Recognizing foods from other cultures is a very new phenomena, for us families, and in europe. Tacos were unheard of in a 1950 white household. In the uk the bbc did a joke piece showing Italians harvesting pasta off the pasta tree and most people that saw it believed it.
Comment on 2 North American 4 you has been created
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week agoEuropeans being casually xenophobic about immigrants in The Americas and the dishes they bring from home, thus proving this new community’s point.
No shit. Orange chicken was invented by a Chinese-American chef in Hawaii. Chicken alfredo was invented in the US by combining the Italian dish fettuccine al burro with cream and chicken. And breakfast tacos were an adaptation of a Mexican dish tacos de guisados, except Texans used eggs, instead of yesterday’s stewed leftovers. (Also, I’m not sure the OP and community admin even gets the point.)
American is not just a single culture, it’s a melting pot of a bunch of different cultures. Same goes for Canada, just with a different mix of dominant cultures. American food is a reflection of that, sometimes remixing the idea so much that it turns into something else. Cajun food wouldn’t exist without a mixture of French and American influences.
America may be constantly battling racism and xenophobia internally, but we recognize it for what it is: a shit behavior that should should be excised. European and Eastern cultures like Japan are so casually racist and xenophobic that they don’t even recognize it in themselves.
The Axis powers came to be out of a combination of elements, but xenophobia was the biggest one. Germany got their shit together in the end, after brutal period of being forcefully separated themselves, and a period of self-reflection. Italy and Japan? Yeah, not so much.
So, to the OP: I hope your new community isn’t yet another outlet to be racist.
hector@lemmy.today 1 week ago
Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com 6 days ago
The best way I’ve heard it described is that Americans consider racism something you do, while the rest of the world tends to view it as something you are.
To an American, if someone is a racist, it’s because they do racist things. So Americans are actually fairly good at recognizing and excising casual racism, because they recognize it as a behavior they can change. But this also means Americans are fairly quick to judge individual actions as racist, because they see it as something that should be improved upon in the future. To an American, a racist is racist because they have recognized their own racist behaviors and don’t see them as a problem.
Meanwhile, Europeans and Asians tend to think of racism as something you are. And that’s a big difference, because it makes them much less adept at identifying the more casual forms of racism. Because even if they’re casually racist, they’ll simply tell themselves “well I’m not a racist, therefore my actions weren’t racist.” Since that binary “is/is not a racist” flag hasn’t flipped in their brain, they’re able to tell themselves that their individual actions aren’t racist.
It’s like Europeans need to be at least 51% racist in order to be considered racist, so anything below that amount is excusable. Individual people will obviously have different thresholds for when that Boolean bit gets flipped from “not racist” to “racist”, but it still needs to hit that personal threshold before they’ll start calling out racism.
But that causes interesting culture shocks whenever Americans interact with Europeans or Asians. Europeans are quick to jump on the “all Americans are racist” bandwagon, and the American will tend to nod along and agree because they recognize that everyone has the potential to be racist. Then the American will see the Europeans do/say some of vile racist shit, and start to call it out. But then the European gets defensive and adamantly states that they’re not a racist, because they take the “hey that was pretty fucked up and racist, don’tcha think” as a personal “you are a racist” attack, instead of a “that individual action was racist, and you should examine why you did it” behavioral check.
And the American will be confused on why the European immediately jumped all the way to “why are you calling me a racist?” Because in their experience, the only people who immediately jump to that are the full blown reich-wing racists who don’t see their own racist actions as a problem. Labeling someone as a racist is a big deal for an American, because it means the person has refused to examine their own racist behaviors, or has done so and sees no problem with the racism. To an American, labeling someone a racist is basically the nuclear “I’ve exhausted all other possibilities, and can only conclude that they’re doing it on purpose” option.
So Americans will often walk away from the interactions thinking “holy fuck those Europeans were really fucking racist” simply because the Europeans refused to acknowledge that their own individual actions had the potential to be racist. Meanwhile, the Europeans will think that Americans are really fucking racist because Americans are quick to call it out amongst themselves.