The depiction of child abduction in Mr. Oliver’s book, the group said, 'dangerously trivializes the ongoing trauma associated with Australia’s violent history of child removal.' 'I am devastated to have caused offense and apologize wholeheartedly,' Mr. Oliver said in a statement...."
From "Jamie Oliver Pulls Children’s Book Amid Criticism of Insensitivity/The celebrity chef’s second children’s book, 'Billy and the Epic Escape,' faced accusations that it stereotyped First Nations people in Australia" (NYT).
The NYT goes on to analyze the problem as "A-list celebrities dabbling in children’s literature," but isn't it white people dabbling in the history and culture of nonwhite people? Is Jamie Oliver white? I had to Google that, and I didn't find the answer — I'm just guessing it's "yes" — but I bumbled into this from 2022: "Jamie Oliver says he’s hired cultural appropriation specialists to advise on cookbooks" (CNN). You may want to be inclusive — for whatever mishmash of reasons — but then you have to worry about being inclusive the wrong way.
From the 2022 CNN article:
In the episode titled “Empire roast chicken, Bombay roasties and amazing Indian gravy,” Oliver set out to celebrate what he called “our Indian love affair” by making a “full-on collision between beautiful British roast dinners and gutsy Asian spices.”... Toward the end of the episode, while carving the chicken, Oliver said, “this is empire food, you can use your hands,” and then raised a toast “to the empire” while clinking beers with members of his camera crew.
What a screwup! And he's still screwing up! Even with "cultural appropriate specialists" to advise him.
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Once you enter the toilet bowl of Democrat (progressive) belief systems ... and you are white ... you can NEVER be woke enough.
Jamie Oliver is about as white as rice. He will circle the bowl forever now.
The correct response from Oliver should have been a derisive laugh followed by, "Fuck right off." These groveling apologies are pathetic.
If this is the UK Jamie Oliver he's a celebrity chef--he's white--and he made a hash of this children's book. At least among the progressive twitterati.
I didn't understand the complaint. Curried chicken rice is good but not every night.
Maybe the lesson here is if you are going to appropriate someone else's culture you better do it at a level of competence akin to Marshall Mathers rather than Elizabeth Warren.
Saying the word "Empire" is.. a problem how? The Brits used to have a vast global empire. Are we to ignore that historical fact and hang our heads in shame?
Plus- this is food we are talking about.
This is the dude who tried to gross kids out by manufacturing chicken nuggets in front of them in his kitchen using meat glue, beaks, feet and mashed up chicken lips. Kids LOVED THEM.
D'oh!
I guess its not censorship when you "Pull" books for the "Right" reasons.
Did Jamie lie about his heritage to get nice juicy high paying job at an elite white American University?
I'm puzzled why a chef is writing children's books. And why anyone would buy them. But I'm not a chick.
His book, his choice. But the complainers might be surprised to find that their next target of opportunity uses the advice of Yancey Ward, above.
Uh, it wasn't his choice.
Imagine giving a shit what a bunch of hysterically woke 26 year old English majors think of your writing....
They don't. They just rent their name like Trump used to do. If you had a hotel, he'd license you to call it a Trump hotel and bam now you can charge $250/night.
Influencers are getting in on this gravy train to increase their Q scores.
Jamie Oliver is obscenely wealthy. He'll survive.
Who decides who is A-list?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the indigenous tribes of Australia had not yet mastered the use of fire at the time of the arrival of Europeans. It's hard to develop an interesting cuisine without the use of fire. It's impossible to fry food without some form of fire or heat, and all interesting cuisines are based on fried foods. Are there any restaurants that specialize in aboriginal foods in Australia or, for that matter, anywhere on earth. And Indian food isn't that great either.
'appears' seems to be doing some heavy lifting, show no curiosity about anything seems the order of the day
I am fairly certain that the Abos' "complex spiritual beliefs" were magical. Everyone's spiritual beliefs are magical. That's the whole point.
I see another white guy has been classified as insufficiently pure, and put on notice.
