A Lesson in Acceptance
oxfordamerican.org
oxfordamerican.org
>"restaurants are where life is lived"
As opposed to ... the rest of where life is lived?
>"Restaurants bring humanity to a city. They’re central to my memories. "
I'm pretty sure bringing food to a city is more central to restaurantness than bringing "humanity" to a city.
"Eating out in Houston is an exercise in acceptance." -are you shitting me? Do people actually feel virtuous and beatific because they bought a bucket of pork fried rice from someone not of the same race as them? What the hell is going on here?
I wear a mask when I go to a store, and I'm glad I live in an area where people generally do and you don't get harassed for it.
But I would get serious cognitive dissonance if I went to a restaurant or did anything else that met my personal threshold for "not really necessary". I mean, say there's someone who isn't wearing a mask. Can I really complain or feel superior, given that neither of us has to be there?
It is a word entirely for the American activist class.
The word used by activists in Latin America is “Latine”, if you’re curious. It’s actually pronounceable in Spanish!
In case you just read the "3%" in the title and dismiss it, here's a few of the interesting breakdowns from the survey:
"Young Hispanics, ages 18 to 29, are among the most likely to have heard of the term – 42% say they have heard of it, compared with 7% of those ages 65 or older."
"Use is among the highest for Hispanic women ages 18 to 29 – 14% say they use it, a considerably higher share than the 1% of Hispanic men in the same age group who say they use it."
"42% of those who have heard the term describe it as a gender-neutral one."
"12% of respondents who had heard of Latinx express disagreement or dislike of the term. Some described the term as an “anglicism” of the Spanish language, while others say the term is “not representative of the larger Latino community.”"
Also, technically, all words are made-up. That's how we got words.
This is just a wild sentence. People don't become less racist after eating foreign food. People should not feel proud about themselves just because they spent money on a bowl of ramen.
> In Houston, most days out of the week, I’ve found myself in the company of family that wasn’t my own, that’s adopted me nonetheless.
There has to be a way to express, "restaurant workers are struggling financially because of COVID", without projecting that the minimum wage workers at your favorite Korean restaurant think of you as an adopted family member.
They just want to do their job and earn a living without contracting a contagious disease. They shouldn't, on top of that, be forced to emotionally validate their customers.
No, I think the point is, people (like the author) feel less racist after eating foreign food among people who don't look like them. Pride is one possible emotion, but relief is one that seems like it would generalize more. The internet is full of faceless people talking about racism, and getting out in the real world and doing normal things around normal people can be therapeutic. Like taking a walk outside the cult compound.
>They shouldn't, on top of that, be forced to emotionally validate their customers.
Well, the point is to describe how they do, whether or not intentionally; do you have a proposal for how they should stop gratifying customers?
You're entitled to find the picture painted ugly, but if it's really shocking, then writing the article may be worthwhile regardless.
I wouldn't take a single author writing about eating in a restaurant as an indication. Look at the numbers instead; it's pretty bad.
I'm going to stick with the advice from public health experts, which has been consistent and unanimous, thanks.
For details on how the US's death rates (CFR, per capita, etc.) compare, you can read more here, but it's not good. Other places aren't good either, but many places are much better.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/05/8993658...
Thats such a low number ~0.05% of the population. This should viewed as good news that the virus is not that deadly.
Flu can cause long term damage too.
Do you know what else could cause long term damage ? Lockdown
>still not well understood
Especially when is still not well understood, we shouldn't do lockdown as it surely can cause damage.
We may overreact for the unknown effects of Covid, but it's sure convenient to say we should do nothing instead and oops later if you underestimated (which is interestingly exactly what happened at that start of the pandemic and got us to our current death rates). Sad that your preference is all for the sake of leisure and convenience, perpetuating a system dependent on low wage service laborers that are offered no choice in the matter.
We have other options, but a flat refusal to offer or consider any does indeed leave every man for himself. But careful what you ask for, because when you force people into such desperation they will only put up with so much before deciding to take back or destroy it all.
I didn't say we should do nothing. There are things that can be done other than lockdown such as finding vaccine still have to be done, improving treatment method still have to be done, improving health care capacity still have to be done, etc.
>sake of leisure and convenience
Its not just leisure and convenience, people losing job, bankruptcy, mental health problem, suicide, domestic violence, delayed treatment for non-covid cause, kids receiving poor education due school closure, etc
Flu kills thousand every year too, yet we didn't require lockdown.
Likewise be careful when you ask for lockdown, because when you force people into such desperation they will only put up with so much before deciding to take back or destroy it all.
Lockdown maybe justified if the threat is proportional to the severity for covid its not worth it.