The noted bioethicist Art Caplan — with whom I usually disagree, but not always — has really jumped the shark with a column in which he accuses the administration of pushing racism in its publicity promotion of whole milk as part of a healthy diet. From “Is the Recent Effort to Glorify Whole Milk Tainted by Racism?” published in Bioethics Today:
As a student of and writer on the history of science and public health under fascist regimes, I am suspicious. Milk drinking is political. Drinking whole white milk has played a big role in racist and far-right thinking.
A First for Me
That’s the first I have ever heard of such argumentation. Caplan gives examples:
Fascists have used the beverage as a rallying cry for white supremacy since the days of Il Duce’s (Benito Mussolini’s) public health campaigns in Italy. The Nazis were enamored of whole milk as well. In America, drinking whole milk has for years been a part of alt-right, white nationalist messaging in tweets, memes, and videos.
The neo-Nazi #MilkTwitter hashtag began shortly after a large gathering of white men descended on an anti-Trump art exhibit in 2018. The men carried cartons of milk and voiced explicitly racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and homophobic rants. After taking a swig of milk from his carton, one bare-chested man approached the camera and sneered. “An ice cold glass of pure racism.”
White nationalists in the U.S. and Europe note that many people of Northern European descent can digest lactose as adults. They link milk-drinking to an “evolved” or “superior” trait that other racial groups somewhat lack.
Drinking whole milk is portrayed as a sign of strength and genetic health. The ability to drink it is used to mock non-whites and to promote a patriarchal ideal, which sneers at the “weak” soy milk drunk by leftists and feminized men. Images of white people chugging milk are popular on racist sites, e.g., “If you can’t drink milk, you have to go back.”
Can We Say, “Fringe”?
Seriously, this is idiotic. One of the honored guests at the Oval Office signing ceremony of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act — mentioned in passing by Caplan, which put whole milk back on school menus — was that notorious white supremacist Dr. Ben Carson. One of the early sponsors was Senator John Fetterman, a famous KKK sympathizer. The bill was passed unanimously in the Senate, a known hotbed of seething bigotry against everything not white. The administration’s biggest promoter of whole milk is RFK Jr., who may be many things, but is not a racist. I mean, really.
Caplan concludes:
Racism and eugenics, sadly, may be playing a role in the sudden drive to fetishize drinking whole milk. Drinking whole milk is a dog whistle to far right, white nationalists. The campaign to promote whole milk may have many factors behind it, but at a time when eugenics, racism, and white nationalism fuel too much of our political rhetoric, the whole milk campaign must be swallowed with care.
To Paraphrase Freud
No. To paraphrase Freud: Sometimes whole milk is just whole milk. It’s about improving health, not promoting bigotry.
For those who see white supremacists swarming the country like army ants, the immortal lyrics from that great rock anthem “For What It’s Worth” seem apt:
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away.