# NY Observer food critic enraged by wealthy white people enjoying chi-chi hip-hop themed restaurant **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 14, 2013, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180 "2013-08-14T02:13:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/21 "2013-08-14T18:37:57Z")
> [@astro](#): > > No it’s the opposite he really, really likes hip hop and rap and apparently styles himself as an aficionado on urban musical genres. It’s the non-poor, inauthentic people enjoying it while dining that drives him to distraction. That’s not exactly his complaint, either. What he’s talking about is gentrification. It’s the fact that they’re enjoying it in the West Village that’s bothering him. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/22 "2013-08-14T19:19:15Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > That’s not exactly his complaint, either. What he’s talking about is gentrification. It’s the fact that they’re enjoying it in the West Village that’s bothering him. \*Hooper: Always some white boy gotta invoke the holy trilogy. Bust this: Those movies are about how the white man keeps the brother man down, even in a galaxy far, far away. Check this shit: You got cracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god! Banky Edwards: What’s a Nubian? Hooper: Shut the fuck up! Now… Vader, he’s a spiritual brother, y’know, down with the force and all that good shit. Then this cracker, Skywalker, gets his hands on a light saber and the boy decides he’s gonna run the fuckin’ universe; gets a whole clan of whites together. And they go and bust up Vader’s hood, the Death Star. Now what the fuck do you call that? Banky Edwards: Intergalactic civil war? Hooper: Gentrification! They gon’ drive out the black element to make the galaxy quote, unquote, safe for white folks. And Jedi’s the most insulting installment! \*_Because Vader’s beautiful black visage is sullied when he pulls off his mask to reveal a feeble, crusty, old white man! They tryin’ to tell us that deep inside we all wants to be white! Banky Edwards: Well, isn’t that true?_ [Hooper pulls out his gun, shoots Banky] ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/23 "2013-08-14T19:35:00Z")
> [@astro](#): > > It’s the non-poor, inauthentic people enjoying it while dining that drives him to distraction. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s inauthentic people. All those androids and homunculi filling the restaurants… ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/24 "2013-08-14T19:36:37Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Joshua David Stein doesn’t like hip-hop. Imagine that. I’m not really sure what this means. At any rate, he seems to like hip-hop just fine, but doesn’t like this restaurant. I suspect the actual reason behind his rage is that, being a ludicrously expensive restaurant in Manhattan, it’s clientele consists largely of horrible assholes. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/25 "2013-08-14T19:48:12Z")
It’s not even that the clientele is enjoying it - if the patrons were dancing around and wearing gold chains and rapping along with the lyrics, it would be an entirely different criticism that attached, I imagine. It’s the proprietor that’s the problem, staking out some kind of cultural affiliation. They’re pretending a historical significance that they have no connection to; as if rap was one part of a shared heritage called “New York” that this chic West Village restaurant has really captured in its entirety. What they really did is pick one highly specific history they have no connection to and smash it into a stereotypical rich-people’s bar and pretend there’s a connection. The place has nothing to actually do with rap or rappers; that’s why it’s called Charlie Bird, for christ’s sake. That’s what’s offensive, that there’s no reason the place should have any association with rap at all, other than quirky ornamentation. It’s the kind of fucked up postmodern ironic sincerity bullshit where you can’t tell if they even think there’s a joke or not. Specifically, it’s the fact that a place named after a heroin-addicted jazz musician who washed dishes in Harlem is using images of dudes from Staten Island and Queens to put on airs about how it and its wine at $19 a glass just “is New York,” as if it embodies those people’s experiences in the same way their music did. Obviously, for people to whom those experiences mean something, it’s going to be a problem when somebody to whom they clearly don’t mean anything claims any kind of ownership of them. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/26 "2013-08-14T19:51:18Z")
The problem with the review is that the meat of it can be condensed into the following line: _“its food…I found wanting.”_ The rest of the review is pretentious guilty white person ramblings to be read by a handful of other guilty white people. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/27 "2013-08-14T19:52:02Z")
Exactly. It’s not just the cultural appropriation (which, as has been said, happens all the time), it’s the condescending nature of the way they’re doing the appropriating. ETA: In response to **Jimmy Chitwood**. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/28 "2013-08-14T19:56:06Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > The rest of the review is pretentious guilty white person ramblings to be read by a handful of other guilty white people. What’s he pretending; that black people exist? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/29 "2013-08-14T20:51:14Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > Exactly. It’s not just the cultural appropriation (which, as has been said, happens all the time), it’s the condescending nature of the way they’re doing the appropriating. > > ETA: In response to **Jimmy Chitwood**. I don’t think it’s even that, so much as the fact that the process of gentrification is driving out the very elements of the city that this restaurant claims to be celebrating. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/30 "2013-08-15T05:14:57Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Joshua David Stein doesn’t like hip-hop. Imagine that. I’m sure you didn’t mean this to sound as horrible as it did. Love, A Jew who’s loved rap and hip-hop since the early '80s, just like a lot of other Jews. p.s. Does the name “Beastie Boys” ring a bell. Sheesh! ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/31 "2013-08-15T12:55:23Z")
