I know a couple of black people who refuse to eat fried chicken in the midst of white people for fear of perpetuating that stereotype.
I think they’re suckers for putting other’s opinions before their own, but I understand. No one wants to fulfill a stereotype.
If I wasn’t performing well or I was upset, and someone said, “Looks like monstro needs some fried chicken and watermelon!”, I’d be pissed off. It would remind me that my blackness isn’t as secondary to my identity as I’d like it to be, and also it reduces me into a cartoon character. Someone who only lives on fried chicken and watermelon, apparently. If the person saying this was a friend, or we had a history joking around with racial stereotypes, that’s one thing. But if it’s someone else, then I’d be feeling stabby. Especially since I hate watermelon.
Offensiveness is not something that has to be rational for it to “be”. I mean, why do people get offended if you spit on a piece of cloth that looks like the US flag? It’s just a stupid piece of cloth, right? It’s not imbued with magical powers; it’s not like Jesus Christ himself was wrapped up in it or anything. Yet the feeling is there. There is no “why” behind offensiveness. It just is.
I went on a field trip in college once. It was a camping trip, and the professor procured a giant watermelon for us to partake in. As he was cutting into it, he asked me if I wanted a piece. I said no thanks. And he laughed and made a big to-do about a black person not liking watermelon. Was I offended? Well, no. I thought the comment made him look stupid though. (I saved my butthurt for when he said I had to go to the back of R.J Reynold’s plantation house instead of the front, like everyone else).
I don’t think I would have been offended if I had been one of the ballplayers, and I don’t think the announcer did anything horrible. But to say that stereotyping people based on food is something that can never be offensive or that people who are bothered by being at the brunt of this particular type of joking are always oversensitive…well, that’s just plain wrong
You didn’t read what I wrote. You read something else.
What I wrote was that everyone who was an adult by 1980 (e.g. born prior to ~1960) was raised in a racist era. Not that they were individually raised racist, or were themselves racist individuals. But that the times and typical social environment during their upbringing was racist; racism was part of the Zeitgeist during their formative years.
The thing which changed during that 1960s-1980s period I mentioned was that expressing overt racism went from entirely normal to almost entirely socially unacceptable except among the most unenlightened folks.
And in that era with lots of now-closeted no-kidding racists (and some non-racist folks raised in racist times) coded speaking & coded listening was raised to a high art form.
*That *is what I wrote.
The overall point of my post being: When today some public figure uses what used to be code-speak, a lot of (older) people will hear the coded message. Even if the speaker did not intend it.
This is my take also. The commentator meant well. He just inadvertantly (clumsily?) pushed some very obvious buttons.
I personally didn’t react badly to the commentator; I’m not calling for the commentator to be sanctioned. But I’m not surprised that a bunch of people are upset. And I explained why I thought that.
The mystery to me is how/why the OP and a few others can’t (won’t?) see that many people will react badly to it. The issue is not whether or not people *should *react badly, but rather whether or not a bunch *will * react badly.
Having worked with many foreign nationals over my lifetime I can’t remember how many have teased me with “Looks like you could do with a nice cup of tea old chap”, or similar.
But its been alot .
How DARE they stereotype me, its so hurtful !
Except that it isn’t.
I love tea and am not ashamed of being an Englishman.
Maybe it IS hurtful if you’re not happy with being who you are.
But if thats the case then its your problem, not the rest of the worlds.
People are TOO uptight about this. Who cares if he said the team needs more rice and beans? Anyone with brains knew that his implied meaning was ‘that the team needs to train harder’, right?
I’m Italian. I embrace the people talking about my pasta, so I can shove it down their throat! That’s what I’m good at: Cooking and talking about food. That’s right, BRING IT ON! No shame in that. Just like if I met an indian I would talk to him about his indian food.
I expect Gillrais did some pretty extreme caricatures of English tea drinkers.
The Russians, Nazi Germans and ww2 Japanese (amongst many others) certainly did .
Does’nt make ME feel bad about who I am.
Low self esteem is in the eye of the beholder.
Look hard enough at fungi patches and water stains and you can see images of Jesus Christ, depending on your mental state you can no doubt see images denigrating your ethnic/social/sexual group
I don’t see the difference between saying “you people” and saying “have some rice and beans for the Hispanic people.” It’s the same thing…you’re setting them apart from everyone else by their ethnicity. So forget “you people,” if make rice and beans specifically because someone Hispanic is coming for dinner, then yes, that’s kind of offensive, whether you say “you people” or not. And, no, it’s not that you can’t serve Hispanic food to my husband, it’s serving it specifically because you think that’s the kind of food he likes best, or that he won’t want anything else that is offensive. Hispanic people do eat other things besides rice and beans, you know. And some of them may not even like rice & beans. That’s the point, you can’t assume something about individuals based on what you believe to be true about their culture.
Besides which, I personally enjoy eating a variety of types of foods from a variety of different ethnic cuisines, don’t you? Why do you think Hispanics (or African-Americans, or Asians, or whoever) wouldn’t feel the same way?
It was so sad, back in the early 70s, to see African-American students in my dorm stare longingly at the fried chicken and watermelon, then take whatever the other crap was, because fried chicken and watermelon was so cliched as “Uncle-Tom black.”
As if nobody else likes fried chicken and watermelon, the backbone of American cuisine.
“Believe to be true” about their culture? So am I making it up that rice and beans are integral to Latino cuisine? And pasta and garlic are big in Italian cuisine? If what I “believe to be true” is wrong about these, please, tell me more.
