Detroit Tigers’ television color man, Rod Allen, last night made reference to the team needing to get some “rice and beans” for the post-game spread, as the team is currently fielding about a dozen players that come from Latin America. He took some heat for the comment.
But… Dominicans, Cubans, and Venezuelans DO eat rice and beans. Those are very common ingredients in Latin food.
And Italians eat a lot of pasta, garlic, tomato sauce, etc. It’s called Italian food.
African Americans eat fried chicken, collard greens and mac & cheese. It’s called Soul Food.
Chinese eat Chinese food.
Arabs eat hummous, lamb, fattoush and shawarma.
Jews eat Kosher.
What is so damn offensive about saying that Latinos might like rice and beans? Or blacks eat soul food? Why should we pretend that people who grow up in a specific culture don’t have a predilection toward that culture-- especially in regard to food?
Why is there this need to pussyfoot around food and ethnicity? I understand not every Cuban eats fried pork and rice, and not every Italian likes his mama’s Fettucini Alfredo, and there are some Lebanese who wretch at the sight of pureed chickpeas, and many African Americans avoid soul food for a variety of reasons. But to pretend that a large portion of those ethnicities DON’T eat certain foods, insults our intelligence.
Is it offensive to refer to the ethnicity of a person for no particular reason? Who cares where the players are from, it’s not important to their performance.
But you didn’t really address my question: Why is it offensive to connect an ethnicity with a specific food? I don’t want to get hung up on the baseball announcer aspect of the post; that’s just the incident that prompted me to post this question.
Think of the most simplistic ethnocultural shorthand that somebody who doesn’t know you could use to describe you, based only on your family name and physical appearance.
Think of the two or three food items most easily and stereotypically associated with that shorthand description.
Now imagine that every time something in your life isn’t working out very well, somebody else announces cheerfully, to all in earshot, that you just need to eat more of that stuff.
(ETA: The “baseball announcer aspect”–the lack of personal relationship, the judgment of performance, the fact that it’s being broadcast–is significant to why it doesn’t come off well in this context.)
I’d think in part it depends on whether members of the ethnicities themselves feel sensitive about it (not just the guys with a chip on their shoulder looking for something to protest). I’d imagine the players might have said, “yeah, we eat rice and beans. It’s good stuff. So?”
But blacks and watermelons probably have a different connotation among that community, not least because black people (AFAIK) are portrayed as sort of going crazy for watermelon like a cat does for catnip – which I can see them taking as belittling them as human beings.
Also, pointing out that a team is made up of foreigners (who happen to be from Latin America) sounds to me different from pointing out that a particular team has a lot of Americans of a certain ethnicity. If a football team were made up of, I dunno, African Zulus, it wouldn’t sound so bad to say “this team needs to get Shaka-Zulu on their opponents’ ass.” But you certainly wouldn’t want to make a pigeonholing remark about your fellow Americans who happen to be black.
IOW, I think there can’t be a blanket rule, and it’s more of a case-by-case situation.
Yes-- in some contexts, that kind of discourse reduces people to something trivial, defining them by otherness. It’s like using the word “ethic” when what you really mean to say is “not-anglo;” the lexical transposition presumes that anglo is by nature the norm, from which all other things are perceived by their difference. Kind of like talking about the earth as though it were the center of the solar system. If the team were all white, he wouldn’t be talking about food, would he?
Take the following for what it’s worth (I’m just a boring white dude.)
I don’t think it’s the linking of the food with ethnicity that bothers people. And it’s probably not about recognizing ethnicity. What I think it is is that you’re not looking at a person as a “ball player.” You’re looking at them as a “Hispanic ball player” or a “black ball player.” I think people infer that such an “xyz ball player” is a second class citizen.
Ok, anything done with a negative or sarcastic connotation would be offensive, but why is just ANY connection between an ethnicity and a food automatic grounds for the PC police to come out with guns a-blazin?
I’m Dutch and Polish. Anytime someone wants to reference gouda or Whilhelmina Pepermunts or Kielbasa or stuffed cabbage in my presence in reference to my heritage-- it’s fine by me. I grew up eating those all of those things due to the heritage of my family.
(ETA: In regard to the announcer: He knows these guys, has probably broken bread with them, hung out with them in the clubhouse, travelled with them on the team plane; he *has *a personal relationship with the players. They were coming off of a victory, so it wasn’t a matter of “better eat some more beans and rice, hyuk hyuk.” It was more of an observation that MOST of the Tigers players out on the field against the Twins were Latino, and connecting it to food. Is he making an assumption? Sure, but why is it offensive to assume a Dominican or a Cuban likes to eat beans and rice? *That’s *what I don’t understand.)
I understand that connecting food and ethnicity COULD be offensive if done in a sarcastic or hateful or angry way, but why is *every *connection between ethnicity and food taken as offensive? Saying “These fucking bean-eaters are taking over this team” is not the same as saying “They’re gonna have to get some rice and beans for the postgame spread tonight.”
I understand that’s how many in society see it. My question is Why? Why is it offensive to assume Cubans eat rice and beans? They eat it, we know they eat it, they know we know they eat it, but we can’t talk about it?
Polish cuisine consists of Kielbasa and sauerkraut. But we can’t talk about it? If there were a bunch of -skis on the field, why would an off-the-cuff remark about having some Polish sausage and kraut in the after-game spread be offensive? WHY is connecting food and heritage offensive? Are we so hung up on “getting past our differences” that we’re not even allowed to mention them anymore?
I know for a fact that the black people I grew up with growing up didn’t get offended when you made fried chicken, watermelon, or grape soda references. Most of them really do love that shit (I love me some watermelon too for that matter). It was only white liberals from the outside that found it offensive. The only plausible reason I ever heard for watermelon being offensive to some blacks is that watermelon is from Africa and was a crop brought over with the slaves so the connection is offensive. Maybe but that doesn’t change the fact that it is some good eating for anyone and grows well in the South where there are lots of black people.
Do vegetarians get offended at tofu references? It is basically the same thing. Not all vegetarians eat tofu but it is hardly the worst assumption you could make about someone based on who they are.
I was bringing up my heritage in reference to spark240, who encouraged me to picture myself in a situation involving my heritage and foods associated with my heritage.
But again, if there was a team that had a larger-than-normal number of Polish players on the field, I would find nothing wrong with an announcer (or anyone else present) making a comment about getting some Kielbasa and kraut ready after the game. They’re Polish! That’s Polish food! Why are we so afraid to associate ethnic foods and personal heritage? Or why is it so taboo to do so? It’s not dehumanizing, nor is it making any claims that anglo culture is the best, to state that Latinos might like Latino food or Italians might like Italian food or blacks might like Soul food or Chinese people might like Chinese food.
I’m sure they would appreciate it if, for example, bank tellers “translated” the world “dollar” to “watermelon,” so they could understand complicated money matters.
It’s all about context, and it’s patronizing to reference things that aren’t relevant simply to point out someone’s “difference” from the “norm.”
I’d like to go on record stating that if any of you can make a decent pasta carbonara you can stand over me and call me a dirty, greaseball, ginny, wop while I eat it.