Does anybody else note that cowardice and grovelling has become a virtue in Progressive Leftist society? All the better to show the power of our control ! Nothing says 'I belong' like a dog showing its belly to the pack and pissing itself.
So Althouse, I can understand why "an educational group that works on behalf of First Nations communities in Australia" -- which is to say, a bunch of poofter grifters -- are whining about this. And I can understand why the NYT -- which is to say, a pack of lying Left fascists -- is all eager to turn that whining into page clicks. But why do you give fuck zero? Is this relevant ot something?
William said…
“And Indian food isn't that great either.”
A quarter century ago, an Indian co-worker somewhat jokingly told me to look at the clientele to see if an Indian restaurant is good or not.
If the customers was all Indian males, the food was less likely to be good. The customers were simply looking for something familiar.
OTOH, if the clientele was more mixed, then, well, good food pulls in people from any background.
I suppose you have answered that question pre-emptively, by tagging the post with "cultural appropriation". But I don't think that applies. The Abos barely even have a culture, and no one is claiming that Oliver stole their boomerang. This is just a ritual demand that some white guy kiss some Abo dick.
Yea, but a chef needs a children’s book like a fish needs a bicycle.
fried or raw - Speech crimes are very bitter.
I believe he's not just white. He's ginger. Or at least white enough to be redhead-adjacent. I guess his next book will be about a very white blond or ginger kid who just doesn't fit in with the ethnic types at the restaurant where he works and finds that he has to resort to magic to rise in the business.
Like the US, Australia has a problem with aboriginal activists who are basically just left-wing white people.
were led by... an educational group that works on behalf of First Nations communities in Australia
My assumption is that the people who pull down the biggest salaries in such groups are not First Nations members.
Sure, they had fire. They used it in hunting and to keep grasslands from being overgrown. They had flint arrowheads. They knew how to start fires and use fire in cooking -- especially in roasting game -- though in large parts of the country, fuel must have been in limited supply.
but isn't it white people dabbling in the history and culture of nonwhite people
No problem. We'll completely ignore them instead
The article & the post both say Oliver pulled his own book. Self cancellation, delightfully pure Maoist struggle session leftist codswallop by a leftist flibbertigibbet. I stand by my original comment. The guy can cook, though. His show on various forms of scrambled eggs and omelets is a revelation.
Who weeps for the First Nations communities in Australia that were forced to shut down businesses, mask up, and take the white man's covid jabs?
Hate is an industry for Grifters.
Hate is an industry for Grifters.
That's a good one.
Name-too-long-to-type, adjust your sarcasm meter.
Oliver's attempts at cultural inclusivity really boomeranged on him didn't they.
Somebody had to do it.
Here's the main problem: You can never please these self appointed guardians of other cultures. They DO NOT want anybody writing anything about any other culture than their own. (Especially white people.)
We also don't know a lot about some of these other cultures. They existed a long time ago and didn't keep extensive written histories of their cultures. A lot of it is information that has been passed down orally from generation to generation. And there's a good chance that these other cultures are only passing down the positive points about their histories and glossing over the dark points.
In the United States it is perfectly acceptable to present Native Americans in the cliched image of the noble tribespeople who always lived in harmony with land and with their neighbors. That's not the way that they actually were, but that is the way that they're portrayed in the media. (Many of them were really bad people who devastated the environment, made war with their neighbors, brutally murdered lots of people and held others as slaves.)
Oliver's a good guy. Years ago, when he learned what British school children were being fed and the paltry budget they were fed with, he developed a program to provide decent meals within that budget. He succeeded in showing it was possible, but failed to mass produce it. Still, it was a great idea that he put real effort into for no other reason than he thought children should and could eat better. Apparently, he's still at it.
That was about 15 years ago; at the time he was a good-natured goof. Probably still is and maybe should rewrite his book, but he doesn't deserve vitriol over it.
Exactly! Or anyone else for that matter.
- Krumhorn
Yeah, the "To empire!" toast was maladroit, as were the hands -- ham-fisted, one might say. You're a famous chef de cuisine, Oliver. Stick to what you know and leave the history of the British East India Company to cups of tea and other bit of crockery that are evidently wiser than you are. Next time, toast your long-suffering crew of writers, videographers, and editors who struggle to make you appear more human and less simian than you likely are.
