New racism: Whites eating tacos on Cinco de Mayo. Because “cultural appropriation”!

My latest blog post for the Los Angeles Times:

You may be wondering, at this point, exactly what is cultural appropriation? Technically, it’s the process by which one culture adopts and incorporates elements of another: the Romans sculpting Greek-style statuary, for example. But now, it’s become a catchall designation for anything that white people might borrow from an ethnic culture that the grievance-mongers in that culture don’t like.

Some of the cultural appropriation complaints are well taken because the appropriated practices genuinely include mockery of the affected minority group: minstrel-show whites in blackface, for example. Sombreros and fake mustaches might fall into that category. But tacos?

As the ethnic grievance industry grows ever more shrill and its spokespeople more thin-skinned, the list of ethnic practices forbidden to whites grows ever longer.

Posted by Charlotte Allen