By definition, Trinity University is not a food desert. On Sept. 29 I read a column in the Trinitonian entitled “Trinity has become a food desert.” Immediately struck by the oxymoronic nature of the title, I had to give it a read. Trinity (a private institution) is nowhere near the definition of a food desert, and claiming that it is extremely insensitive to those who really do exist within this reality. To claim that Trinity, a private liberal arts school with an endowment of $1.664 billion could be a “food desert” seemed like an uninformed position to take. In 2022, 39 million people in the U.S. lived within a food desert. Food insecurity is a real issue in the U.S., an issue that is belittled by columns such as these. To claim that the access to food on a campus with a $68.1 million operating budget is equivalent to low-income areas in the U.S. is not only offensive but also extremely harmful to our ability to address the real issue in our society.
The bubble that is created at a private institution sometimes creates a barrier between academia and the real world. But, at Trinity, these issues are less than a 10-minute drive away. Our proximity to lower-income areas is undeniable, and claiming that Trinity is in the same category as these areas is harmful. When publishing a column about food deserts and food insecurity, we must recognize the validity of the words we chose and the reality that those words hold for people who live no less than four miles away. As individuals receiving higher education, we have a responsibility to ourselves and our community at large to recognize our privilege and recognize when certain terms, when misused, can be harmful.
The column as a whole reads as classist, and as a student of a private institution, this is a label that we should all be fighting against. The privilege it takes to connect Trinity and a food desert is undeniable. Language should be a tool that is used to highlight issues, not as a tool to undermine marginalized communities.
At Trinity, there are truly plenty of dining options. Just because Trinity does not have the food you want, does not mean there isn’t food. I refuse to allow the ideas of individuals (who are clouded by their own personal qualms with the food options at the university) to cloud the image of what higher education is and can be. Trinity can be a bubble, and if we don’t actively work to break down that narrative and become aware of the different communities we exist among, we can never start to reimagine the lens that shapes the way we interact with the world around us.
Although I, like many others on this campus, agree that given the prestige of our institution, there could be more inclusive options for people with dietary restrictions provided at Trinity, the weaponization of privileged marginalized groups will never liberate the oppressed. Claiming that Trinity is a food desert doesn’t solve any issues surrounding dining on campus or educate students about what food deserts really are, but rather highlights the privilege that it takes in order to make such a claim. Education is a privilege, and we should use it to shed light on issues that matter, rather than making light of a real crisis that is ongoing in our community. As Trinity students we must utilize our voices to speak about issues that are larger than ourselves and through this, we can truly begin to utilize the privilege of our liberal arts education.
