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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32065 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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Any fans of the Great British Bake Off here? I think this season has been a case study in the mechanisms by which wokeness latches on and does its best to ruin things. I'm so sick of people talking about how offensive Mexican week was. If you ask me, I really have no idea what was so offensive about it. Acknowledging that Mexican culture and food exists is not the same as being racist towards Mexicans. Also, since when are Mexicans even considered to be oppressed, and worthy of people getting outraged over? Have Mexicans historically been oppressed, especially by the British?

Following Mexican week, now, I guess the outlets all saw that claiming offense at GBBO was a great way to get more views, because every week I see at least one article about how viewers were "shocked and outaged" at the latest episode of Bake Off. Often, these are related to the fact that several contestants this season aren't native to Great Britain and are not being handled sensitively enough with regards to the recipes they do and their ability to follow the instructions in the technical challenges.

Nobody is actually offended. The public displays of anger are a way to put an organization on the back foot, and the rule "you can only use ethnically/sexually correct personnel" (with the exception of whites of course) is a way to get party members in.

Get “party members” into what, in this case? The contestants? The judges? I don’t even see a proposed remedy, just people who want to complain.

This also implies a level of conspiracy among the plaintiffs that I find unrealistic. I think you’re too credulous of anything that could potentially support an anti-white agenda.

EDIT: yes, I know that DEI consultants are a thing. I hadn’t seen examples of requests for such political spoils, so I figured the backlash was performative. I have since found quotes specifically calling for Mexican judges and consultants, so...objection retracted.

Sometimes you ask these questions and I can't tell if you're taking the piss or just suddenly got amnesia about the last 2-6 years.

I know what a DEI consultant is. Not trolling either. All the examples i was seeing were either cringing at the humor or mad about the food, with no requests for DEI compliance officers.

A little more googling found an actual example, though, so I’ll concede.

The claim "only Mexicans are allowed to make Mexican food" means that anyone who wants to make Mexican food commercially has to use Mexicans and can't use whites. Across all domains where cultural appropriation can be alleged, the replacement of whites with non-whites (who owe their position to leftist politics) is essentially adding party members.

conspiracy among the plaintiffs that I find unrealistic

Those who buy the cultural appropriation thing at face value would also make the claim that white people have no culture to justify the exception to the rule. So at best we have plaintiffs conspiring against whites for purely cultural/ethnic reasons, at worst they are politically motivated. I think it's fair to say that the specific rules of USA progressive leftism are always self-reinforcing i.e. they have the effect of replacing non-progressives with progressives inside organizations.

Get “party members” into what, in this case? The contestants? The judges?

The production team and management. Obviously the Great British Bakeoff will need to hire one or a dozen DEI consultants to help ensure their show is inclusive and represents the diverse world we live in today, and such terrible racism and white supremacy doesn't seep into the show again.

Have there been calls for that? The criticisms quoted elsewhere are more performative outrage than requests for concessions.

Edit: yeah, surprisingly close to word for word. Sigh.

Get “party members” into what, in this case?

Consultant role. Not everyone involved in the show works in-front of the camera.

anti-white

Not anti-white, this the UK with plenty of "whites" which consider themselves outside of the legacy majority ethnicity (Poles, for instance), anti-British or anti-English.

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