California student Samantha Diaz equates milk to racism ‘we are all in part responsible’
In an article for California State University-Long Beach’s student newspaper The Daily 49er, Samantha Diaz, a staff writer, claims that white supremacists and neo-Nazis are appropriating milk as a symbol of hate.
“When you think of milk, what first comes to your mind? If you’re a millennial, you probably think of strong bones, Got Milk? commercials, or maybe eating your favorite cereal while watching cartoons on a Saturday morning,” Diaz says in her article titled “Milk a new symbol of hate?”
Raw milk Image/YouTube Video Screen Shot
“What about racism? White nationalism? If you’re having trouble finding the connection between these institutions and milk, you’re not alone. You, along with the rest of the nation, have been so accustomed to hearing the benefits of milk that you probably didn’t even realize the subtle racism hidden in our health facts.” (Emphasis added, The Dispatch)
Diaz argues that the federal government’s endorsement of milk as a beneficial part of the country’s diet “contributes to the problem by uncritically pushing people to drink milk, despite the potential detriment it has on non-white people’s health.”
She stated that because African-Americans do not suffer from osteoporosis, a bone disease, at the same rates as most Americans, the United States is promoting a racist agenda, citing Shia LaBeouf’s “He Will Not Divide Us” protest shtick which involved drinking milk.
Diaz pointed to a scene in the new blockbuster hit Get Out where a white woman drinks a glass of milk with a bendy straw, saying that the film “highlights racism in post-racial America” and citing that as additional evidence that milk represents a status symbol for white supremacists.
She also cited a Mother Jones article stating that: “The Mother Jones article states that not only is milk non-beneficial to Africans, but following the guidelines may actually be detrimental to their health. There is a strong correlation to calcium consumption and an increased risk of prostate cancer, unproportionally affecting African men. Furthermore, both black children and adults generally secrete less calcium on a daily basis than white people, making them less dependent upon milk.”
Diaz urged her readers to fight for change, asserting that everyone is to blame until the fight is won.
“Until we recognize the racist roots in our own systems of government and fight to remove them, we are all in part responsible for the white, creamy form of racism currently taking hold in our country,” she concluded.
