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Saturday, December 19, 2015

Finally, a substantive cause we can get behind

The latest brouhaha on campus is taking place at Oberlin College, where students are claiming to be offended that the ethnic cuisine in the cafeterias isn't prepared authentically enough.

The more we hear about these various student protests, the more it seems that it's all one big contest to demonstrate how refined their sensibilities, or, in this case, their palates are.

It's hard not to wonder how these students will feel about their behavior twenty years from now, as they look back on their college years.

Will they be proud that they had the courage to stand up and fight for justice this way? Or will they feel just a little bit embarrassed?

12 comments:

Steven said...

In the sixties they marched because they didn't have enough rights. Now they don't have enough garam masala.

John Craig said...

Steven --
Or because the garam masala isn't cooked just right. There's a reason it's called cafeteria food; these students are spoiled and silly beyond belief.

Mark Caplan said...

I can feel the student's pain over Chutneygate. Only a psychopath would put cole slaw in a Vietnamese hoagie. On the other hand, I'm surprised the students nonchalantly bandy about the hate phrase "fri*d ch*cken." I never ever say that out loud and try not to even think it.

John Craig said...

Mark --
Chutneygate, well put. Maybe so about a Vietnamese hoagie, but c'mon, it's cafeteria food.

I was surprised by their objections to not having fried chicken as part of the permanent menu too, I'd have thought their objections would run the other way. It's a little like them objecting to not getting enough watermelon.

Glad you keep your mind pure, though.

Steven said...

I just read the NY post article. They are actually getting beyond parody. They can't be parodied anymore because you can't come up with anything that is obviously more ridiculous than your things that are actually seriously said.

John Craig said...

Steven --
You're exactly right. It's now self-parody.

Mark Caplan said...

The strangest demand was the "reduction of cream" to placate the subtle African American palate, "because black American food doesn’t have much cream in it" (long lines of African Americans at the local Dairy Queen notwithstanding). First, I'd rank a reduction of crime well ahead of a reduction of cream. But aside from that, if you'll permit me to profile their cuisine, aren't a lot of things absent from black American food? Arugula. Quinoa. Shallots. Or anything generally regarded as healthy.

John Craig said...

Mark --
Ha, crime, cream, what's the diff? Yeah, I was thrown by that one too.

BTW, I do think you're straying from your earlier vow to keep your mind pure.

Lady bug said...

I know that I'm supposed to laugh at this but I can't, John, I can't. I want to ring these little turds necks!

Isn't it funny, when you walk past a chick-fil-a, you will see the longest lines and half of the customers are black.

John Craig said...

Lady Bug --
They're essentially wringing their own necks; they won't be able to make it through the rest of their lives carrying on like this.

I've only eaten at a Chick Fil-A once, but I liked what I had. Their big controversy was that the owner was against gay marriage, not anything racial. Isn't it amazing, looking back, that Barack Obama took so little grief for ostensibly being against gay marriage himself until 2012?

MarieC said...

I just read a post at a feminist website (that I'd only just found, and am finding that only some things I agree with, which is generally normal for me), that talked about how "cultural exchanges" are often "no more an exchange than pressuring your neighbors to adopt your ideals while stealing their family heirlooms." (Unfortunately the more that I read posts that website, the less I am inclined to visit it in future).

While I can see that pressuring neighbors to adopt your own cultural traditions and habits can be not so great/pretty awful, the "stealing" family heirlooms argument seems a little bit specious to me.

As someone who hates yoga (and other organized exercise "classes": aerobics, water aerobics, etc), I can proudly say that I personally have no and have never had any intention of stealing the family heirloom that is yoga.

John Craig said...

MarieC --
I wouldn't frequent a feminist website, but they do have a point there. Maybe the clearest example is Hawaii, where the missionaries gave the natives Christianity and took their land. This happened in the Americas and Africa as well. "Family heirlooms" usually meant just land and natural resources; most of those cultures weren't advanced enough to have what are normally called "family heirlooms." But still, point taken.

Of course, what's happening now is even sicker. Europe (and to a lesser extent, the US) is voluntarily importing Muslims who have no intention of assimilating, and whose fondest wish is to convert the infidels and impose Sharia law. At least the Hawaiians and Indians never WILLINGLY accepted the whites; they were more or less subjugated. Those whites' descendants are now willingly subjugating themselves.