Social Justice

[Bjorn]

It's not about ownership, it's about identify.  Food is one of those cultural touchstones that's so hard wired into a lot of people that we don't even think about it.  Food is a thing you do every single day.  And for some groups, there are foods that are very, very deeply woven into the fabric, even the mythos, of their culture.  And so yeah, people can get irritated when someone else goes tromping all over their tapestry and doing it wrong.  I'll see just how weird I can make that metaphor. 

[Ninety-Three]

It's not about ownership, it's about identify.  Food is one of those cultural touchstones that's so hard wired into a lot of people that we don't even think about it.  Food is a thing you do every single day.  And for some groups, there are foods that are very, very deeply woven into the fabric, even the mythos, of their culture.  And so yeah, people can get irritated when someone else goes tromping all over their tapestry and doing it wrong.

 

That is true, but not inherently a good or valid thing. I mean, people getting angry about an identity being done wrong describes a large portion of Gamergate.

 

I'm still not sure what the article's point was. Is it just a comedy article, or is it trying to say "White people are incapable of making good collard greens"?

[jennegatron]

Ugh ugh ugh, to compare a black woman describing traditionally southern & black food being co-opted by white hipsters to gamergate complaining about all the wimminz stealing their gamez is so insensitive and ridiculous.

 

The article was both humorous and reflects on a larger trend of white people taking cultural touchstones from Black People & culture (and other People of Color) and doing them poorly while making money off of them.

 

No one would argue that white people are physically incapable of making good collard greens. Don't be absurd.

[Ninety-Three]

No one would argue that white people are physically incapable of making good collard greens. Don't be absurd.

 

Have you seen the internet? A lot of people make a lot of absurd arguments.

[Argobot]

http://i.imgur.com/RpgEKV5.png

[BusbyBerkeley]

I like to eat food 

[Merus]

Australia has had a long history of terrible Mexican food because we haven't had a lot of Mexican. We're starting to get some now.

 

But there's a point to be made that people who know what, say, a kebab's supposed to taste like are the people who should be making kebabs. In the US there's a racial component because of course there is, but I'm sure as shit not opening a kebab shop without having someone Lebanese on hand to make sure you're getting it right.

[Argobot]

N/A

[Mangela Lansbury]

Collard greens taste great when prepared a few different ways. There's the classic soul food preparations, a more rural poor kind of preparation, a slow takes forever bored farmer preparation, etc. They're most closely associated with soul food, and therefore impoverished black communities, but the history of collard greens is nuanced and complex, just like everything else. I guess preparing them as a bland green mush (which is somehow possible and freaks me out since they're so damn easy to make well) is just being a bad cook. I don't know that it is appropriate response or oppressive. It doesn't make me feel bad about my poor, white rural family members who live in towns of 1,500 people in South Carolina, who eat collard greens because that's what the farmer up the street grows so they can get it by bartering. It just makes me confused -- how bad a cook can you be???

It's like when General Tso's Chicken got popular. Sure, it's not Chinese food, but Chinese-Americans sure loved it. And I've known Indians who love a good Chicken Tikka. It's not as simple as, "Someone who doesn't look like they have have a history with this cuisine is making this, and therefore it's bad," which in my mind is just as bad as, "Oh, you're from Panama? I bet your burritos are divine!" Food is a nuanced, complex thing.

[Badfinger]

Couple of things- 

 

1) I acknowledge that article was not for me. As in literally, it was for that woman and her audience, of whom I am not a part. However, it was just sort of a bad post. It took a lot of time to parse. That's fine, it's someone's personal blog. I write all kinds of garbage. you're probably reading some right now.

 

2) My comment about "all black ladies" is absolutely tangential to the point being made with regard to being outside of certain cultural settings means it's not quite right, because what you were driving towards is only black southern ladies can do this properly, which is functionally the same argument that all black ladies can cook collard greens.

 

3) cooking is a talent but it is also a skill. OF COURSE a white dude from Vermont can cook collard greens as well as a Southern lady from Georgia. That is to say, he has the ability to do so. People go to school for a decade to understand the nuances of food and flavors. No one would argue that me saying "I cook a better Thanksgiving dinner than my grandmothers" is culturally insensitive, even though they're women who grew up in the depression and were homemakers during the 50s, which is a confluence of Americana tradition. it may not be true, but it could be. You would hope that someone who attempts to recreate those things is doing so with the passion and respect for the culture and heritage they deserve because those things are important, but the absence of those factors doesn't mean it can't be a rockin' burrito.

