This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Aramark apologizes for insensitivity of school lunch served on first day of Black History Month
Specifically,
What stood out to me about this story, though, is how weirdly banal it registered. What year do you suppose it was when the very first $ETHNIC_MINORITY originally complained that the serving of $STEREOTYPED_FOOD was "insensitive" instead of "delicious?" The word "microaggression" was apparently coined in 1970. Recent philosophical treatment of the term suggests that a core feature of microaggressions is precisely that they cannot be empirically validated (if you could empirically validate it, it would simply be an aggression). This makes them non-falsifiable (that is, if someone feels microaggressed, then they are by definition being oppressed, and no further argument is warranted). But none of this answers the historical question: at what point did people view attempts (or even just possible attempts) to celebrate their culture as offensive?
I suppose it could be related to notions of "cultural appropriation," which were apparently in circulation by 1945 or so. But nobody seems to think you can't serve chicken and waffles with watermelon ever. You just can't serve it (apparently!) on the first day of February? Or perhaps any day in February? Maybe it also cannot be served on MLK day? Cynically, I suspect the real answer is deliberately obfuscated so that outlets like CNN can run absolute non-stories peddling racial outrage whenever it suits them, but like... at this point it's just not clear to me why they would bother. Maybe thirty years ago I would have raged about thin-skinned idiots who see fit to complain about food instead of being grateful they have food, but at this point it's such a boring cliché it just kind of... bounces off. It fits the whole "signal your ingroup" thing, sure, but even the ingroup seems at least inured to it, if not actively opposed--as over on reddit I often see putatively black posters respond with "whatever, man, who doesn't love chicken and waffles?"
I seem to be more and more often encountering claims that the "Great Awokening" is losing steam, cooling off, or at least running up against hard limits of what people will accept as the new, elite-imposed "normal." I am skeptical of these claims, but I was honestly a little surprised at my own bland reaction to this story on CNN. It was like... "oh, look, how original, someone is mad that soul food got served in February, can't wait for them to tell me not to wear white after Labor Day." On reflection, I definitely continue to regard anyone who complains about soul food being served in February as fundamentally unreasonable, I have heard all their arguments and found no value whatsoever in them. But there's no shock value remaining in it--like a girl playing football, being mad about food culture is purely performative outrage, an occasional sacrament for a tepid ideology.
What I can't decide is whether that means the "Great Awokening" really is on the wane, or whether it has become so integrated into our culture that it is now impossible to excise--something on its way to becoming so boring and broadly accepted that no one bothers to challenge it. Like--the advent of no-fault divorce has brought to pass all the scary slippery-slope arguments its critics made against it, but now it's too late to do anything about it because our culture has moved on so irrecoverably that we don't even regard the bad outcomes as bad anymore. Should I be more upset that performative outrage is carving holiday-based dietary restrictions into the public consciousness?
I thought watermelon was specifically an old meme about Africans not being smart enough to grow anything else on their own. The other two items I don’t have an issue with as if anything their just poor people Foods and every culture has their poor people food. Frying something with breading being a good way to increase the calorie count of a thing cheaply.
But what do I know I’m Irish and our signature American holiday is about us being drunkards.
I had never heard of that before, despite living in multiple different states, enjoying fried chicken and watermelon in several of them. TIL I learned, I guess. This seems like Jewish goblin and black orc kerfuffles -- it didn't seem obvious, but I guess if you feel a kinship...?
I remember learning of the watermelon thing for the 1st time some time ago during Bush 2 when some physics teacher got in trouble for using "Condoleezza throws a watermelon off the roof" as a word problem in a homework problem set. And fried chicken from Dave Chappelle who had a bit about how everybody likes fried chicken because it's really really delicious. It doesn't seem like a particularly strong or strongly reinforced stereotype, though, just a vague dull background radiation thing that everyone knows that everyone else is supposed to know, but nobody talks about it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link