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Field Reports

Let’s Talk About Race in the Anti-Hunger Workplace

Sofia Charlot, Emerson Fellow

Maryland Hunger Solutions,
Published 2021-2022

Baltimore, Maryland

This research was a strategic effort to look at the current state, successes, failures, and possible improvements to the movement to end hunger in the United States. Anti-hunger organizations reacted to parallel social justice movements with heightened energy, resources, and attention to the root causes of domestic hunger and racial equity. Research efforts uncovered whether organizational plans and policies could create transactional or transformational change. Using survey data collection and semi-structured interviews, this study interrogated the plans, policies, and strategies of organizational approaches to addressing race in the workplace. It also captured how anti-hunger staff and leadership fueled, experienced, and perceived those efforts. Organizations that employed traditional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) frameworks created surface-level changes that upheld racialized power dynamics in the workplace. Organizational approaches that explicitly centered anti-racism and/or prioritized naming and addressing racialized power dynamics within their operations—at all levels, with all members, and with the necessary resources—were working towards transformational change. The anti-hunger movement has a stated goal of ending systemic hunger by addressing its root causes. Racialized power dynamics in domestic food systems created and sustained widespread hunger and racially disparate outcomes in food security. Anti-hunger organizations must consider how their internal operations either uphold or oppose the racialized power dynamics of white supremacy and make substantial efforts towards transforming their institutions into vehicles that push society towards a racially equitable future.

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Publication tags: Field Reports - Income, Expenses, and Hunger, Racial Equity

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Sofia Charlot

Emerson Fellow

Sofia is a first-generation Haitian-American from Miami, Florida. She studied Anthropology & Human Biology and African American Studies at Emory University, where she was a member of the Lambda Alpha National Anthropology Honor Society, Residence Life, the Black Student Alliance, and the Emory Scholar's Program. Now, Sofia is a co-coordinator, farmhand, and member of a Black ecofeminist collective that champions sustainable food production as a praxis of racial, social, and environmental liberation. As part of the collective; Sofia supports mutual-aid, community building, and cultural preservation between black farmers who need labor and resources and young, black, and landless folks who love the earth. Sofia plans to pursue graduate training in epidemiology and sustainable food production in efforts to uproot oppressive food systems and practices that lead to higher rates of mortality and morbidity amongst BIPOC.

Read more about Sofia Charlot
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Maryland Hunger Solutions

Baltimore, Maryland

Maryland Hunger Solutions, founded in 2007 by the Food Research & Action Center, works to end hunger and improve the nutrition, health, and well-being of individuals, children and families in Maryland. Maryland Hunger Solutions to overcome barriers and create self-sustaining connections between Maryland residents and nutritious foods. Maryland Hunger Solutions works with state and community partners to seek to:

  • provide education about the stark reality of hunger’s existence in Maryland and the proven solutions to reduce food insecurity;
  • improve public policies to end food insecurity and poverty; and
  • ensure that all eligible residents are connected to federal and state nutrition programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known as the Food Supplement Program in Maryland) and school meals programs.

    • Read more about Maryland Hunger Solutions