You are being manipulated

Co-Opted Ethnicity

I'm patiently waiting in line at Taco Bell around 6:00 p.m. on a weeknight.   The place is crowded.  A woman has picked up her to-go order and is checking it before leaving the restaurant.  Finding a discrepancy, she takes the extra food up to the counter and informs the clerk, "This isn't ours."  She moves off; he looks at the food, turns around to the kitchen area and says-- Well, I don't know what he says.  I don't speak Spanish.

As I calmly continue to wait, it strikes me that he wouldn't have addressed a general comment to the entire kitchen unless he's certain he'll be understood by all of them.  I look back behind the counter.  Sure enough, all the employees are Latino.

That doesn't really strike me as odd, in and of itself.  But when I glance around the dining room, I see that all but one of the 30-odd customers are Caucasian.  The young woman who isn't appears to be Indian or Pakistani, but she's wearing a T-shirt and shorts.  A typical American, if you ask me.  So now I'm thinking about this: I'm in this fast-food joint that serves completely Americanized fake-Mexican food, standing in line with a bunch of other European-Americans-- okay, white people-- about to order tacos and a “Mexican” Pizza from a Hispanic man.

Suddenly, I feel like an idiot.  How do I have the balls to say "Mexican Pizza" to this guy?  He probably works way too hard for not enough money and his boss treats him like crap.  He might not have a visa, so maybe he has to worry about things like getting arrested or deported, and then what would happen to his family?  Maybe he's legal, in which case, he still has to worry about making ends meet while scraping by on five measly bucks an hour.

Pretend you're an American citizen who wants to escape our culture and you decide to relocate your family to the (fictional) nation of Cretinia.  You get a job in a Cretinian "American-Style" restaurant.  You don't speak much Cretinian, and your skin isn't the same lovely shade of blue as the natives', so everyone instantly knows that you're Not From Around Here.  Some Cretins treat you pleasantly, but most think you're either dirt-poor and possibly carrying diseases, stupid, and/or or taking jobs away from unemployed Cretins.

Your job doesn't pay a hell of a lot, and you work very hard, and as you go through your training, quite a few things strike you as weird.  This place serves "American-style" junk food, but the burgers are actually made of ground rabbit, the fries are boiled in water and served with pickle relish,  the shakes are made with cranberry juice instead of milk, and the apple pie is really zucchini.

So a bored Cretin steps up to the counter and orders a "cheeseburger" and "fries."   You know what a real cheeseburger is like, and this crap ain't it.  But this snooty-ass blue-skinned motherfucker is going to scarf it down like his mom made it and has no idea that it's not real American cuisine.  To him, it's close enough.  And you also know that he wouldn't give a shit even if he did know.  Just hand him his food and try not to touch it too much; he can just imagine where your hands have been.

So you say, yeah, but if these Cretins didn't like this junk, you wouldn't have a job.  Well, you just keep telling yourself that, brother.  And when you're watching TV after work and you see show after show and ad after ad full of Cretins living the good life while you can barely afford rent (forget about health care for your family), why don't you laugh it up at the commercial for your "American" restaurant chain?  Maybe there’s a big dumb American in a football uniform cavorting around and acting exactly like most Cretins think Americans would act.  "Dude!  I really want a great burger from __name of restaurant__!"  he bellows in heavily-accented Cretinian.  He's an idiot.  And he's representing YOU.

Now how do you feel?  Are you mad yet? Co-opting the cultures of other countries and peoples is obscene.  Adulterating and mass-marketing it to people who don't understand it should be a crime.  We could learn a lot from other cultures, but it's easier to earn a lot off them instead.  Don't know what I'm talking about?  Look around any shop that sells knickknacks.

Why do white people decorate their homes and themselves with the art, crafts, and images of First Nations people?  Why do they collect dolls and trinkets and other objects of Asian design?  To be fair, some are truly interested in understanding people of other races, or perhaps they can claim some heritage there.  But most white people in America who don't have a strong ethnic affiliation like Polish, Irish, Italian, etc., have no sense of belonging to a culture.  No history passed down to them.  So they adopt some.  Unfortunately, it's seldom genuine and they rarely investigate the beliefs and practices of the people whose culture they're stealing.  It's just some watered-down version of ethnic identity.  The American version.

Seen those paintings of Jesus you can get on a collector's plate or a candle? Somebody please tell me when exactly an Israeli Jewish man became a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon?  My guess is somewhere around the third century when Christianity was exported to Europe.  And ever since the Bible was translated, well, I'll bet you ten bucks there are people out there who really believe Jesus spoke English.  If you are one of those people, for God's sake, don't write to me.

The commercial appropriation of other cultures is something Americans take for granted.  It's such a pervasive phenomenon most of us don't even notice it.  Every Cigarettes Cheaper store in the chain has an actual wooden Indian that stands outside when the store is open.  Swiss Miss cocoa. Eskimo Pie.  Jeep Grand Cherokee. Indian giver. Chinese fire drill.  Chicken Fajita Pita (who the hell thought that up?).  Feng Shui for Dummies.  And on and on.

These aren't just appropriations, they're trivialization.  You say what's the big deal?  I say if you're a member of the races targeted by these terms you're being marginalized and ridiculed.  Your images are being packaged as icons used to sell some brand or other of some product.  It would be nice if vanilla Americans had something with which to substitute these empty grabs for heritage.  We could search out our true roots and examine where we really come from and try to learn something from it, while respecting the traditions of others.  Or we could embrace a unique multicultural diversity as our American heritage and create a national identity based on the combining of those remarkable and endlessly varied cultures.

But why should we bother?  We don't.  We're consumers.  We just buy everything we want, including our cultural identity. Me? I've lost my appetite.

2000 Truman Hooks

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Episode 5