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•CONSIDER THIS• EDITORIAL
BY ELLEN SNORTLAND
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
TROUBLED TIMES FOR TRADER JOSEPH’S
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4 PASADENA WEEKLY | 07.30.20
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s I’ve found from writing this column for decades, humor is bound to offend someone who doesn’t find it funny. And now those humor-challenged folks have taken aim at our beloved Trader Joe’s, a company that is famous for not taking itself too seriously. TJs has recently been petitioned to remove “racist branding and packaging” from its products. The Change.org petition was started by Northern California high school senior Briones Bedell, who is described as a “youth human-rights activist interested in protecting intangible cultural content.” While I applaud Ms. Bedell’s activism, I’m torn about her aims. The idea of intangible cultural appropriation really bothers me. Why? Because it’s frequently women and girls who bear the brunt of this type of “consumer correctness.” However, before I get into consumer correctness — a term I just made up — I’ll get a bit more into the Trader Joe’s controversy. Like that Ms. Bedell’s call for Trader Joe’s to remove what she considers offensive packaging has created more awareness of the casual and commercial marketing of groups. That said, I’m wondering … offensive to whom? We had a lively discussion about this on NextDoor. Most poignant to me were the two women who said, “I never thought of my father’s name, José, as a racial slur.” Another woman said, “Ming? That’s my dad’s name!” and went on to ponder whether she was missing something. There’s a certain “more-woke-than-thou” righteousness going on here, and I’m sorry to say that my group — white middle-class CIS females — are often the most visible examples of that. On one end of the spectrum, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s are obvious cases of brand-based cultural appropriation and stereotyping that should have disappeared long ago. Similarly, if Trader Joe’s was marketing “Wetb**k” Frijoles or “G**k” Goodies, that would also be unquestionably repulsive. On the other end of the spectrum, so far, no one is calling for the removal of the Quaker man from oatmeal cartons. Apparently, he’s not a part of an “out” group. “Hey, get out of town, you dirty Quaker!” said no one. Ever. (Except when Quakers filed for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War years… but I digress.) And this is not to say that Latino, Italian, Middle Eastern or Chinese people are not derided; they most certainly are. Speaking of “out” groups, I do not see women or girls of any stripe within TJs marketing schemes. Yes, I get it: the ethnic names are all plays on the word “Joe’s” … would it kill TJs to have something with Trader Josefina’s on it? If you know any teens, you’ll recognize that Ms. Bedell is in that phase of teen righteousness that is practically impenetrable. Predictably, she went after TJs packaging, not their management. I find the “packaging” of their executive suite typical. Five out of the seven executives listed at TJs are white men, the other two are women. From her photo, I can tell that Tracy Anderson is also white; there are no pictures of the other female executive, Kathy Cipolla. Race is a serious issue, one that our country seems finally willing to grapple with to some degree. As we as a nation focus on entrenched systemic racism in a way we’ve never done before, quite frankly, packaging is the least of our worries. It’s low-hanging fruit that makes us feel like we’ve gotten something done … by doing as little as possible. And for those of you who decry “political correctness,” I’m not on that bandwagon either. Political correctness, as with any social progress, has its extremes. I’m sorry to say that term has squelched meaningful conversations between fundamentally good people. I know white people who are so fearful of being non-PC that they don’t broach subjects that could reveal their own racist brainwashing. As a result of this column, I expect to be scolded or even “canceled” by some readers. Everyone is so darned ready to fight!
Meanwhile, I believe that many of us are unwittingly engaging in what one of our greatest American public intellectuals, the late great, very Black, and humorous Florynce Kennedy, pegged as “horizontal hostility.” Many of us know people who are lurking on Facebook, ready to school, scold, and shame people who are allies. Horizontal hostility is like that: you attack and correct people who are on your team. It makes one feel like they’re doing “something” while meanwhile, the “man behind the curtain” keeps pulling the social, emotional, and economic strings that keep people down and powerless. Back to consumer correctness: As a person who has been active with the United Nations system for Non-Governmental Organizations since 1995, I’ve seen the damage that our zeal to protect intangible cultural artifacts has on women and girls. I have been given lovely gifts or purchased items to wear from women I’ve met in developing countries. They want me to wear their crafts; they make their living from these garments or accessories. I wear some of my so-called ethnic pieces to global conferences as “bait,” and it often works. Example: When I wear something from Oaxaca, people who care about or are from Oaxaca come up to me to talk about the status of women in Oaxaca. When white activists see me wearing such items, I often get lectured on how I’m stealing Oaxacan culture! Because of these attitudes, well-meaning but clueless activists in the United States have impacted the financial health of artisans in developing countries. And speaking of unintended consequences, our exports of cast-off clothing has people wearing American brand t-shirts all over the world, thus again, undermining women’s traditional ways of putting food on their tables through sewing. Please, I don’t care to be relegated to colorless, plain, white middle-class branding on my purchases. Ruth’s Rice? Billy’s Buttermilk Pancakes? Tommy’s Tortillas? No thanks. And voilá! As of this writing, the topic is moot over at TJs. In response to the petition, which had almost 5000 signatures, TJs corporate stated they had already started re-branding their products back in 2017. (eye-roll) Sure they were. Now that’s funny! n Ellen has been writing “Consider This” for a long time! She also is a writing coach. Contact her at beautybitesbeast.com
CARTOON
