problems around the food system. Rhodes is seizing this opportunity to do his part to dismantle food apartheid, through a sustainable, community-oriented, black-centered soul food market. The only food black folks were allowed was typically the spoiled or otherwise unwanted remains — so they had to find ways to improve flavor and to make what they had last.

Source: Washington Post July 02, 2020 15:56 UTC