https://pjmedia.com/trending/forks-are-r****t-fyi/

You've Been Warned: Western Table Manners Are Now R****t

Heads up, everyone! There are new rules again, so I want everyone paying attention. Eating your food the way you've been taught to with forks and knives (because this is the West and it's what we do) is r****t and it hurts people who are still upset about colonization from hundreds of years ago. Writing in "Today's Parent," Joshana Maharaj is outraged, I tell you, just outraged that some teacher somewhere in Canada told a little girl not to eat rice with her hands.

This prompted her to write about learning how to eat around the world, where using hands is acceptable and how the West is just r****t by using utensils, or something.

Recently, I chatted with someone who told me a story about her young niece, who goes to a prestigious preschool and was eating rice with her hands at lunchtime. The feedback her parents received was that this child needed to work on her table manners and use proper cutlery to eat. I immediately felt a rush of anger bubble up inside me when I heard this. The message that eating food with your hands is an unmannered way to eat is a real problem for me because it is dripping with the control and shame of colonization, which is particularly dangerous in an educational context. Suggesting that a child who eats with her hands has no manners is an echo of European colonial powers looking to tame the wildness out of the people they controlled. These European table manners were imposed on conquered people in an attempt to “civilize” them. It’s a damaging message about right and wrong ways to do things. It positions the technique as superior and the people who practise it as setters of the standard, leaving those with a different approach to eating with a status of inferiority. The idea of a single standard of acceptable table manners is just one of a host of strategies used to grow and promote r****m. It’s a subtle message but one that is reinforced three times a day, every day, which makes it quite powerful.

Oh for crying out loud! For the most part in her essay, she explains that certain manners are for certain foods: chopsticks for sushi, and hands for naan, which makes sense and we do that in my house. But if you're in a Western prep school, you need to use the table manners of the West. It's not r****t. It's giving respect to the culture you're in. You're not in China. We eat rice with forks here in the West. If you are in China, then you probably want to put the fork down. I don't think this has anything to do with colonialism, but with respecting the culture you're in. "Recognizing diversity in cultural backgrounds and food traditions is essential, especially in a country as multicultural as Canada," wrote Maharaj, totally unironically.

The West has a culture. Forks are a big part of that. Isn't it funny how all cultures are "diverse" and worthy of respect except Western, European, Canadian, and American cultures?

I can't keep up with these people anymore and I don't want to.

Megan Fox is the author of “Believe Evidence; The Death of Due Process from Salome to #MeToo.” Follow on Twitter @MeganFoxWriter

https://pjmedia.com/trending/forks-are-r****t-fyi/

You've Been Warned: Western Table Manners Are Now R****t

Heads up, everyone! There are new rules again, so I want everyone paying attention. Eating your food the way you've been taught to with forks and knives (because this is the West and it's what we do) is r****t and it hurts people who are still upset about colonization from hundreds of years ago. Writing in "Today's Parent," Joshana Maharaj is outraged, I tell you, just outraged that some teacher somewhere in Canada told a little girl not to eat rice with her hands.

This prompted her to write about learning how to eat around the world, where using hands is acceptable and how the West is just r****t by using utensils, or something.

Recently, I chatted with someone who told me a story about her young niece, who goes to a prestigious preschool and was eating rice with her hands at lunchtime. The feedback her parents received was that this child needed to work on her table manners and use proper cutlery to eat. I immediately felt a rush of anger bubble up inside me when I heard this. The message that eating food with your hands is an unmannered way to eat is a real problem for me because it is dripping with the control and shame of colonization, which is particularly dangerous in an educational context. Suggesting that a child who eats with her hands has no manners is an echo of European colonial powers looking to tame the wildness out of the people they controlled. These European table manners were imposed on conquered people in an attempt to “civilize” them. It’s a damaging message about right and wrong ways to do things. It positions the technique as superior and the people who practise it as setters of the standard, leaving those with a different approach to eating with a status of inferiority. The idea of a single standard of acceptable table manners is just one of a host of strategies used to grow and promote r****m. It’s a subtle message but one that is reinforced three times a day, every day, which makes it quite powerful.

Oh for crying out loud! For the most part in her essay, she explains that certain manners are for certain foods: chopsticks for sushi, and hands for naan, which makes sense and we do that in my house. But if you're in a Western prep school, you need to use the table manners of the West. It's not r****t. It's giving respect to the culture you're in. You're not in China. We eat rice with forks here in the West. If you are in China, then you probably want to put the fork down. I don't think this has anything to do with colonialism, but with respecting the culture you're in. "Recognizing diversity in cultural backgrounds and food traditions is essential, especially in a country as multicultural as Canada," wrote Maharaj, totally unironically.