Yes, but if someone wanted to drop a kielbasa and kraut reference in front of me due to my Polish heritage, I wouldn’t get upset about it. I’m sorry you and your husband would. I’m Polish and proud, and part of Polish heritage and culture is the cuisine, whether I actually eat it or not. I’ve had someone say “Break out the Polish sausage, [Happy]'s on his way.” Do I like Polish sausage? Hell no. Am I offended? Hell no.
Seems to me the only people who would be offended by a casual and innocent connection between heritage and food would be people who have some sort of shame of their culture/heritage/whatever-- or feel like they need to have shame. Or people not in that cultural group feeling the need to interject offense on behalf of others. Or when the speaker is using it in a demeaning manner. Those African American cartoons with the watermelon, for example-- very offensive as they’re actively *meant *to demean. But assuming Italians like Italian food isn’t meant to demean, nor does it imply ONLY Italians like Italian food, nor does it imply that Italians ONLY eat Italian food. You, **Sarahfeena **(and others, apparently), are the one projecting those assumptions on food-heritage connections like the one done by the baseball announcer.
Are we allowed to even say rice and beans are an integral part of Hispanic cuisine, or is that generalizing and offensive too? How about saying that fried chicken is a very popular dish in Soul food? Does that make me racist?
Obviously everyone is a unique flower and is greater than the color of their skin and origin of their ancestors, but come on already. The next thing you’ll be telling me is that we can’t ever use labels (Italian, Cuban, Jewish, Arabic, Mexican) to describe someone lest we offend.
That’s why I think it’s sad. Everyone in the room could be tearing into some fried chicken, but the people I know won’t because they’ll look bad. Look bad to who? Some stupid racists? Why should anyone care what they think?
I told both of these young women, on the two separate occasions that they shared this fear with me, that if I had some fried chicken and I was in a roomful of white people, I would not only eat it, but I would smear the grease all over my face and smile a giant Koolaide smile! That’s how little I care about what white people think about me.
(When I was in high school, I was a class clown. Teachers would say I was charming and witty, and I never pushed the envelop so that I would get into any trouble. I could crack up the class just by dropping a well-placed one-liner or doing some physical comedy to make up for natural clumsiness. One night I got a phone call from a “friend” who told me that I needed to stop because I was being a “Sambo”. She had no personality, but I did I tell her that? No. And neither did I stop cracking jokes. It was how I survived high school. Mooning over boys was her strategy and being a comic was mine. What a stupid girl.)
As far as the rest of it, I assure you my husband has no shame in being Hispanic, and quite frankly I find the implication more offensive than the food remark.
I understand that for some reason you don’t understand the (not so subtle) difference between saying “rice and beans are a staple in many Latin cuisines” and saying “those people are Latino, so you’d better have rice & beans for dinner,” but I assure you there is one. And, yes, I get that it’s a joke, and I don’t think it’s the most offensive thing anyone ever said, but it’s the kind of thing where it’s a good idea to know your audience before making that kind of a joke.
Nah, he and I have pretty much the same opinion on this subject. That it’s not the most offensive thing in the world, but it’s not something you’d say without knowing for sure that whoever you say it to will laugh along with the joke. And that pretty much excludes public figures from making jokes like it, which is the problem for this sports announcer.
ETA: Oh, and you did say that as far as you’re concerned, the only people who would be offended are people who feel shame or feel that they need to have shame about their culture, so don’t deny it now.
in my opinion, this particular OP along with all other incarnations of “i don’t understand why…” OPs need to take a step back and think: do i really not understand this at all or merely disagree? you can disagree but can still see how arguments are formed on the other side, or you can be completely baffled. this would land on the former and an opinion like say… creationism would fall closer to the latter.
yikes i hope i didn’t open up a can of worms with that analogy.
for the record, i didn’t have a problem with this and generally i don’t have a problem with food stereotypes at all - yet i can see how some would be offended. however imo “beans and rice” is relatively harmless compared to chitlins and watermelon. this is closer to saying they need to have a kenyan buffet at the end of marathons. “soul food” has more implications than just culture.
No, the OP is just disingenuously avoiding the answer to his/her question by repeatedly pretending that this is about stereotypes. As long as he/she refuses to address the real question, he/she can continue reasoning simplistically and say, “Golly gee I don’t understand, because white people also have stereotypes…,” which is not the issue at all.
This kind of OP comes up a lot on this board, and it rarely gets anywhere.
Well, is the “rice and beans” comment a highly-offensive one similar to using the phrase “you people,” or is it “not the most offensive thing in the world?” Earlier you were coming across that anyone that would ever imply that Latinos might eat “rice and beans”-- or anyone that could possibly defend such a statement-- was basically a racist. Now it’s not such a big deal after all?
Fair enough. I apologize. And as I’m reading this thread, I find a lot of the offense possibly comes from people jumping to their own conclusions about intent, based on stuff that was never articulated to begin with-- either taking statements out of context completely, or assuming that if someone is talking about a commonality in someone else’s culture that it’s automatically an evil and rotten thing. We’re not talking about intelligence or work ethic or sexual ability or cleanliness or…we’re talking about food!
For instance, you made some assumptions about intent here:
When did this EVER come up? When did I, or the baseball announcer, ever say that or imply that? You’re jumping to your own conclusion, which seems to be the source of your own personal offense to the “rice and beans” comment.
Happy Lendervedder – some people use the term “beaner” to refer to Mexicans. Usually in a derogatory way. Does that answer your question? You’re trying to see it in a rational way – but racism ISN’T rational.