Friday, April 24, 2020

Drive-through food banks - only in America?

The internet is awash with pictures of cars lining up for literally miles for food banks in America (here are just a few). With over 26 million Americans now unemployed, and food banks struggling to keep sufficient volunteers and to obtain enough food to meet the unprecedented demand, American food banks and soup kitchens are in a huge bind right now.
But there's an element of cognitive dissonance here - so, these people can't afford to buy food, but they can afford to keep large, gas-guzzling SUVs going (and that is what most of the vehicles appear to be)?
I'm not saying that the USA is the only place where this happens, and you can see the logic from a social/physical distancing perspective, but it does seem a strange juxtaposition of ideas - abject poverty and conspicuous wealth hand in hand.

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