SCENE: Mitch BERG is in his car, at the drive-through at Taco John’s in Little Canada.
Suddenly, Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK steps around the corner and up to BERG’s driver window.
BIRKENSTOCK: Merg! Stop the cultural appropriation!
BERG: What are you talking about?
BIRKENSTOCK: Places like Taco Johns that prepare ethnic food outside its original cultural context are practicing cultural appropriation!
BERG: So? All cultures practice appropriation. And by the way, who are you – a twenty-something graduate of Saint Olaf, and of Camp Wellstone, who works as a telemarketer for “Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes”, and is as white as the driven snow – doing jabbering about “cultural appropriation”, anyway?
BIRKENSTOCK: I identify as a wise Latina!
BERG: Huh. OK. So no member of a culture can use anything from another culture without, what? An accompanying certificate of authenticity?
BIRKENSTOCK: Don’t be a smart-aleck, Berg. Appropriating other cultures diminishes them!
BERG: Huh. Well, OK, then. In for a dime, in for a dollar.
BIRKENSTOCK: What does that mean?
BERG: Well, people from other cultures should stop appropriating things that are identified with a European cultural context. Universities. Voting. The emphasis on the rights of the individual. The idea of democratic government and one-person, one-vote rule and equality of all people of all classes before a law that is written by consent of those governed. The ideals of free speech, the right to petition for the redress of grievances, fair trials, enumerated powers and unenumerated rights – all of them are Western, “white” ideals, most of them American.
BIRKENSTOCK: Nonsense. All of them were invented by the Iroquois.
BERG: And are you Iroquis?
BIRKENSTOCK: I have always identified as Iroquis.
BERG: Iroquis and Latina?
BIRKENSTOCK: Don’t mansplain!
BERG: Do you also identify as Hindi?
BIRKENSTOCK: Huh?
BERG: That toe ring you’re wearing is “appropriated” from South Asia.
BIRKENSTOCK: Check your privilege! You’re a white male who’s trying to mansplain!
BERG: Now you’re appropriating elements of our linguistic heritage; “Privilege” is from the Norman French, while “Check” comes from Saxon roots.
DRIVE-THRU SPEAKER: May I take your order?
BIRKENSTOCK: Just a small Potato Olé, please.
BERG: Hey – I was in line.
BIRKENSTOCK: I identified as ahead of you, so I appropriated your spot.
And SCENE.
I can’t figure out how the Minnesotans wearing Muslim hajib are showing support. Don’t those white women know it’s just stealing from that culture? Heck, the mayor of Minneapolis even does it.
http://www.startribune.com/non-muslim-minnesotans-are-donning-the-hijab-to-show-support/367989401/
All of these have been repudiated or are under attack as being ‘unprogressive.’
I was at public event this weekend. Briefly made small talk with an older guy who was wearing a Bernie Sanders button. About 30 seconds into the small talk conversation with this stranger he starts talking about how much better Canada and Russia are than America. Its almost like a Berg parody of a lefty. I walked away before he could tell me what he heard on NPR that morning.
“Just a small Potato Olé, please.”
So Birkenstock enjoys food culturally appropriated from the Irish, now.