CEO Letter
I’ve been in and out of hundreds of lunchrooms across New York City since I began Red Rabbit in 2005. In time, I came to see how the forces of structural racism have shaped the American school cafeteria. The education system forces students of color to internalize white cultural norms which deem their cultural food, and their way of seeing the world, exotic at best and pathological at worst. In this system, our children are compelled to dismiss the food they find most familiar and accept a bland, pale substitute in its place.
Red Rabbit is countering this narrative. We celebrate food from all cultures in the lunchroom, especially Black American and Brown American cultures. We aspire to give children a vision of themselves that is both healthy and aligned with their heritage, thereby invalidating society’s arbitrary boundaries of who is allowed to be healthy. By openly discussing these issues, we’re refuting the mute, color-blind approach that shifts the burden of reconciling society’s obvious racial inequity onto children. We’re leaning in, and we’ve got receipts.