Portland has an appropriation problem.
This week in white nonsense, two white women—Kali Wilgus and Liz “LC” Connely—decided it would be cute to open a food truck after a fateful excursion to Mexico. There’s really nothing special about opening a Mexican restaurant—it’s probably something that happens everyday. But the owners of Kooks Burritos all but admitted in an interview with Willamette Week that they colonized this style of food when they decided to “pick the brains of every tortilla lady there in the worst broken Spanish ever.”
Following the WW’s article, one commenter said: “Now that you all boldly and pretty fucking unapologetically stole the basis of these women's livelihoods, you can make their exact same product so other white ppl don't have to be inconvenienced of dealing with a pesky brown middle woman getting in their way. Great job.”
Another commenter explained what’s basically a sad truth underlying the Portland restaurant community: “If you knew anything of the restaurant industry (or Google) you'd know that this is true. ‘Ethnic’ chefs are expected to ‘cook from their ethnic backgrounds’ while White chefs can do what these two horrid women did: vacation somewhere and ‘get inspired’ and appropriate an entire culture's cuisine and claim it as their own.”
Immediately after the fury continued online, a different resource emerged and quickly went viral: a Google doc showing exactly how prevalent this epidemic is. The list titled “White-Owned Appropriative Restaurants in Portland” provides a who’s who of culinary white supremacy.
An introduction to the document begins by saying, “This is NOT about cooking at home or historical influences on cuisines; it's about profit, ownership, and wealth in a white supremacist culture.” And it ends by letting visitors know, “If you've come here in anger, please read at least a couple of these articles before continuing to the list on the next tab below.”
Despite this issue being dismissed by supporters of Kook’s Burritos—while our views were seen as just a bunch of angry minorities attacking innocent white women who only wanted to make tacos—the food cart closed as of late Friday. Willamette Week has not taken any responsibility or shown any accountability for their actions.
While the closing of Kooks Burritos is a victory, it’s a small one and unless we continue to call this out it will happen again.
come at Yum! Brands you best not miss :rejoiceCultural appropriation is only suitable when done by publicly traded companies. Everyone knows that.
Note that the backgrounds of the people of color who own the listed restaurants do not necessarily match the cuisine they serve. We could have limited the list to only people selling their own cuisine, but we made the decision not to in order to make a point. If this seems like hypocrisy from the standards set for white-owned restaurants, you haven't understood why white appropriation is a problem.
White business owners wield economic and "cultural capital" advantages over POC business owners, so they are "punching down" by appropriating cuisines from people who are disadvantaged in comparison. A Vietnamese person opening a Japanese restaurant does not have the same impact as a non-Hispanic white person opening a Mexican restaurant. Healthy cultural exchange can and does occur when the playing field is relatively even, but appropriation is a demonstration of power that perpetuates inequities.
The article mentions a Google doc that lists white-owned food establishments and lists their POC-owned alternatives.
That's really weird.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJuHMuAeuHxy-c4nyp6NLghhrCdZYO7I5kDGSt22Ie8/htmlview#
From the Google doc:QuoteNote that the backgrounds of the people of color who own the listed restaurants do not necessarily match the cuisine they serve. We could have limited the list to only people selling their own cuisine, but we made the decision not to in order to make a point. If this seems like hypocrisy from the standards set for white-owned restaurants, you haven't understood why white appropriation is a problem.
White business owners wield economic and "cultural capital" advantages over POC business owners, so they are "punching down" by appropriating cuisines from people who are disadvantaged in comparison. A Vietnamese person opening a Japanese restaurant does not have the same impact as a non-Hispanic white person opening a Mexican restaurant. Healthy cultural exchange can and does occur when the playing field is relatively even, but appropriation is a demonstration of power that perpetuates inequities.
"Note that the backgrounds of the people of color who own the listed restaurants do not necessarily match the cuisine they serve." What the hell kind of statement is that? How... or why do you find that out?
QuoteNote that the backgrounds of the people of color who own the listed restaurants do not necessarily match the cuisine they serve. We could have limited the list to only people selling their own cuisine, but we made the decision not to in order to make a point. If this seems like hypocrisy from the standards set for white-owned restaurants, you haven't understood why white appropriation is a problem.
Whoever wrote this should get fucking bodyslammed.
Taco Bell was founded by Glen Bell, who first opened a hot dog stand called Bell's Drive-In in San Bernardino, California[3] in 1946 when he was 23 years old. In 1950, he opened Bell's Hamburgers and Hot Dogs in San Bernardino's West Side barrio. According to Gustavo Arellano, author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, Bell watched long lines of customers at a Mexican restaurant called the Mitla Cafe, located across the street, which attracted a dedicated customer base for its hard-shelled tacos.[4][5] Bell began eating there regularly, attempting to reverse-engineer the recipe, and eventually won the confidence of the proprietors such that they allowed him to see how the tacos and other foods were preparedHOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS GOES STRAIGHT TO THE TOP
This is a major setback on the road to the utopian future of Demolition Man.Or a major driver to eating salty, culturally appropriated, ratburgers in the sewer like the pigs we are
Now if you wanna talk about cultural appropriation in terms of white people adding mayo to various ethnic dishes and calling it authentic ethnic cuisine, yea I agree with you.
This is the slippery slope to only Guy Fieri restaurants left in America.