Fitness and Milk are Racist; Food is Racist and Sexist – Intellectuals; How Can One Be “Woke” Without Risking Wholesale Dangers to Health
Fitness And Food Are Racist
WASHINGTON, D.C., (January 4, 2023) – Time magazine’s recent headline “WHITE SUPREMACIST ORIGINS OF EXERCISE” has, as expected, produced outrage as well as condemnation and ridicule. Here are a few examples:
Q4 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more
- "What's Next? Proper Nutrition is a KKK Plot?' Time Magazine is Mocked for Saying EXERCISE is Racist" - DAILY MAIL
- "Time Magazine Mocked After Woke Historian Claims Exercise is Racist" - TORONTO SUN
- "Time Magazine Roasted for Article Suggesting Exercise Has Racist Origins" - NEW YORK POST
The fact that the author is a professor of history at a notoriously progressive school may have contributed to the skepticism about her analysis and conclusions.
While commentators on FOX NEWS attributed this to the ever-expanding concept of "Wokeism" ("a disparaging term for attentiveness to claims for equality and representation from minority groups").
And perhaps as a new tactic for Virtue Signaling ("trying to win praise for showing support for a social cause without actually doing anything about it"), the origins of the concept go back much further in related areas, notes public interest law professor John Banzhaf.
Years ago the subject under attack was milk. It has been called "The Most Perfect Food," the "Nearly Perfect Food," and has won other praises.
But in 2018 it was called a “a symbol of and tool for white dominance and superiority.” More specifically, a law review article concluded that "milk has long had a sinister side, being bound up with the exploitation of the (human and nonhuman) bodies it comes from and being a symbol of and tool for white dominance and superiority." The author's expertise was that of a legal writing instructor.
Another law review article, written years earlier and entitled "The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk: Food Oppression and the USDA," claimed that the milk industry and the federal governments engaged in "food oppression" regarding milk. "Food oppression," it said, is " institutional, systemic, food-related action or policy that physically debilitates a socially subordinated group."
This time the expertise of the author was as an assistant professor of law.
Sexism in Food
Then, if it wasn't enough to be told that fitness and food are racist, we are also supposed to believe that it is also sexist. That, at least, is the thesis of an article in a learned journal entitled "From Rice Eaters to Soy Boys: Race, Gender, and Tropes of ‘Plant Food Masculinity.’" In it the authors write:
Tropes of ‘effeminized’ masculinity have long been bound up with a plant-based diet . . . the altright’s use of the term ‘soy boy’ on Twitter and other social media today to call out men they perceive to be weak, effeminate, and politically correct . . .
It argues that, given that we live in a world steeped in ‘coloniality’, it is no wonder that sexist and racist colonial-era tropes are alive and well today, packaged in a 21st-century digital culture form. . .success is likely to only come through a robust anti-racist, color-conscious, and gender-conscious vegan movement."
Those woke thoughts have now apparently also spread to the popular media. For a few examples, consider the following pieces:
- Sexism in Food: How Patriarchy Dominates Dining Tables
- Can Food Be Sexist?
- Food Sexism Is A Reality, Know How Patriarchy Did Not Even Leave Dominating Dining Tables
- To Help End Sexism, You Should Stop Eating Cheese: Can food really be sexist?: "Yes, when it's the product of imprisonment, rape, reproductive control, kidnapping, and abuse."
Food, especially its over consumption, is of course a matter of great concern, since it is the major cause of the country's second most important (after smoking) public health problem, obesity.
But, unlike virtue signalers who want to convince readers that food (including milk) is racist and sexist, Banzhaf's lawsuit against McDonald's over its french fries - which the fast food giant settled for over $12 million, a much-needed change in its advertising.
The end of supersizing, and an apology for its misrepresentation - has started a whole new movement of using legal action as a powerful and effective weapon against obesity; similar to the way the law professor used legal action as an effective tool to fight smoking.
Also, instead of simply bemoaning the undeniable racial inequalities in health and physical fitness, and arguing that exercise is racist - which might discourage both Black and White Americans from exercising.
Banzhaf is planning to do something about it; a major class action lawsuit against hospitals where Black babies are three times more likely than White babies to die if they are treated by White doctors.
For someone who's been called "The Law Professor Who Masterminded Litigation Against the Tobacco Industry," "a Driving Force Behind the Lawsuits That Have Cost Tobacco Companies Billions of Dollars," "a Major Crusader Against Big Tobacco and Now Among Those Targeting the Food Industry," and a "King of Class Action Law Suits," he just might be able to do it while calling out those who want to make food and fitness the enemy of the woke.
