4 - Radical Food Intersections: Pandemic Shocks, Gentrification Mutation, Essential Labour, and the Evolution of Struggle

Summary

When COVID-19 shut down most aspects of public life, the American public soon realized that many institutions society relies on for basic survival were vulnerable. Already structured in ways that harm marginalized groups, systems of food provisioning and shelter were sent into further shock. Food chain workers were deemed ‘essential’ and had to prepare, serve, sell, and deliver food to the masses of people needing to eat, often at great risk to their own health and safety. Non- essential workers and the newly unemployed were forced to stay home regardless of whether their living quarters were safe, and crowded living and working conditions meant increased potential exposure to the virus. Long, socially distanced modern-day breadlines became iconic images, symbolizing both dire hunger and inadequate state responses. All these conditions operated through pre- existing forms of racial capitalism, meaning the ways that economic development and underdevelopment are inherently racialized (Robinson, 2000). Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour disproportionately faced heightened risk as essential workers, experienced greater hunger, lived in more crowded conditions, and were again threatened by displacement. In sum, the prior vulnerability to premature death (Gilmore, 2007) was only amplified by the virus’ spread.

However, not everyone had the same experience. Workers with greater occupational flexibility and without care responsibilities could work virtually from home, and images of homemade meals and sourdough bread were even more common on social media than they had been previously. Elite workers could also relocate to more desirable places outside the initial urban surge of COVID cases and benefit from the amenities and safety of smaller, more idyllic towns, often buying property at record- low mortgage rates. All the while the stock market reached astronomical heights and the portfolios of the well- to- do expanded. White and wealthy individuals and communities certainly benefited from this real estate and broader economic boom. But individual household gains pale when compared with the financialized interests, including hedge funds, pension funds, and tech companies, who were the period's greatest economic beneficiaries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these institutions accelerated their real- estate investments, creating extraordinary wealth alongside crises of housing affordability and homelessness (Badger and Bui, 2022).