If you actually read the review, the author’s disdain is not really for the theme (beyond it being somewhat oddly executed), but rather for the restaurant’s claim to actually embody New York. It’s not a complaint about cultural appropriation as much as it is about an upscale restaurant that is unconvincingly trying to claim to be more than a passing yuppy hangout. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/32 "2013-08-15T13:08:01Z")
From what I’m seeing from his previous articles, dude’s a troll. Compare: [The Sweet Taste of Paula Deen’s Demise By Joshua David Stein 6/24 5:12pm](http://observer.com/2013/06/the-sweet-taste-of-paula-deens-demise/) to: [In Defense of Paula Deen: How a Righteous Call for Blood Turned Into Good Old Bullying By Joshua David Stein 6/27 3:44pm](http://observer.com/2013/06/in-defense-of-paula-deen-how-a-righteous-call-for-blood-turned-into-good-old-bullying/) He seems to write just to get a reaction. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/33 "2013-08-15T13:14:51Z")
I suspect that much of the angst about lower-income people being displaced from Manhattan comes from the well-to-do who fear the loss of cheap labor to prop up their lifestyles. If there isn’t a steady supply of waiters, busboys, maids and other service personnel willing to undertake long commutes to get to jobs in Manhattan, eventually wealthy folks will have to venture into Brooklyn or even the wastes of outer Queens (shudder) to get to upscale restaurants and nightclubs. O the humanity. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/34 "2013-08-15T13:24:08Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Joshua David Stein doesn’t like hip-hop. Imagine that. The black, Southern, came-of-age-in-the-80s Skald doesn’t like hip-hop either. Imagine that. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/35 "2013-08-15T13:59:56Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I suspect that much of the angst about lower-income people being displaced from Manhattan comes from the well-to-do who fear the loss of cheap labor to prop up their lifestyles. If there isn’t a steady supply of waiters, busboys, maids and other service personnel willing to undertake long commutes to get to jobs in Manhattan, eventually wealthy folks will have to venture into Brooklyn or even the wastes of outer Queens (shudder) to get to upscale restaurants and nightclubs. > > O the humanity. ☹ Cool suspicion, bro. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/36 "2013-08-15T14:15:45Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > That’s not exactly his complaint, either. What he’s talking about is gentrification. It’s the fact that they’re enjoying it in the West Village that’s bothering him. then he doesn’t need to go there. IMO professional “critics” of any stripe can go take a flying leap. they’re among the top rung of people afflicted with Unwarranted Self-Importance. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/37 "2013-08-15T15:01:14Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > then he doesn’t need to go there. > > IMO professional “critics” of any stripe can go take a flying leap. they’re among the top rung of people afflicted with Unwarranted Self-Importance. I will never understand this mindset. A professional critic is just someone who has an opinion that a lot of people agree with, to the point where that person can make money. There’s nothing pretentious about liking or not liking something and actually being able to articulate why. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/38 "2013-08-15T15:20:53Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I suspect that much of the angst about lower-income people being displaced from Manhattan comes from the well-to-do who fear the loss of cheap labor to prop up their lifestyles. If there isn’t a steady supply of waiters, busboys, maids and other service personnel willing to undertake long commutes to get to jobs in Manhattan, eventually wealthy folks will have to venture into Brooklyn or even the wastes of outer Queens (shudder) to get to upscale restaurants and nightclubs. > > O the humanity. ☹ Ummm that’s how it works now. The service people live in the outer boroughs and commute in via subway. They are willing to take long commutes. That’s what service people do. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/39 "2013-08-15T15:48:41Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Hip-hop is music produced by rich black people for middle-class white people. I don’t see how the poor factor in. I’m old. When I was young, they called it “rap” and it was about gan-banning and living in the 'hood. Maybe things have changed since then. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180/40 "2013-08-15T16:05:14Z")
> [@astro](#): > > [The food review is standard stuff](http://observer.com/2013/08/west-village-hip-hot-spot-charlie-bird-has-99-problems/)but apparently he wants to be a music and authenticity critic too. His rage builds throughout the review but he really starts to go nuts near the end. I don’t’ read any rage or him “being nuts” in this article. For me, if you call a restaurant Charlie Bird, you are referencing Charlie “bird” Parker. BeBop saxophone player. Not hip-hop. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ny-observer-food-critic-enraged-by-wealthy-white-people-enjoying-chi-chi-hip-hop-themed-restaurant/666180.md?page=3)