European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 11, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Friday december 11, 1992 i commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 food labels really say beware of your meal Ellen Goodman its not that i am ungrateful for the new food labels that have just been approved by the government. I am pleased that Washington takes our food literacy seriously. So the news that we re going to get some a a Reading in the food Chain nourishes my consumer soul. I wont need a degree in nutritional linguistics anymore to understand the meaning of words like a flow fat and a cholesterol i wont need a calculator to figure out the calories. As health and human services Secretary Louis Sullivan said a the Tower of Babel in food labels has come Down and the american Consumers Are at the very least the Library of babble has come Down. Words will have the same meaning on All the 300,000 packaged goods that make their Way to the Market. Too bad they did no to ban the word a a Lite a Scourge of the american spelling world a but that a another Story. I also do not wish to use this food literacy lesson As a moral menu. I cannot have been the Only one who was jarred by the two stories that led the newspaper on the very same Day famine in Somalia and food labels in America. One nation is worrying about getting any food to eat the other is worrying about what a in the food they eat. Is this the new world order or the new world eating disorder nevertheless As someone who grew up in the milk drinking meat eating four food groups Era of american life i can read the Fine print of a social message in this change or labels. It May be crammed in As densely As the new nutritional Les son on a tiny tuna can but its there beware of food. This is How Bruce Silverglade one of the consumer advocates who applaud this relabelling put it a for years labels gave Consumers the Good news about the percentage of vitamins and minerals a food contributes to the amount one should be eating per Day. But they never really told the Consumers the bad news about How much fat and cholesterol a food contributes. The new food Label will do in Short the old news was the Good news. The new news is the bad news. The reason for the revision is essentially to slap a warning Label on what we eat. And that is part of an Overall change in the american attitude toward food. Once food was love. Now its just As Likely to be fear. Fear of fat. Fear of heart disease cancer stroke you name it. Eating is less of a hedonistic experience and More of a health experience. If we Are what we eat we re nervous. Even a Good foods we Praise Are extolled for their medicinal purposes today. Increasingly we serve them because they Are prescribed fiber for breakfast and Broccoli for lunch. Only rarely indeed does something like red wine escape the health censors with a mixed message. The bottles May soon come covered with competing health claims bad for your pregnancy worse for your driving and Good for your heart. There wont be enough room for the Vintage. As a self confessed supermarket Reader a member of the literati of labels i confess to being a part of this pattern. The older i get the lower i eat on the food Chain. I search for the holy grail of the no fat i fiber chocolate fudge sundae. So i Greet the new and legible labels with approval. Somehow though i wish they a find room for two More words Bon appetite. C the Boston Globe Liew Federal lakim6 a oui be too urn m Yew to Lee gives Malcolm x too much credit Carl t. Rowan Spike Lee has a penchant for calling any White person who criticizes him a a racist a and any Black who challenges him a an Uncle so i am not surprised that so Many people Are tiptoeing around the fundamental questions raised by his acclaimed motion picture about Malcolm x. Raves about an a a epic achievement in cinematography intimidate people a even those who see disturbing social fallout. The drama and magic of the screen Blind people temporarily to a fundamental truth there is the rhetoric of Black manhood and there Are the deeds of Black manhood. Someone has to have the guts to Tell Young Blacks what is a being celebrated in Leeds virtual deification of Malcolm x. It is Malcolm a rhetoric. I say that the greatest strides toward Black Freedom and manhood in the last half Century were not necessarily in this order a the winning through lawsuits and the deaths of Brave Black men of the right of african americans to vote. That Long often bloody struggle has produced some 8,000 Blacks who hold seats As governor senator congressmen mayors sheriffs police chiefs and school officials. Malcolm x played no role whatsoever in this Black political Triumph. A the removal of the White Many a badge of a Black inferiority by wiping out Laws that forced Blacks into Jim Crow sections of buses and trains and denied them Access to Heaters restaurants hotels. This Triumph was produced by Black and White people fighting together in the courts and in the Congress a with no involvement by Malcolm x a not in Montgomery Selma Birmingham or anyplace else. A removal of the stigma of state imposed Jim Crow on Black school children and the opening up of Law medical dental journalism and other professional schools in universities of the South. This produced a meaningful Black Middle class. The a act with great White support did that a with no help from Malcolm x. With the background of these facts it is easy to understand that Lee and Hollywood Are making Malcolm a towering Black hero not for his deeds but because of an attitude born of anger even rage Over three centuries of White people brutalizing Black people in America. I acknowledge that attitude can be More powerful than a thousand realities. The question is How will a the Malcolm attitude Quot be reflected in the lives of real people what will a generation of Young Blacks draw out of this movie i read of a Black 18-year-old at the predominantly White University of North Carolina who says a the refusal of the african american students on Campus to assimilated reflects her message from Malcolm x. A a done to rely on Whites for a a done to Trust Blacks who work for the White a Only Blacks can Rescue Black i Sec speakers going onto hundreds of campuses under the a Halo denouncing a White devils and a crackers a and insulting jews. The attitude is to respond to White racism with other forms of bigotry. Will the message of human redemption in Leeds movie change this lurch into polarization the rhetoric of Black self sufficiency of economic and cultural separatism sounds great to wounded Black people. But they ought to note that when Lee wanted $28 million or More to make the Malcolm x movie he went to White people. When he ran out of Money he went to Rich Black people a Oprah Winfrey Bill Cosby Michael Jordan a Black people who have gotten fabulously Rich in deals with White people. Why celebrate rhetoric that misleads Black kids about the real world i would never ask Young Blacks to abandon anger. I have said do not let your rage become self destructive to the Point where you construe learning and eloquence with a acting i do say that it is Folly for a Black student to enrol in a predominantly White University just to devote four years to saying a i will not the partly mythical glorification of Malcolm x is not a Clear total Blessing for Young Blacks. I will continue to write about the fallout from the incredible hype and Hustle of Malco mania no matter How much outrageous self serving blather i get from Spike Lee. C North american Syndicate
