I received a comment this morning that ties an awful lot into an essay I’m currently writing and, as I found her comment to be pretty indicative of something I keep seeing when I see people talk about food, I wanted to know what the family here thinks.
On the “Working Out Is For White People” post, ThatDeborahGirl wrote:
I don’t agree with the statement that “Food, is just food.”
Food speaks to nationalities, cultural roots and family traditions as much as anything in the world society. So to change our eating habits is truly to change our lives and step onto new ground. It is a radical thing for some people. Definitely for me.
I consider myself to be a very picky eater. For all that I am overweight because most of the foods I like are salty, sweet, fat laden. And although I’ve made great strides over the years, I still have a long way to go. I never equated my issues with food as a part of a cultural issue. But there’s a ring of truth to this that I can’t quite deny. That as a light-skinned black woman it’s not easy to reject who I’m “supposed” to be and embrace “who I can be” when that means another level of rejection by my black sistas.
Because we are hard on each other. We really are. And then again, I can’t imagine not going to a funeral and afterwards not having fried chicken, green beans and macaroni and cheese or mashed potatoes, with baked chicken set aside for those who are trying to eat “healthy” and this is seen as an improvement.
And don’t get me started on baby showers where we really show our baking hand. And Thanksgiving and Christmas where I can still be found to this day cleaning chitlins and making spareribs and boiling greens and baking beans to get the flavor in but taking most of the nutrional value out.
How to change this when even something as simple, in my house, as vegetarian lasange or even taco salad are met, by my mother, with derision. And so I go back to cooking what she likes and what feels good because it’s home. And I if I sneak in a spinach salad at work or rack my brain to try to think of healthier ways to cook the foods we like – the idea that I’m trying not to reject decades of family history- my black history – is only surprising to me in that I never thought of it before.
Because I do speak proper English. And again I am light-skinned. And so many brown skinned black women all my life have gone out of their way to show me that, as a light-skinned black woman, I’m not as black as they are – literally and figuratively. I understand it, even if I don’t like it – it is what it is. But if one of the few ties that bind I have is food…how can I bear to loosen yet another line to those I love?
Do I understand what she’s saying? Yes. That’s not where (or why, for that matter) I’m hitting a brick wall.
“Shades of Blackness” by Laurie Cooper. Click to view enlarged portrait and purchasing options.
I think I’m much more interested in what this means for us as a community. Specifically this:
Because I do speak proper English. And again I am light-skinned. And so many brown skinned black women all my life have gone out of their way to show me that, as a light-skinned black woman, I’m not as black as they are – literally and figuratively. I understand it, even if I don’t like it – it is what it is. But if one of the few ties that bind I have is food…how can I bear to loosen yet another line to those I love?
Can I get some thoughts on this, here?