The perilous whiteness of … pumpkins?

Globe and Mail ^ | 10/8/2016 | Margaret Wente

[RightGeek]

Hey, you! You, with the Starbucks pumpkin-spiced latte in your hand. That ridiculous concoction – with its fluffiness, lack of substance, and triviality – is the ultimate expression of white privilege. So shame on you.

I learned about the true meaning of the pumpkin-spiced latte in a scholarly paper, called The Perilous Whiteness of Pumpkins. It was peer-reviewed and published in a genuine academic journal. Lisa Jordan Powell, its lead author, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia. “Starbucks PSLs are products of coffee shop culture, with its gendered and racial codes,” it warns. They make up just one part of the “pumpkin entertainment complex, whose multiple manifestations continue the entanglements of pumpkins, social capital, race, and place.”

Ms. Powell (who did not respond to an offer to comment on her paper) is merely one of countless academics toiling in the fertile field of race and gender studies. I don’t mean to pick on her in particular. Like everybody else, she must publish or perish. They churn out this stuff like Halloween candy. We pay for it.

Vast tracts of the social sciences have gone insane. If you doubt it, I urge you to check out New Real Peer Review, a Twitter feed whose purpose is to expose the absurdity of what passes for scholarly research. It’s run by a small team of anonymous academics who fear their careers will suffer if people know who they are. They have no shortage of material. Their greatest hit to date is a piece claiming that glaciology – the study of glaciers – is misogynist, and that we need to “feminize” it. (Some people thought that paper was a hoax, but sadly it was not.)

[RightGeek]

Has the world gone insane?

Hat Tip to Ed Driscoll at Instapundit - https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/246084/

[Red Badger]

[NorthMountain]

Lisa Jordan Powell, its lead author is barking mad.

[LydiaLong]

Whatever happened to eating and drinking what you like?

[NorthMountain]

[NorthMountain]

Whatever happened to eating and drinking what you like?

What, you mean 'freedom'?

WE'LL HAVE NONE OF THAT, PEASANT!!!! EAT YOUR GRUEL!!!!

[Billthedrill]

Vast tracts of the social sciences have gone insane.

No kidding. It is a source of solace that this madness will be a fertile field of study in the future for...wait for it...social science.

[JimSEA]

We have to find out who first made pumpkin spice, dig up their body and disrespect it in the BLM tested ways (urine, thrown feces, etc.). No person of color has ever used or enjoyed this white mans spice.

[PLMerite]

[skr]

I’ve seen some beautifully painted pumpkins. Those would make great “canvasses”.

[vladimir998]

“Starbucks PSLs are products of coffee shop culture, with its gendered and racial codes,” it warns.

Anyone who speaks this way needs to be taunted back to reality.

[Sirius Lee]

I like pumpkin coffee. Pumpkin beer. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin mousse, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread...the chase scene from Sleepy Hollow...

I will literally kill anybody who tries to deny me pumpkin. I will kill you.

[mrsmel]

Fine, overpriced coffee is an ezpression of white privilege. Now, to be completely honest Nd follow this premise to its logical conclusion, she needs to add to this list-

electricity
modern plumbing
modern medicine and almost every modern discovery encompassed by that

air conditioning
automobiles, all modern means of travel
telephones
refrigeration

I haven’t even touched the barely visible teeniest tip of the huge iceberg of white discovery and invention. She and her ilk need, in order to have integrity on this issue, to give up the use of everything in their world which was discovered and invented by whites.

[MUDDOG]

Now you’ve done it. I’m going to have to get some pumpkin cookies.

[KarlInOhio]

When will someone squash this silliness?

[Spirochete]

They make up just one part of the "pumpkin entertainment complex, whose multiple manifestations continue the entanglements of pumpkins, social capital, race, and place."

Now comes the part where we throw our heads back and laugh...

Ready?

[Red Badger]

White pumpkins are now raciss!.............

[Sirius Lee]

I forgot about the cookies Yes!

[rockrr]

I pulled pumpkins from the garden today. They were volunteers from last season. None of them grew much larger than those in your picture but they are all perfectly shaped.

Now to figure out what to do with them!

[DugwayDuke]

Personally, I think anything ‘pumpkin’ should be banned as a crime against humanity. The only useful purpose for a pumpkin pie is to throw at someone.