That said, the British colonial experience in India was more to the good of the sub-continent than to the bad, particularly after the Raj replaced the Company. At least they kept a modicum of peace between the Muslims and everyone else, recurring problem that self-government is often unwilling to staunch. How many wars have India and Pakistan waged on each other since independence? I shudder to count, given the nuclear arsenals held by both sides.
I could take a crack at it. What does the A stand for?
Close italics
Once a cuckold, always a cuckold.
It is destressing that the frankly insane Canadian wokism "First Nations" has been adopted Down Under under pressure from the same sort of Orwellian fascist-trending oligarchs who have been at least temporarily routed here. It's not that the phrase is basically nonsense, that's bad enough, it's that the generally peaceable Aussies have given in to the pressure, probably in the naive hope that appeasement works. If they haven't already discovered their folly, they are about to experience one unconditional Newspeak demand after another until their brains are permanently enthralled to total subservience to the State even in their own homes among their own families.
@Scott Patton
What's the syntax?
if you don't like the book, then don't read it. If you think you can do better, then do it. Otherwise, who cares? But never apologize.
Reply to the comment thread that has overrunning italics with another comment that starts with the end italic tag. Include some text in your comment after the tag or it won't be accepted.
This also works for the times that bold text starts overrunning comments as well but use the end bold tag.
Thanks, Christopher B.
Conflation of logical domains is a universal conception. There are few and far between who limit their beliefs and practices to a limited frame of reference in time and space.
Children's books as a propaganda vehicle is a story as old Lenin's Bolshevik Party, which printed it's propaganda for children in between runs of its newspaper, Iskra. (The Spark) The infamous "Dr. Jill" authored one herself (ghost-authored, as it turned out) to inculcate the notion of the young Joe Biden as a sort of crusading super-boy feared by bullies near and far, crusading that is, in between shifts in the coal mines of Wales and long-haul truckin' with B.J. and the Bear.
Only conservatives ban books, right?
Jamie Oliver is certainly an annoying wanker, but he is also a very competent chef, and he never pretended to be Asian. So yeah, much more akin to MM than Warren.
Reminds me of something to do with the book of Enoch for some reason. I just don’t have time to look it up now.
Claiming girl power and pitting males against females in combat is a liberal magic sincerely practiced in progressive sects of ancient religious orders revisited in modern families.
Not in principle, but sometimes restrict distribution in context. Conservatives follow the national charter founded in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Shorter complaint: You didn't pay me for "consultation" before you published.
Oliver has done nothing wrong. This is just the aboriginal grift industry in full swing. Most of the people making these complaints are no more aboriginal than I am, but it's become a lucrative and fashionable power play.
As for "child abduction", is it child abduction to remove a child from domestic violence or sexual abuse? Because that's how removals worked back in the day. Nowadays these kids are left to rot in their hell lest authorities be labelled racist kidnappers.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the indigenous tribes of Australia had not yet mastered the use of fire at the time of the arrival of Europeans."
Not to mention that it make a mockery of being sophisticated enough to have formed a "nation"
I barely know who Oliver is, and don't much care, but what's with all the credentialism? Why shouldn't a cook/chef/celebrity write a childrens' book? Or a book for adults for that matter?
Jamie Oliver should hire J.K. Rowling as a consultant.
As "old as Lenin's Bolshevik Party"? Try as old as, oh, the first books for children.
You can't win in a purity spiral. Best not to get involved in it in the first place. Never apologize is a good start.
I'd like to see Oliver's take on Mexican Oatmeal Soup, found in the Pow-wow cookbook..https://elizabethwarrenwiki.org/pow-wow-chow-cookbook/
The funny thing is, most (all?) indigenous spiritual beliefs are rooted in what can best be described as 'magic'. (Some self-anointed free thinkers would say all spiritual beliefs are rooted in magic.)
Describing native, stone-aged spiritual beliefs as magic just isn't allowed in our new world of "indigenous ways of knowing" claptrap.
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