Posted on December 29, 2011

Soul Food Is Killing Black America

Stanley Crouch, NY Daily News, December 26, 2011

“Soul Food Junkies” is a documentary being made by Byron Hurt; he is presently raising money to finish it. My own nickname for him is “Braveheart” because of his willingness to bring complexity to issues that affect black people first, but are bound to become troubling to the country at large because they are not the result of genetics. They are the result of exploitation or misunderstanding.

Hurt first deserved his “Braveheart” nickname after doing a surprisingly serious film about the decadence at the center of the hip-hop phenomenon. It was called “Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.” Though an admitted fan of early hip hop, Hurt was disturbed as the so-called music moved away from community awareness and was taken over by hustlers who reached to the bottom of the barrel for profit-making material that could be placed on the auction block of popular culture.

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The one Hurt is now working on–“Soul Food Junkies”–may hit the target much more quickly when finished and released. {snip}

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{snip} There is no joke in the film about the frightening degrees of black illness from consuming too much ethnic food dripping in grease and containing too much fat, sugar and butter. Worst of all, people consume too many ethnic imitations in fast food places that are so prevalent in black and Latin neighborhoods.

Thus, minorities contract diabetes and suffer from heart diseases in disproportionate numbers. That alone costs the American economy enough to be concerned about what people eat and why.

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