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An op-ed piece written by a group of food equity scholars from varied institutions affiliated with the UB Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab critiques the deficit-based view of East Buffalo that overlooks the work of Black individuals & organizations that have been strengthening the food system for decades.

A University at Buffalo article highlights the 2021 Center for Urban Studies report on inequality in Buffalo over the past three decades. Conducted with support from community and academic partners, the study focused on conditions impacting Black residents, and explained how discriminatory policymaking fueled decades of underdevelopment in predominantly Black neighborhoods. The report, titled “The Harder We Run: The State of Black Buffalo in 1990 and the Present,” is receiving renewed attention following the May 14 mass shooting at the Tops grocery store on Jefferson Avenue. “To me, it’s important to remember this history because it helps us understand how we are to respond to this attack,” says Henry-Louis Taylor, UB professor of urban planning and director of the Center for Urban Studies. “I keep making the connection that this attack can’t be seen as an isolated event, that it’s very much associated with the anti-critical race theory movement, and to the efforts across the country to suppress Black voters, and to the conditions of life under which our people live. We are fighting to build a society based on racial, social and economic justice."

An article on Slate.com about the shooting interviews Samina Raja of UB's Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab about how community members are dealing with food insecurity in the wake of the tragedy, and how histories of racial segregation have contributed to conditions of food apartheid in East Buffalo. 

An article in The New York Times interviewing residents about the discrimination they have experienced over many years cites a report by the Center for Urban Studies showing the health, housing, income and education outcomes for Black people in Buffalo have not improved over 30 years.

An article on NBC News that examines the shooting in Buffalo in context of the nation's violent history of racial terror cites a 2021 report by UB's Center for Urban Studies documenting the lack of progress on health, housing, income and education conditions for Black people in Buffalo over the past 30 years. 

An article on MSN on the impact of the shooting on food security on Buffalo's East Side interviews Samina Raja of UB's Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab, who refers to data showing the dearth of supermarkets in predominantly Black neighborhoods in Buffalo. Raja, who is part of the Buffalo Food Equity Network, a caucus space for communities of color who respond to food-related needs in the neighborhood, also points to the work of neighborhood residents and businesses to bolster the food system in the absence of market investment, from advocacy efforts 10 years ago to bring Tops to the neighborhood, to recent urban farming and food distribution efforts led by citizens. The article also cites the 2021 Center for Urban Studies report on socioeconomic conditions for Black residents of Buffalo.