Some intellectuals claim that they are

by John Banzhaf

Former MSNBC host Joy Reid is being strongly criticized for claiming that the popular Christmas song “Jingle Bells” is “racist,” despite a refutation of that very claim by the author of the study upon which Reid’s claim is based. 

Perhaps next she will also condemn “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” because the reference to and praise of whiteness is allegedly stronger and is now explicit; so perhaps socially conscious Blacks and other politically correct Americans should no longer sing it, suggests public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

Reid’s claim is eerily reminiscent of earlier claims that milk is racist, and that food is both racist and sexist.

While some are attributing Reid’s view about Jingle Bells – and her stubborn refusal to disavow it even after the claim was refuted by the study’s author – to the ever-expanding concept of “Wokeism” under which seemingly everything today seems to be attacked as “racist,” and perhaps as a new tactic for Virtue Signaling (“trying to win praise for showing support for a social cause without actually doing anything about it”), the origins of the concept go back further in related areas, notes Banzhaf.

Years ago the subject under attack for being racist was milk. It had been called “The Most Perfect Food,” the “Nearly Perfect Food,” and has won many other praises. But in 2018 it was vilified as a “a symbol of and tool for white dominance and superiority.” [emphasis added; article’s abstract]

More specifically, a 70-page law review article with over 400 footnotes concluded that “milk has long had a sinister side, being bound up with the exploitation of the (human and nonhuman) bodies it comes from and being a symbol of and tool for white dominance and superiority.” [emphasis added] The author’s expertise regarding milk and race was that of a legal writing instructor. 

See also: Law Professor Says Milk Is a Tool of ‘White Supremacy’ (“the dumbest research paper that Breitbart News has covered . . . the consumption of milk is directly related to the oppression of women. . . the exploitation of cows by dairy farmers directly leads to the exploitation of women.”) [emphasis added]

Another law review article, written years earlier and entitled “The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk: Food Oppression and the USDA,” claimed that the milk industry and the federal governments engaged in “food oppression” regarding milk. “Food oppression,” it said, is “institutional, systemic, food-related action or policy that physically debilitates a socially subordinated group.” [emphasis added]. This time the expertise of the author was as an assistant professor of law.

Then, if it wasn’t enough to be told that white milk is racist – so perhaps African Americans who are sufficiently woke should drink only chocolate milk – we are also supposed to believe that it is also sexist. That, at least, seems to be the thesis of an article in a learned journal entitled “From Rice Eaters to Soy Boys: Race, Gender, and Tropes of ‘Plant Food Masculinity.’” In it the authors try to convince readers that:

“Tropes of ‘effeminized’ masculinity have long been bound up with a plant-based diet . . . the altright’s use of the term ‘soy boy’ on Twitter and other social media today to call out men they perceive to be weak, effeminate, and politically correct . . . It argues that, given that we live in a world steeped in ‘coloniality’, it is no wonder that sexist and racist colonial-era tropes are alive and well today, packaged in a 21st-century digital culture form. . .success is likely to only come through a robust anti-racist, color-conscious, and gender-conscious vegan movement.” [emphasis added]

Food, and especially the over consumption of fattening food, is of course a matter of great concern, since it is the major cause of the country’s second most important (after smoking) public health problem, obesity.

But, unlike virtue signalers who want to convince readers that foods (including milk) is racist and sexist, Banzhaf’s lawsuit against McDonald’s over its fat-laden french fries – which the fast food giant settled for over $12 million, a much-needed change, and an apology for its misrepresentation about fat (and subsequently the abandonment of supersizing – has started a whole new movement of using legal action as a powerful and effective weapon against obesity; similar to the way Professor Banzhaf used legal action as an effective tool to fight smoking.

So, instead of simply bemoaning the undeniable racial inequalities in the availability of healthful foods, deceptive food advertising, etc., and trying to demonize some foods as racist or sexist, perhaps law professors with enough time on their hands to write lengthy footnote-laden articles should join the new and successful movement of using legal action as a powerful but still largely underutilized weapon against obesity and various major problems in the food industry.