#capitalism is okay it's women (who are bourgeoisie obviously) who are the problem!!!

[comradecowplant]

The jig is up! I finally admit it! The real reason I'm a staunch anti-capitalist isn't because my opposition to global exploitation or having read works by marx/other socialist thinkers that put all the pieces I've felt for most of my life but didn't have words for together, it's because I'm SICK and I'm TIRED of being easily swayed into buying things I don't want by beautiful women sales people!!!! 😡

[mark-zone]

liberal feminism is the worst because it’s so individualistic and there’s no intersectionality what so ever. like no you’re not an intersectional feminist (why is this even a term this should be just a requirement for feminism in the first place) if you don’t have any class analysis whatsoever in your “feminism”. to me if you’re a capitalist feminist ur not a feminist in the first place. it’s also not a coincidence that white celebrities co-opt this shit so much like if some bourgeoisie women are for this type of “feminism” then clearly it isn’t radical at all. liberal feminism is literally only for white western women. this type of feminism never considers the global south and never uplifts poc feminists. like the faces of liberal feminism are all white women and it’s not a coincidence. if you’re pro-capitalism than you’re clearly gonna be racist too. like y’all claim to be for poor women/non-men but support capitalism or say you’re “anti-capitalist” but have no replacement for it. this is also the same problem i have with rad fems with their vague anti-capitalism. liberal feminism will also never criticize anything that gives men a boner. all in the name of “sexual liberation”. like how are you liberated if your sex life involves entirely around men and benefits men? all this because of this toxic western individualism that’s all about “empowerment” and “what feels good for you”. it’s all hogwash. also no self-analysis either. like why does it feel good when it happens to appeal to the male gaze? like that’s not a coincidence. lib fems will never critique plastic surgery or the cosmetic industry in the name of choice feminism. like those industries aren’t totally rooted in misogyny and making women feel insecure. choice feminism is another cancer that liberal feminism falls victim to. feminism isn’t about “letting women do whatever they want”. it’s about women’s liberation from the patriarchy. obviously there’s another side of the coin of choice feminism where i’ve seen feminists bash women for wearing makeup or getting ps. that’s not okay either. just think about why you are doing these things. what is your intention and do some soul searching and find out why you really are doing these things that appeal to the male gaze. ik wearing makeup is an art form but it can also be due to insecurity caused by the patriarchy. and ps is almost always done from a place of insecurity(not talking about trans affirming surgeries but like regular ps). feminism isn’t about choice when your choices 1. affect other women and 2. aren’t in a vacuum and are influenced by the patriarchy. such a dumb individualistic take. my last critique of liberal feminism is the fact that it’s reform based like how tf do you “reform” the patriarchy. we need to abolish these systems of oppression not reform them. we do not need women war criminals or cops. we need NO cops or war criminals. same with “girl bosses” like we need no rich CEOs in the first place. keeping capitalism and patriarchy and putting women in charge is not the solution. like yass now women are bombing the global south. this is literally how you stupid liberals sound. and electoralism is not going to cause women to be liberated either. like voting biden in didn’t do shit for women. we are about to loose our right to an abortion and it’s under his presidency. so no libs “voting blue no matter who” isn’t fixing this country it’s literally making it worse. please abandon liberalism and become a socialist if you actually care about women!!!

i don’t like how many “feminists” online will call you a swerf if you even criticize sex work. being against a misogynistic industry doesn’t mean we hate sex workers. swerfs are rad fems who want to criminalize sw. i am a marxist feminist who wants to decriminalize sex work but ultimately abolish it. i am not a swerf. there are definitely times when anti sw feminists hate on swers and put blame on them and not the industry. i have done that before and i definitely regret that. but i now do support swers and agree they should be respected but i don’t support the industry and NO feminist should either. and the funny thing is 90% of these people calling us swerfs are lib fems and liberal feminists have consistently helped pass legislation that harms swers. liberal feminism honestly requires no critical thought whatsoever just vibes. i hate how it’s the most popular form of feminism in the west.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Cultural Appropriation is a real, important, and harmful thing, but god damn if it’s not one of the most recklessly abused terms in the social justice lexicon.

Transcription under the cut for accessibility

I was sent this list below of "White-Owned Appropriative Restaurants in Portland." This is an example of what I term "left reactionary politics."

Their argument is this is cultural appropriation, a term when used with food in particular is fraught with problems. All cuisines are a mishmash of different cultures shaped by history, trade, political-economy, power relations, gender, race and ethnicity, religion, morality, notions of health and the body and subjective notions of what is delicious and disgusting.

Punjabi food makes extensive use of tomatoes and potatoes from the new world, eggplants from North Africa, spices from the Middle East, and so on. Curry Powder is a British invention. The same can be said of virtually any cuisine in the world. Two of the most iconic Vietnamese foods in America, Banh Mi and Pho, are products of French colonialism. Korean use of Coca-Cola in meat marinades begins during the U.S. war in the peninsula. Many people who revere ramen have no clue that its popularity in Japan was a result of post-WWII U.S. wheat imports and technological innovations in the 1950s that birthed the "Cup O' Noodles." Japanese curry began with the British Navy during the Meiji era. African-American cuisine is, obviously, a result of slavery. Should white people stop cooking Southern food, then, or should African-Americans reject barbecue, pork, okra, and cornbread as slave foods?