[jennegatron]

Well this essay was talking about a restaurant staffed by white people that clearly had no experience preparing at traditional southern/Black/soul food dish. (I do not know the race or ethnicity of the actual kitchen staff, only the wait staff described. Those sorts of jobs are often times not filed by white people, but it seems clear that the recipe as well as preparation diverged from what was a traditional high quality product)

There's a difference between preparing a food of your own culture or even another's and 'discovering' it and serving it with little to no prior familiarity. Of course the demographic best at making collard greens will likely be older black women. They have had the longest to practice and prepare a dish that had been looked down on as "gross" by much of white America. That's not to say there aren't people of all backgrounds to competently make any cuisine, including collards.

It would be like me deciding because I've had like 4 latkes in my life that I'm an expert and will now sell them despite not being Jewish, and having no idea how to make them.

[Bjorn]

1) I shared that because I thought it was hilarious, as I could hear my friend giving a rant exactly like that and it made me smile. 

 

2) Of course there's not some magical property to blackness that makes them good at making collard greens.  That's ridiculous.  No one here has stated that (I argued that it's a learned skill that people from some cultures are likely to be better at certain foods than others because they grew up around the skill set needed, not that there's some inherent property to those people).  The article doesn't state that.  The article is someone venting some frustration.

 

3)  Why does a person of color getting angry and venting bother people?  Because that's kind of what this whole exchange seems like.  A black woman wanted to vent, and that's not okay somehow?  Because it's about food and white people?  I really had no expectations of this spawning any kind of exchange like this when I posted it.  I'm super perplexed.  She's not like condemning all white people, or calling for a boycott of the restaurant, or anything.  She passed along a humorous anecdote about shitty collard greens she ate. 

 

 

I'm glad she shared her experience, and in a way that made me and the lady smile.  I'm glad my Mexican friends on Facebook shared their frustrations with the intersection of white people and tacos in Kansas City (and you can go visit the Bombcast thread to witness my love of tacos and how much I enjoy making them even though I'm not from any culture they came from, but I'm sure as fuck never opening up a taco restaurant).  Obviously, for some people of color, the intersection of culture, food and white America is something that bothers them.  I don't think their concerns or anger are without merit, even if it is a complex and nuanced subject for which a hundred different examples and counter examples exist to show the positives and negatives of the way that food trends and recipes move around the world.

[Gormongous]

3)  Why does a person of color getting angry and venting bother people?  Because that's kind of what this whole exchange seems like.  A black woman wanted to vent, and that's not okay somehow?  Because it's about food and white people?  I really had no expectations of this spawning any kind of exchange like this when I posted it.  I'm super perplexed.

 

I've found that people, particularly white people, are weirdly defensive about the supposedly apolitical and egalitarian nature of food and its preparation. It's taken as given that speaking a foreign language properly, learning a craft skill native to a foreign culture, or learning a foreign discipline of academic study requires some basic familiarity with that foreign culture to approach competency and a deep knowledge of it to achieve mastery. However, even the oblique suggestion that someone who grew up seeing, eating, and cooking a dish in the culture that spawned it has some advantage over... well, anyone else in making and/or appreciating it gets everyone up in arms that food belongs to the world and that culture should be proud that other (white) people even give a shit about it.

[Argobot]

I regret participating in this conversation. I did not read the blog post, my comments were in response to what people in this thread said. I do think that cooking is a learned ability that is added by a combination of factors, including what you grew up with.

[Badfinger]

3)  Why does a person of color getting angry and venting bother people?  Because that's kind of what this whole exchange seems like.  A black woman wanted to vent, and that's not okay somehow?  Because it's about food and white people?  I really had no expectations of this spawning any kind of exchange like this when I posted it.  I'm super perplexed.  She's not like condemning all white people, or calling for a boycott of the restaurant, or anything.  She passed along a humorous anecdote about shitty collard greens she ate. 

Holy shit, that's a hell of a leap to make. I don't think anyone's taking the position that it's not ok. You posted a thing for a laugh in the social justice thread, and people had a conversation about it. Posting jokey stuff is a little out of the tenor from what usually gets posted here. I think it's fine, but it's why I asked where you were going with it in the first place. I appreciate the spirit it was written in, I just thought it wasn't entertaining.

