Why Did Liberals Reverse Their Position on Cultural Appropriation?

But when you see like a campus eruption at Yale over, you know, the Halloween costumes business with Nicholas Christakis, you know, I mean that, you know, we all looked at that and went, oh my God, this is ridiculous. But in a way, it's a sign of progress. Like students in the 60s used to protest the Vietnam War or, you know, the way blacks were treated in the South. Those are, you know, those are really legitimate things to complain about and protest about. But there aren't as many of those around anymore for students to get all riled up about. And they still have those moral impulses, like I want to promote what's right and I want to be against evil. And I'm all fired up here with my moral module dialed up to eleven. I want to go out on the streets. What am I going to protest? Those Halloween costumes, you know, people that's cultural appropriation. So on. I remember there was a tell the story in a book about this taco Tuesday at Cal State Fullerton. I was invited to give a speech there years ago about protecting free speech over this issue that caused the campus to just erupt in in protest about Taco Tuesday. It's like Taco Tuesday. Yeah, that's cultural appropriation. You know, the Mexican community is being appropriated by these whites eating tacos like we're in Southern California. Where is there no tacos? I mean, this is not only that food, you know, the guy who tried to patent Taco Tuesday, LeBron James. LeBron James didn't Jamie. Isn't that what happened? Yeah, he talks about Taco Tuesday on his Instagram. I was on his Instagram and he's like, you know what today is? And then he shows his talk Taco Tuesday. You know, OK, is he allowed to do it? I mean, the whole thing is preposterous. It's delicious food. You know, it's not like we're saying that, you know, white people created it or anything like that. I mean, and cultural appropriation is so ridiculous in so many ways. But one of the most ridiculous ways it is is that it prevents people from enjoying some amazing aspects of the diverse cultures that we all coexist with, especially here in America. I mean, this is such a legitimate melting pot. I think it's amazing that you can go to all these different places and that, you know, there's a guy I'm trying to remember his name, Rick Bayless, I believe his name is. And he's a famous Mexican chef, but he's not Mexican, but he cooks Mexican food. And he loves Mexican cuisine. He takes all these trips to Mexico to learn with the Mexican masters. And he has a famous restaurant in Chicago where he has a full authentic Mexican menu and people are furious at him because here he is this white guy selling Mexican food. Like, what do you expect him to do? Like, do you have to be born a certain patch of dirt to enjoy a style of food? And don't you think that he is actually boosting the signal and letting people know that there's some amazing things that come out of Mexico? This is an homage to Mexican cuisine. He's not trying to claim it. You know, hey, this was invented in Chicago. You know, this is not really Mexican. No, he's saying this is from Mexico. He talks openly about the various parts of the country of Mexico, where the style of cooking came from and, you know, and how it emanates from the traditional ingredients. And he cooks them in traditional ways. And it's fantastic, like really widely praised restaurant with amazing food. And this guy gets shit on for it. It's crazy. This is not only these perverse reversals because it used to be like in the 19th century, there was this idea of kind of a pure European culture and other cultures were somehow not as good. And they define culture in a very specific way. And then, you know, kind of liberals then were pushing back against that, saying, no, no, no, you know, all cultures are equal. And culture is a whole blend of different migrations and people mixing. And that's what culture that's what makes culture rich. It's yes, it's fluid and changing and so on. And now all of a sudden liberals are saying, no, no, there's a pure correct culture that only the people born there can use, you know, adopt those cultural features. That's the complete opposite of what liberals used to argue. Yes. Starting with anthropologists saying, no, no, no, this crazy idea that whites have white supremacist have an idea or European cultures, a bunch of nonsense Europeans are just as amalgamated with lots of different cultures as anybody else. There is no real European culture. Yeah, it's a weird time. And I again, I connect this to the fact that we didn't have as many real problems as we used to. And when you talk about Yale with Nick Christakis, I think there's this thing that kids do when they're coming of age, they're separated from their parents and they want to establish that so many of these older people were wrong about the way life is and they're wrong. And we're going to show them what's right. And we have a new way of living. We have a new way of thinking. And we want this campus to be safe. We want safe spaces. And a lot of it is about taking control of their environment and enforcing their ideology and creating something that's in a lot of ways is very ego driven because they're trying to show that they're making a change in the environment around them. And they have good intentions while they're doing it. It's just their brains haven't fully formed yet and they don't have a lot of life experience. And this pattern shows itself over and over and over again. It's a constantly repeating pattern where these kids go away to college and become self-righteous and then try to impose their viewpoints on the older people. It's very, very common. And it has these psychological building blocks to it that you can kind of see why they're doing this.