I saw the headline, Toddlers who dislike spicy food racist, say report, and said, “What the?” Is it political correctness run amok?
At first blush, it certainly seemed to be.
The Telegraph newspaper in the U.K. was quoting a story about a study published in book form by The National Children’s Bureau that said if a child called spicy food “yucky” that he or she might be racist.
The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: “Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships.”***
The guide goes on to warn that children might also “react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying ‘yuk’”.
“Young Children and Racial Justice: Taking action for racial equality in the early years,” by Jane Lane, was published by the bureau last month.
While it’s hard to argue that it’s a bad thing to try to nip racism in the bud, it could be said that it’s hard to properly interpret a toddler’s actions or speech in terms of intent.
If a child’s family doesn’t eat much spicy food, that child isn’t going to like spicy food. Simple. And children call things they don’t like “yucky.” Heck, sometimes they call things they do like “yucky.”
We didn’t eat much spicy food in our house when I was growing up because my father is king of the picky eaters. OK, maybe just the prince, as his mom was as least as picky as he is. He only really liked a handful of foods, none of which had much — how should I put it? Oh, yeah — flavor.
I mean, to this day, he doesn’t even eat pasta or rice. In any form. Going out for Italian food was a special thing that my mom and I used to do sometimes with my grandmother (her mom).
My mother, on the other hand, liked super spicy stuff. She used to down all sorts of hot chili peppers and similar things all the time. She liked most foods, and my grandmother boasted that she liked everything. Except kelp.
I was somewhere between. I liked most foods (except coconut and prunes, both of which I dislike to this day, though I will eat curry that has a coconut milk base), but I wasn’t much for spicy. I wasn’t used to it. It took me many years to get used to eating spicy foods and while I enjoy them now, most people I know who really like the spicy stuff consider me a rank amateur.
The point being, if I’d said “yuck” about some spicy food when I was a young’un, what would that have meant?
It would have meant, simply, that I wasn’t used to it, it didn’t taste like anything I liked, and I didn’t enjoy it.
It’s one thing if a child says he or she doesn’t like a food because “that’s what black people eat” or something similarly offensive. Sure, that does indicate a racist mindset that’s being taught in the home. But how can you interpret something as ubiquitous as a “yuck”?
In fairness, I didn’t read the entire publication; it’s not on the Internet; you have to purchase the book in order to read the entire thing. I’m going to choose to believe that what the guide says isn’t as clear-cut as The Telegraph is making it out to be, but it still seems a dangerous statement to make to people looking for ways to help interpret behavior as potentially racist.
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