 

Gorm it's the opposite. My first point was that people have been absorbing food culture for years and not giving it a second thought. The opposite assumption to "no one has an advantage in food preparation" that you're arguing for is that everyone in that culture naturally has an advantage. In my mind it's the difference between understanding why soul food from an old Southern lady would be so goddamn good, and saying "these collard greens are going to be awesome, a black lady made them".

[Gormongous]

Gorm it's the opposite. My first point was that people have been absorbing food culture for years and not giving it a second thought. The opposite assumption to "no one has an advantage in food preparation" that you're arguing for is that everyone in that culture naturally has an advantage. In my mind it's the difference between understanding why soul food from an old Southern lady would be so goddamn good, and saying "these collard greens are going to be awesome, a black lady made them".

 

I think that's a point of nuance, though, and the problematic argument that I hear much more often is that the raw skill of the chef (and not also their background, their identity, their community, and their surroundings) is what determines the deliciousness of a certain dish, regardless of its culture of origin. That attitude is very entrenched, it seems to me, and probably stems from the globalization/populization of "high" cuisine starting in the 1960s and 1970s. I definitely see how it could be frustrating (even infuriating) to a lot of minority communities for a variety of reasons, especially when the assumption that a talented white chef can take a class on sushi and be the next Ono Jiro makes said white chef a ton of money.

 

I regret participating in this conversation. I did not read the blog post, my comments were in response to what people in this thread said. I do think that cooking is a learned ability that is added by a combination of factors, including what you grew up with.

 

It's the Social Justice thread. There's no participation without regret, which makes me wonder why I appear so often in it. Probably because I hate myself?

[Twig]

If you do it like me you type up responses every now and then and immediately before clicking Post you realize what you're doing, recoil in horror, and take a sledgehammer to your computer.

 

It's expensive, but keeps me sane.

 

I'll make an exception for this post.

[Ninety-Three]

It's the Social Justice thread. There's no participation without regret, which makes me wonder why I appear so often in it. Probably because I hate myself?

 

I also tend to regret participation, but that's because I usually disagree with the popular consensus, and never seem to make any progress arguing against it. I'm not sure why I keep trying, probably because I'm bad at pattern recognition.

[Badfinger]

I think that's a point of nuance, though, and the problematic argument that I hear much more often is that the raw skill of the chef (and not also their background, their identity, their community, and their surroundings) is what determines the deliciousness of a certain dish, regardless of its culture of origin. That attitude is very entrenched, it seems to me, and probably stems from the globalization/populization of "high" cuisine starting in the 1960s and 1970s. I definitely see how it could be frustrating (even infuriating) to a lot of minority communities for a variety of reasons, especially when the assumption that a talented white chef can take a class on sushi and be the next Ono Jiro makes said white chef a ton of money.

 

I would contend that those things are direct inputs into skill of a chef. That's kinda the point. You can't just "take a class". This is veering dangerously into how I feel about the act of cooking which is an entirely different ball of off topic.

 

 

How would you feel about a Chinese chef opening a high end French cuisine restaurant?

[Gormongous]

How would you feel about a Chinese chef opening a high end French cuisine restaurant?

 

Weird, but not the same. It's not like French cuisine and its practitioners have been denigrated for centuries, first as the food of less-than-human minorities, then as "trashy" food for poorer people, then as "exotic" food for everyone.

[Argobot]

Okay, I will bite at continuing to discuss this topic.

There's a book out called First Bite that examines how our upbringing influences our eating habits. I want to quote from the NY Times review:

"Take Japan. Believe it or not, Wilson writes in one of the more fascinating chapters on the psychology of change, the country’s cuisine hasn’t always been fresh fish, flavorful soups and elegant, umami-loaded offerings that look pretty in bento boxes. For centuries the diet was unrefined and carb-heavy — a typical meal consisted of grains with shredded yam leaves, radishes and pickles. After World War II, though, when the country experienced an economic boom, newfound affluence allowed for more refrigerators (therefore more protein) and more variety. Gradually, as borders opened and palates expanded, the Japanese were introduced to the idea of eating for pleasure, and Japanese cuisine as we now know it was formed."

