after seeing a commercial about a tortilla pan, something i thought i would never witness in my entire life, we need to talk
y’all really need to stop with the fuckery y’all be committing on ethnic foods
now don’t get it twisted, nobody is saying that you can’t eat foods from non-white cultures
but there is a way to do it and there is a way not to do it
so lemme break it break it down for y’all on what not to do
- commodifying and subsequently profiting off the rebranding of “ethnic foods”. yes, i’m looking at all you white people who make a hefty living by cooking and selling foods from non-white cultures. whether it be cook books, television shows, ingredients in foods marketed at upper class white people *cough cough KASHI commericals as an example*, whole restaurants with the kitchy couture that just screams “STEREOTYPE” and the only people who are of colour are the undocumented people working in the back. yes, all of you. have a seat and face the facts cause guess what, you have a food culture. because despite thinking you are plain jane wonderbread white folks you do actually descend from somewhere in Europe. it may not be the exotic wonderland some of y’all think brown folk descend from, but its your heritage and its about time you fucking accepted it and got over it. take a DNA test, an ancestry heritage. hope a boat, hope a train, hope a plane. quite honestly i don’t give a fuck how you get back to your roots but if you want to make and market food based on a specific tradition i suggest you begin and end with your own.
- designating yourself the health gurus of ethnic food- i’m so sick of y’all changing recipes to make things “healthier” and doing it in a way that makes ethnic foods look like shit on a plate and taste like a whole lot of nothing. what you fools fail to realize is that our food is healthy FOR US. wasn’t nobody thinking about y’all when that shit was created and the only reason why anybody thinks about y’all now when it comes to creation and production of ethnic food cultures is because the only way to survive in a capitalist white supremacist system is to serve y’all tropes on a plate.
- by the way, plenty of POCs have written cookbooks that demonstrate how to make our foods more health conscious for those who have legitimate dietary concerns related to food consumption. in fact some of my favourite cookbooks written by POCS are from folk who are actively engaged with the food justice movement. support them, not people whose only claim to knowledge is “well i traipsed through the jungle/bush/seemingly rural and or isolated place and learned from the people. so i’m back now to spread the knowledge”.
- which brings me to my next point, there are plenty of ethnic food restaurants where POCs actually have control over production, consumption, and profit. in order to support us and really give us control and autonomy over our own cultures, you have to actually support POCs. you cannot say “oh well i’m not a racist/i have respect for this culture” if the only access point is through a white person with some loosey goosy connection to POCs.
- but bear in mind than when you enter our space you play by our rules. POC restaurants are safe spaces for US. we created them for US. its where we go to escape the likes of y’all when you piss us off or simply become too much. that space is not oriented around you, and just because you walk through the door and sit your starvin marvin asses down doesn’t mean you become the center of the universe. don’t get it twisted. respect the rules which govern our eating spaces, and to quote the fabulous Lafayette “tip yo waitress!”
in short, y’all need to recognize!
we were fed up with y’all jackin our shit before, and we’re fed up with it now.
we’re fed up with having our cultures dissed and dismissed right in front of our faces, and being treated as if we’re expected to care that you magically took interest in our cultures. no matter how problematic your engagement with it is. we’re somehow supposed to be grateful and interpret your cultural genocide as respect and admiration.
honestly, stop taking a page out of the “copying is the greatest form of flattery” basic bitch handbook. cause that’s only true in a white supremacist society where white people can copy POCs and never give credit where credit is due.
also, i don’t care if you can find the person of colour who is an apologist for every racially conscious POC who is telling you to have a seat. don’t even bother to try and pull them out as if to say “well see they approve of my behaviour so you’re just a mean black lady and blah blah blah”
cause my response will be
“first of all, nobody said i was nice”
“and second, no.1.curr.bout.dem
“no.1.curr.bout.you!”
neva have, and neva will.
And yes. There we have it. The library is closed!
