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Is French Cuisine a Gateway Food to White Dominance?

jonathanturley
In recent years, there has been an explosion of academic work declaring everything from meritocracy to math to be racist or vehicles of white dominance. Offering statistical analysis to support such claims is itself problematic since statistics have also been declared racist. Now however Law professor Mathilde Cohen of the University of Connecticut has found an untapped area of white dominance.  In a talk at Sciences Po Paris and the University of Nanterre, Cohen explained how “French eating habits reinforced the ‘dominance’ of white people over ethnic minorities.”Presumably, the French themselves are allowed to continue to eat their own food without violating the Civil Rights Act. However, Cohen explained that the cuisine is used “to reinforce whiteness as a dominant racial identity.” The reason is the white people value it and thereby force minorities to “act white” by eating it:“The French meal is often presented as the national ritual to which every citizen can participate equally. But French food ways are shaped by white middle- and upper-class norms … and the boundaries of whiteness are policed through daily food encounters.”

The remarks are based on Cohen’s paper “The Whiteness of French Food Law, Race, and Eating Culture in France,” which explores the “neglected area” of “food studies, critical race theory, and critical Whiteness studies.” Cohen works “to identify and critique a form of French food Whiteness (blanchité alimentaire), that is, the use of food and eating practices to reify and reinforce Whiteness as the dominant racial identity.” It also allows you to go to France to present such theories like going to Medellín, Colombia to discuss the scourge of the drug trade.

As an Italian, I am happy to note that our cuisine is not viewed as a vehicle for white dominance.

However, I must confess that I am skeptical. Indeed, it would suggest that President Joe Biden and the First Lady were coopting Vice President Kamala Harris and the second gentleman by recently taking them to Le Diplomate. If the Bidens were “policing” the “boundaries of whiteness . . . through daily food encounters” there were cheaper ways to do it. Having eaten at the restaurant, it is a lot less expensive to do your policing with a baguette at Le Pain Quotidien.

It would also make Julia Child the Bull Connor of cooking.

Then again maybe people of all races just enjoy good cooking. The rest is . . .  well . . . just tripe.

 

 

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