Now, some might say this is okay because these cuisines are being made by the colonized. Except much of it was imposed by the colonizer over older traditional foodways. So why shouldn't these dishes be rejected as inauthentic?

And why are only "white people" guilty of appropriation? How about Korean-American chefs like David Chang, who built his empire on ramen -- mediocre ramen in my opinion. Or Roy Choi, credited with inventing the Korean taco and Kimchi quesadilla? Or how about all the bad Italian-American food in this country? People in Portland who know me, know that I complain during my visits about the impossibility of finding outstanding pizza in Rose City. There are a couple of good pizza joints, but it's a pizza desert otherwise. Same with bagels. A couple of decent places, but nothing that can match the many excellent bakeries making bagels right outside my front door. I've tried many Japanese restaurants in Portladn, but my favorite is not some sushi joint owned by a skilled Japanese chef; it's Tanuki, an izakaya place run by a white American woman.

So what if the food is created by the person of the approved nationality? In all likelihood, it is done by a man appropriating food cooked in the home by women. Or it is done by the bourgeoisie who can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to open a restaurant. If you take the cultural appropriation argument to its logical conclusion, oppressed female peasants and workers are the only ones who have the right to cook their culture's cuisine. And if you don't like it, tough shit.

Or how about this fact: one Indian-American professor explained to me that Punjabi food and South Indian dosas and idly are spreading all over India, wiping out a breathtaking array of local and sub-regional cuisines? So should other Indian cultures start to mobilize against Punjabi and South Indian gastronomic imperalism? The problem here is capitalism, not ethnic purity.

And if you go to a "Indian" restaurant in the U.S., which is nearly always based on Punjabi cuisine, it is a good chance it is not being run by anyone from the Punjab, and even if it is, the food is mostly a scattershot collection of dishes from other regions. And most dishes have been created in the West or adapted for the American palate. When I go to a North Indian restaurant, it is rare that it is anything like the cuisine I have had in scores of Indian-American homes, including my own.

Or take Bollywood Theater, which is on the list below. I've been twice. The place has lines out the door. People love it. I can't stand it. It looks like Indian food, and is composed of ingredients and spices common to India. But to my taste buds it's an incoherent polyglot of flavor. None of the food combinations makes sense or works together. But if people enjoy it, there is nothing wrong with that. I make Mexican food, Italian food, Southern food, Korean food, Japanese food, French food. I would never presume to serve someone from one of these countries my creations, but I enjoy them, as do most people I cook for. Chinese food is wildly popular in India, but I find it as unappetizing as I do most ethnic cuisine in America.

This list is fundamentally reactionary because its criteria for inclusion is, "Restaurants or food carts selling non-European international cuisine owned *solely* by white people who were not born or raised in the country or region from which the restaurant's cuisine originates."

This essentializes the notion of culture as rooted in the very soil of a place and not something that can travel or transcend boundaries. This hints at fascistic notions of blood and soil as what constitutes the nation.

It is reactionary because the creators of this are implying there are timeless practices, rooted in a people, land and culture, that constitute only appropriate form of food. They want to fix all cultures as fossils in a museum, not allowing for adaptation, changing tastes, social roles, or fashion. It reminds me of how the National Front fetishizes a notion of the pure French nation.

Many scholars and practitioners of Meso-American food object to the notion of equating the region's cuisine with tacos, which is what many foodies do. It is far more diverse, so should we stop eating tacos, even if made by indigenous Mexican women, because it is reductionist?

Now, I think there is such a thing as cultural appropriation, but the borders have to be sharp and narrow. That is, it should be clearly part of an agenda of conquest. So the way the Israeli state tries to encourage the appropriation of Arab and Palestinian cuisine is part and parcel of its settler colonialism.

Same with the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. The museum refuses to say the European colonization of the Americas resulted in genocide or use the term conquest, settling instead for "encounter." Its cafeteria features tasty and creative Native American foods, but in the context it is being used as a weapon of colonization.

In the list below, I think perhaps two restaurants stand out as uniquely offensive, Saffron Colonial and The Conquistador. The former one is owned by someone whom I directly heard say that 2 million Bengalis who starved to death during WWII because the British took most of their grain, deserved to die because "they supported the holocaust." And anyplace that names itself the conquistador is vile. But among the rest are many fine restaurants.

Culture is about exchange, interaction, learning, and sharing. This list is neoliberal because it puts the blame for capitalist social relations on the backs of individuals. It also seeks to mobilize people around "voting with their dollars." An idea that is anti-political as it valorizes the capitalist consumer as the agent of change.

But if appropriating cuisines is bad, why isn't their appropriating ingredients? If you weren't "born or raised" in the culture, you can't really appreciate it. So you have no right eat kimchi, fish sauce, garam masal, harissa, teff, tahini, sake, tortillas, soy sauce, tofu, chilis, felafel, or tens of thousands of other ingredients and foods. In fact, stop drinking coffee and eating chocolate because they were stolen from Africa and Mesoamerica.

Presumably what would make the cultural appropriation warriors happy is if all these white chefs cooked nothing but corned beef and cabbage, bangers and mash, peanut butter and jelly, mac n cheese, and hamburgers because they are the only foods white people are allowed to have.