Pantry prejudice, genetic mutations & masked messages
Dear Rachel,
Yeah yeah, I know the old stereotype of white people saying “I’m not racist, but…” and usually they’re right. But… I have to ask, why are Aunt Jemimah and Uncle Ben racist? These seem like positive authority positions for anyone to be in, and no one has a problem with that Ben Franklin lookalike on the Quaker Oats canisters. Taking them and their names off some delicious food products just feels excessive now. Can you explain to me how this is not a step too far?
– P.C. Overreach
Dear Hungry Hungry Hypocrite,
Ignorance leads to all kinds of suppositions and mistakes. Like for starters, that’s not a Ben Franklin lookalike on the oat canister. It’s a made-up figure that company insiders call Larry. Also, there’s not really a power dynamic at play for white people to use a white person to sell some food. I also just learned this: “aunt” and “uncle” were ways for crappy white people to avoid calling Black people “mister” and “missus.” Finally: use some real freaking maple syrup on your pancakes.
– Knowledge is power, Rachel
Dear Rachel,
How are we still debating nature vs. nurture when it’s clear neither one is true? Case in point: my family. Same genes, same household. Yet one of my sisters would have stormed the Capitol if she could have afforded the plane ticket, and the other one doesn’t wash her hands after changing her son’s diapers. These cannot be my siblings. What’s a new and better explanation?
– Face, Meet Palm
Dear Family Matters,
Demonic possession is back on the table. I got no better answer than that. Unless, of course, you want to buy into the crackpot idea that humans are each distinct and complex creatures, capable of interpreting identical stimuli in radically different ways and incorporating different survival mechanisms into an existence already distinguished by individual personality and free thought. So demons it is.
– Jump in my handbasket, Rachel
Dear Rachel,
I just heard the latest guidelines from the CDC is to wear two masks at the same time. What the actual f? Three masks are apparently too many, because air can’t get through so it will just go around. But one mask is not enough anymore? I am as hard-line pro-science as normal people can be, and even I am like, whoah, that’s too much to ask of me. People like my parents will stop wearing just one, if one isn’t even good enough anymore. What are they thinking, recommending something like this that will never happen?
– Face Off
Dear Masked Menace,
This reminds me of an old joke about why the Irish wear three condoms, but since I just espoused reasons not to be racist, I have learned my lesson and will not finish that here. There’s no accounting for people like your parents – or like you, frankly. But all I can suppose is that by asking people to wear two masks, the CDC simply hopes to bring the national average of masks-per-person up to an even number one.
– Read my lips, Rachel
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