Using a Role-Driven Race Equity Reform Approach to Mitigate the Effects of America's History of Racism on Food Insecurity

Food insecurity, or the lack of reliable access to sufficient quantities of nutritious food, affects African Americans and other minorities disproportionately. This paper examines how America’s history of racism created and sustains the Nation’s racially disparate food system. Food insecurity contributes to hunger. This paper contemplates disparities in other American systems, including education and criminal justice, as exemplars of the broader ramifications of hunger. Finally, the paper examines the potential of individual action to address problems in any system. It champions the adoption of a role-driven race equity reform strategy as a tool to confront the current food insecurity. The strategy emphasizes the capacity of individuals to use the inherent authority of roles at any level of an organization to create change. The paper contends that individual actors, both within and without the food system, can work toward achieving more equitable outcomes in the Nation’s food system.