Hello and welcome to Slate Money Food, which is another Slate Money mini-series. This one devoted to

the economics of everything to do with food. And this

week, we're talking about race. We're talking about McDonald's. We're talking about food deserts. And we

have the best possible person to talk about all of these things. Marcia Chatlin. Hi, Marcia.

Hello. You are well known to Slate podcast listeners

because you co-host The Waves, but you also have a day job, which is... When I am not ranting

about feminism and current events and popular culture, I teach African American history at

Georgetown University.

And when you're not doing that, you're writing books, the latest one of which is...

Franchise, the Golden Arches in Black America. Wow. What a coincidence. You've written a

whole book about exactly what we wanted to talk to you about. How perfectly perfect. Yeah,

we are going to talk to you about McDonald's. It's role

in Black America and more broadly about the franchise model, about food deserts, and about

whether capitalism is compatible with healthy eating. It's going to be a great discussion.

So that is coming up on Slate Money Food.

So let's start with McDonald's because it's a subject we've covered on Slate Money in the past,

but not in probably as much detail as we're about to go into right here.

Big picture, final verdict, Marcia, good for Black America or bad for Black America?

I don't know if I'm the one to say if it was good or bad.

You're the one who just wrote the whole book about it. But this is what I will say.

McDonald's provides a

prism for us to understand the relationship between racism and capitalism in America.

...