The Department of Education says, “Look. These kids get a veggie, a starch, and some protein. What’s the problem?” The problem is that it is all out of a damn can. You go to a wealthy private school, and the kids are on line at the salad bar. It’s an old joke, but at too many public schools the only thing green to eat is the meat loaf. As much as the Department of Education spends on standardized testing, they could spend some of that money on fresh food and give these kids a chance.
You go to countries like Finland or Japan, and eating to live instead of living to eat is a way of life. Food is essential to everything they do: the hub of the wheel in their lives. I was in Japan for the first time in 2016, and there, food is everything. They take it as seriously as we take the NFL. In schools, lunch is a class. And that’s not unique to Japan. In many places around the world, lunch is a class where kids learn how to cook, how to clean, and how to eat properly. As Michael Moore showed in his movie Where to Invade Next, when you give kids in other countries our school lunches, they start to cry. I couldn’t believe that scene. The kids were actually crying, asking, “What are you trying to do to us?”
Why are public school lunches so terrible? A lot of big brands are invested in school “nutrition,” so they give schools access to their products in order to reach those consumers at a young age. We need a return to when schools had cooks making meals fresh in the back. Make the food fatty and delicious as long as it’s not processed, and as long as the plate has five different natural colors. That means veggies. That means fruit. That means life.
Good food is the foundation not just for a healthy body but for a ready mind. It sets the mind up for learning. And to feed the mind, we need more STEM education—science, technology, engineering, and math—especially geared toward young girls. It’s something I dream about, imagining if kids were as focused on STEM as they are on sports. Our goal is to fund and set up STEM programs all over the world for two reasons. First, when kids are taught these subjects correctly—hands-on teaching, experiments, kids doing physical projects—their brains light up, because it speaks to their creativity. It’s learning by doing. Second, STEM opens doors to economic opportunity. Before Dr. King was killed, he was exploring the question of economic justice, asking, “What’s the point of being able to sit at a lunch counter if you cannot afford a cup of coffee?” This is my way of trying to carry on his work from a different angle.
In this country, if you have money, people treat you like a human being. If you don’t have money, they treat you like dirt. That’s life. If you don’t have money, it’s almost impossible to eat well. If you have resources, you can eat in a way that feeds your body and mind. If young people are educated in STEM, it gives them a much greater opportunity for economic independence than throwing a football. Expertise in a STEM field means having a seat at the table of the future, because the future is technology, and if you’re not helping to create that technology—from communications to space exploration to environmental management—then you’re just cutting yourself off. It is crucial to be part of the creating process. For Black people, this is where our history becomes connected to economics. We need to understand our history as creators. Yes, we want you to stop calling us niggers. Yes, we want you to stop locking us up. But when I teach Black history in my kids’ classes and talk to them about the inventions that Black people have contributed to our society—from the refrigerated truck to the traffic light—it shocks the students, because they didn’t know. If you are empowered and excited by this history, it seems more realistic that you can get a seat at the table, do it yourself, and be a part of the future. Sports is a dead end because there is no ownership potential. Playing this game has given me a platform and money to educate my kids. But STEM education gives my daughters a chance to create and own.
To me these twin issues, food justice and STEM education, are globally essential if we are going to see the next generation climb out of poverty, and I want to be a part of building that ladder. I’d never thought about these issues on a global scale until I traveled to Haiti with my teammate and brother, Cliff Avril. Cliff’s been doing work and supporting his parents’ home country for years. In 2017, I went with him, and what I saw has had a searing effect on me, like a scar I notice every time I look in a mirror. I saw pain and suffering that hurt me in a way no offensive lineman ever could. It reminded me of being young and asking
