The Great Food Fiasco: Social Justice Warriors Bicker Over “Deserts,” “Apartheid,” or Just Plain “Gulags”
In the social justice sideshow, where every term is a sledgehammer, a farcical fight has flared over naming neighborhoods starved of grocers. “Food deserts,” once progressive gospel, is now too meek for the outrage overlords. Enter “food apartheid,” a phrase so histrionic it could star in a tragedy. But hold your $18 latte, for a band of “socialist realists” has strode in, pitching “food gulags” with naive sincerity, unaware it nods to their socialist heroes’ darkest deeds. The result? A spat so inane it could only fester in wokedom’s fever swamp.
As was widely reported by ZeroHedge, the mess erupted when the Associated Press, that czar of chic jargon, endorsed “food apartheid.” Seattle Times columnist Naomi Ishisaka, high priestess of hollow huffing, leapt on it, claiming it exposes “intentional choices” keeping south Seattle free of organic kale. “Food desert” suggests nature’s caprice, as if arugula snubs certain streets. “Apartheid” howls redlining and racism—ignoring grocers fleeing areas where theft’s a sport and bullets hum like hornets. Ishisaka’s economic savvy is thinner than a vegan’s waistline, blind to stores chasing profit, not prejudice. Her local Safeway, she admits, is a shooting gallery, yet she spins to redlining faster than a kale smoothie blender.
Enter the Socialist Realism Collective, a crew of earnest dreamers led by Comrade Rufus T. Barnswoggle, a tweed-clad idealist with history chops slimmer than a celery stalk. Brandishing Marx like a battle flag, they call “apartheid” a bourgeois dodge. “We seek truth!” Barnswoggle declared at a vegan potluck, waving a carrot like a manifesto. “These are food gulags—where the system traps the hungry!” His flock nodded, missing the irony that gulags were socialist abattoirs, not capitalist traps. Their “gulag” is a well-meant misfire, not a boomerang bashing their dogma. They’re as earnest as a puppy with a chewed slipper.
The showdown scorched at the Seventh Symposium of Semantic Smugness, a Berkeley co-op ripe with hemp and hubris. Ishisaka’s socialists, swaddled in $400 “ethical” shawls, faced the Realists’ thrift-store sincerity. Ishisaka, flanked by TikTok twits with pronouns denser than their brains, crowed, “Apartheid names capitalism’s hate!” “No organic figs for Black folks? Atrocity!” Her minions brayed, deaf to grocers dodging crime, not race.
Barnswoggle, all fervent focus, took the stage. “Apartheid’s just TED Talk glitter!” he urged, nudging aside quinoa crisps. “Gulags reveal the real hunger trap!” Attendees admired his zeal, then winced at “gulag” via Google—Stalin’s legacy, not Bezos’s. “He means well,” sighed barista Sage. His candor stings less than Ishisaka’s posturing.
The satire, vicious as a Soviet frost, is their shared folly. Ishisaka’s “apartheid” casts grocers as comic-book fiends, dodging the truth: stores follow profit, not bigotry. The Realists, sweeter but dumber, sling “gulag” like a blunt arrow, missing its socialist scar. Their pamphlet, Proles vs. Parsnips, rants of “food jails” but skips the red gulag rap sheet. It’s history via haiku.
The feud fizzes, fueled by the left’s fetish for rebranding woes, not solving them. Ishisaka’s gang plans an Oakland mural of “apartheid” as limp lettuce and leering CEOs. The Realists seek zine funds for Gulags of Greens to “smash capitalist hunger.” Both sneer at “food desert” as too dull. Meanwhile, Tacoma cashier Tasha Green just wants cheap eggs. “Call it anything,” she groaned. “I need food, not your soapbox.”
This isn’t justice—it’s a sanctimony smackdown. Ishisaka’s “apartheid” is hashtag heroin, Barnswoggle’s “gulag” a guileless gaffe, but neither feeds a soul. Twain would guffaw at these bloviating buffoons, preaching while the hungry scrape by. We stare—and pray the snack bar’s stocked.
