This Thursday I'm speaking at our weekly large group worship meeting. The purpose of my talk is to draw in the threads of God's heart for reconciliation across racial barriers in our society as we talk about being a missional community. The title of my talk is "Lessons Learned as a White Guy on Overbrook Road." Overbrook road was where Kelly and I lived as minorities in a predominantly black working-class neighborhood in Richmond.
But really my point is that McDonald's is ethnic food.
One of the major barriers to white people being involved in the racial reconciliation process is the fact that we're blind to the fact that we have culture. In the ground-breaking book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria," there's a great story of a white woman complaining "I'm not white, I'm just normal!" Because white folks are in the majority, we don't even recognize that we have a particular culture. We don't see that we have a particular way of doing things, organizing our society, and a values taxonomy that is good and bad, has strengths and weaknesses, has blessed many people and has done tremendous harm. We don't think about our race and ethnicity because we don't have to. We're not "white," we're just normal.
And so we call all food that isn't white "ethnic food." And that belies the fact that we have no idea that the tray you get with your value meal comes freighted with white cultural values: consistency (you get the same Big Mac from Maine to Spokane), speed, and disposability. We can argue the benefits or detriments of these values, but what we cannot miss is that this combination of values is unique to white America. Until we take the blinders off to the fact that white is a unique and particular ethnicity, it will be impossible for us to enter into fruitful long-term dialogue with our brothers and sisters about moving forward in reconciliation.
A quick plug: Being White is a great help for folks who are interested in taking a step into this journey.
3 comments:
I have been waiting ALL SEMESTER for this talk and am PUMPED and praying for you! :-D
This kind of analysis always sound sinteresting to me, but raises a bunch of questions.
Like:
What does it mean for a cuisine to be "disposable"? What does food that is not 'disposable' mean?
There still are 'ethnic' foods within particular white cultures (french food, Scottish food, etc), that are not 'white ethnic food' in the sense McDs is.
So isn't McD's more an example of 'white american food' than 'white food'? Or 'white modernist food'
And why can't blacks be interested in consistency? If I'm hiring peopel to run my McD restauraunts, should I avoid hiring black because their culture doesn't value consistency? Lists of white cultural values that end up including things like timeliness, rationality, a hard work ethic, etc, always bug me because they end up making other 'ethnic' values look worse by comparison.
pduggie, thanks for your comments. maybe I can clarify some things.
by 'disposable' i meant mostly the packaging and the 'context' with which your value meal comes in. everything is built around convenience. there's no plate to wash, or glass you have to give back. the whole thing is designed to be thrown away, drop your tray, and get out the door as quickly as possible. when i lived in spain (three years as a kid) the meal 'vibe' was much different. especially dinner, which started at 10 p.m, it was designed to be an event, not a blip on the radar before you go on to something else. again, not that there aren't white american people who don't value good food and lingering meals, but i do think that mcdonald's has something to tell us about our culture.
secondly, to say that certain characteristics are 'white american' is not to say that white americans have a monopoly on those characteristics. 'timeliness' is also an asian cultural norm. but it is not a latino cultural norm. which brings us to...
the reason why these lists often make us feel like white people are better and others are inferior is because that at this point in world history, white capitalist culture has been globally exported to a dizzying degree never seen before. and so along with our dr. pepper's and starbucks and mcdonald's we've also exported our white american values. ergo, our values drive not only our economy but also the global economy in unprecedented ways. ergo, the value taxonomy of white america sounds more 'important' or 'superior.' but in some ways we can't stop exporting our culture until we realize that we have a culture! just like missionaries unwittingly went to the jungle and built New England-style churches because they didn't realize it was part of their culture, so too have we exported our culture in ways that we don't realize. and that's why we've got to understand that mcdonald's is ethnic food.
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