Essentially, Japanese cuisine as most of us know it did not emerge until midway through the last century. As someone else pointed out earlier, Italian food didn't take on the aspects of what we think of as Italian until the 1800s. All of this accepted cultural food traditions have been in flux for centuries, which is why I'm so dubious with these claims that one group does cooking right and another does cooking wrong, because how do you even determine what is right or traditional if the tradition has changed so much.

Weird, but not the same. It's not like French cuisine and its practitioners have been denigrated for centuries, first as the food of less-than-human minorities, then as "trashy" food for poorer people, then as "exotic" food for everyone.

I see your point, but don't you think it's a little insulting to the legacy of Chinese culture (which is older than French culture) to suggest that it cannot stand up to some non-Chinese people making a version of Chinese food? What even is Chinese food?

[Gormongous]

I see your point, but don't you think it's a little insulting to the legacy of Chinese culture (which is older than French culture) to suggest that it cannot stand up to some non-Chinese people making a version of Chinese food? What even is Chinese food?

 

I'm not asking for it to "stand up" to anything. I'm saying that, in a world where China was literally partitioned between Western powers, its people drugged with opium, and its resources exported to fuel non-Chinese industries, there's a more complex and more troubling dynamic to non-Chinese people making Chinese food and it still being considered just as Chinese.

 

The rest of your post is interesting, but I think the evolution and fusion of native cuisines is a sharply different process from white people making the food of (and profit from the food of) people of color, right? Also, taking both Japan and Italy as examples is... odd? One modernized in the late nineteenth century and then was functionally destroyed and rebuilt in the 1940s, the other unified in the mid-nineteenth century and was also functionally destroyed and rebuilt in the 1940s. I'm sure that makes them poor examples for how cuisine "naturally" evolves, even though war is, of course, natural.

[itsamoose]

Gorm, this is going to sound like a provocation but I don't mean for it to be, but does personal agency play any role in these considerations?  No one is denying the fact that various cultures have been subjugated by western powers and their people devalued.  Is a white lady cutting up a hot dog to throw in her food, or a white chef making shitty collard greens ever just that?  Why does everything have to be judged based on what the society it exists in thinks of it, or the prevailing cultural attitude?  I mean if society judges a white person differently than a black person for doing the same thing, I don't see how that makes the white person shitty for engaging in that activity.  That seems to me to be such an obvious problem with the society, and not with the individual.  I mean you've asked a number of times in this thread why white people get upset when they get labeled a racist for doing something they assume to be innocuous, and I just can't understand why you would think they wouldn't have this reaction.  It seems like the one constant in all of this is that because white people have been shitty to other cultures in the past, then it is impossible for white people today not to be.

 

Also, and this is a pet peeve of mine largely in the thread, could we just stop using the word "nuanced" to describe something and instead just describe the actual nuance we're talking about?  I feel like that word just gets used in lieu of an actual argument being made, or as almost a way to browbeat an opposing viewpoint.

[jennegatron]

If I, a white woman made some super bad collards for myself (which I'm almost positive I would make them poorly, as I have very little familiarity with them and am all around a poor cook) that would be mostly just me making bad food. When you add in the aspect of someone selling those collards for money that complicates things. Additionally by buying collards in the first place I may be participating in a trend that over all drives up the prices of those greens as demand increase (see: quinoa.)

 

You can never strip the conversation of race out of literally anything because it informs EVERYTHING. You can't strip things of cultural context, because words and actions mean things. Nothing is that easy or cut and dry.

Instead of getting insulted when someone says something i did was thoughtless or racist, especially if that person is a Person of Color or another group I do not belong to, instead of getting defensive, I should take that under consideration and at the very least think about changing my behavior going forward.

[Gormongous]

It seems like the one constant in all of this is that because white people have been shitty to other cultures in the past, then it is impossible for white people today not to be.

 

The entire premise of social justice is that white (or straight or male) people have done shitty stuff in the past and need to be more mindful around other cultures and subcultures, now having knowledge and awareness of that, and also to be mindful that it's impossible not to act harmfully with the privilege that one has. We live in an oppressive society, meaning that partaking in that society oppresses certain other peoples and identities. You don't have to accept that premise, if you don't want to accept it or if you think it asks too much of you, but I don't really know why you're posting in the Social Justice thread then.

 

Not that opposing views aren't welcome, but this forum also doesn't really see much of people posting in the Feminism thread with comments about really liking boobies in media and it being inconvenient for them not to be able to say so.