Eating While Black

Psyche A. Williams-Forson, the author of Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power, is professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.

"Eating While Black looks at Black food culture along the broader tablecloth of structural and systemic racism, violence, degradation, socioeconomics, and exploitation. . . . The stories, anecdotes, and analyses are illuminating . . . insightful."--INDY Week "Everybody eats, so what's political about eating? After reading Eating While Black, the answer is clear: everything."--LIBER: A Feminist Review "From cooking lessons that urge 'healthier' ways to prepare a pot of collard greens to policies that suggest Black people have the worst health records because of what they eat, in her latest examination of food and culture, Williams-Forson says such food shaming is anti-Black racism. Denigrating Blacks for enjoying foods that represent their cultural and spiritual roots deprives Black Americans their identity. Combining personal experience with insights from popular culture, Williams-Forson describes how even in their consumption of food, Black people are often perceived as transgressing, misbehaving, and in need of 'gastronomic' surveillance."--Civil Eats "Unpacking the ugly history of racist stereotypes, exclusionary agricultural policies, and the cultural assumption that Black people's lives need monitoring, this is a book that celebrates the diversity of Black American food culture across the United States. . . . Eating While Black is a thoughtful text with insights into how much unwelcome extra tension and 'heaviness' lands on Black Americans' plates."--Foreword Reviews