The West has a culture. Forks are a big part of that. Isn't it funny how all cultures are "diverse" and worthy of respect except Western, European, Canadian, and American cultures?

I can't keep up with these people anymore and I don't want to.

Megan Fox is the author of “Believe Evidence; The Death of Due Process from Salome to #MeToo.” Follow on Twitter @MeganFoxWriter

https://pjmedia.com/trending/forks-are-r****t-fyi/

You've Been Warned: Western Table Manners Are Now R****t

Heads up, everyone! There are new rules again, so I want everyone paying attention. Eating your food the way you've been taught to with forks and knives (because this is the West and it's what we do) is r****t and it hurts people who are still upset about colonization from hundreds of years ago. Writing in "Today's Parent," Joshana Maharaj is outraged, I tell you, just outraged that some teacher somewhere in Canada told a little girl not to eat rice with her hands.

This prompted her to write about learning how to eat around the world, where using hands is acceptable and how the West is just r****t by using utensils, or something.

Recently, I chatted with someone who told me a story about her young niece, who goes to a prestigious preschool and was eating rice with her hands at lunchtime. The feedback her parents received was that this child needed to work on her table manners and use proper cutlery to eat. I immediately felt a rush of anger bubble up inside me when I heard this. The message that eating food with your hands is an unmannered way to eat is a real problem for me because it is dripping with the control and shame of colonization, which is particularly dangerous in an educational context. Suggesting that a child who eats with her hands has no manners is an echo of European colonial powers looking to tame the wildness out of the people they controlled. These European table manners were imposed on conquered people in an attempt to “civilize” them. It’s a damaging message about right and wrong ways to do things. It positions the technique as superior and the people who practise it as setters of the standard, leaving those with a different approach to eating with a status of inferiority. The idea of a single standard of acceptable table manners is just one of a host of strategies used to grow and promote r****m. It’s a subtle message but one that is reinforced three times a day, every day, which makes it quite powerful.

Oh for crying out loud! For the most part in her essay, she explains that certain manners are for certain foods: chopsticks for sushi, and hands for naan, which makes sense and we do that in my house. But if you're in a Western prep school, you need to use the table manners of the West. It's not r****t. It's giving respect to the culture you're in. You're not in China. We eat rice with forks here in the West. If you are in China, then you probably want to put the fork down. I don't think this has anything to do with colonialism, but with respecting the culture you're in. "Recognizing diversity in cultural backgrounds and food traditions is essential, especially in a country as multicultural as Canada," wrote Maharaj, totally unironically.

The West has a culture. Forks are a big part of that. Isn't it funny how all cultures are "diverse" and worthy of respect except Western, European, Canadian, and American cultures?

I can't keep up with these people anymore and I don't want to.

Megan Fox is the author of “Believe Evidence; The Death of Due Process from Salome to #MeToo.” Follow on Twitter @MeganFoxWriter

Any means to denigrate western culture. We are under attack for everything that is uniquely American, even our history is being rewritten, as any culture experienced upon being infiltrated or conquered by another culture.
I will now demand a knife, fork, and spoon on those rare occasions when I eat "Chinese ", which encompasses a lot of Asian restaurants.
Let this person go out and eat with xer hands. The offense will be all xers.
Live in America, live like an American.

Any means to denigrate western culture. We are under attack for everything that is uniquely American, even our history is being rewritten, as any culture experienced upon being infiltrated or conquered by another culture.
I will now demand a knife, fork, and spoon on those rare occasions when I eat "Chinese ", which encompasses a lot of Asian restaurants.
Let this person go out and eat with xer hands. The offense will be all xers.
Live in America, live like an American.

Any means to denigrate western culture. We are under attack for everything that is uniquely American, even our history is being rewritten, as any culture experienced upon being infiltrated or conquered by another culture.
I will now demand a knife, fork, and spoon on those rare occasions when I eat "Chinese ", which encompasses a lot of Asian restaurants.
Let this person go out and eat with xer hands. The offense will be all xers.
Live in America, live like an American.

Mikey,,, the Asian restaurant we go to , you have to ask for chop sticks if you want them..

As for only attacking western or American culture, would you or I hear about someone ranting about how to eat in any other part of the world?

I think we hear about criticism when it is directed at us and not when it is directed at other cultures..

Did you ever see "Lawrence of Arabia"? They have a short scene where several men all eat rice with the hands. From the same large bowl..

I would skip that, given a choice..

Now, as Dog mentions, eating soup with a knife could be a fun challenge..

I find the use of fork, spoon and knife most handy..