SCENE: \u00a0Mitch BERG is in his car, at the drive-through at Taco John’s in Little Canada.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK steps around the corner and up to BERG’s driver window.<\/p>\n
BIRKENSTOCK: \u00a0Merg! Stop the cultural appropriation!<\/p>\n
BERG: \u00a0What are you talking about?<\/p>\n
BIRKENSTOCK: \u00a0Places like Taco Johns that prepare ethnic food outside its original cultural context are practicing cultural appropriation!<\/p>\n
BERG: \u00a0So? \u00a0All cultures practice appropriation. \u00a0And by the way, who are you – a\u00a0twenty-something graduate of Saint Olaf, and of Camp Wellstone, who\u00a0works as a telemarketer for \u201cMinnesotans United for All Progressive Causes\u201d, and is as white as the driven snow – doing jabbering about “cultural appropriation”, anyway?<\/p>\n
BIRKENSTOCK: \u00a0I identify as a wise Latina!<\/p>\n
BERG: Huh. \u00a0OK. \u00a0So no member of a culture can use anything from another culture without, what? \u00a0An accompanying certificate of authenticity?<\/p>\n
BIRKENSTOCK: \u00a0Don’t be a smart-aleck, Berg. \u00a0 Appropriating other cultures diminishes them!<\/p>\n
BERG: \u00a0Huh. \u00a0Well, OK, then. \u00a0In for a dime, in for a dollar.<\/p>\n
BIRKENSTOCK: \u00a0What does that mean?<\/p>\n
BERG: \u00a0Well, people from other cultures should stop appropriating things that are identified with a European cultural context. \u00a0Universities. \u00a0Voting. \u00a0The emphasis on the rights of the individual. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0The 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.<\/p>\n
BIRKENSTOCK: \u00a0Nonsense. \u00a0All of them were invented by the Iroquois.<\/p>\n
BERG: \u00a0And are you Iroquis?<\/p>\n
BIRKENSTOCK: \u00a0I have always identified as Iroquis.<\/p>\n