Australian Catholic University defends hiring of academic who links food to racism
We haven’t heard about cultural appropriation for a while. Remember that? It was the monumentally idiotic idea that if you ate a tikka masala or wore a sombrero to a party you were somehow a bit of a racist. The Americans banged on about it endlessly. And then Covid came along and mercifully everyone shut up and spent the next two years trapped inside worrying about bigger problems. Like their sourdough starter.
But now it’s back. Sort of.
The Australian Catholic University – which, as the name suggests, is supposed to be traditional – has hired an American expert in critical race theory, “whiteness” and “food studies”. Not the culinary art. Not gastronomy. But rather – and he’s written reams on the topic – how if you’re white and you eat couscous, or pho, you might be doing something racist.
His name is Dr John Burdick. He’s currently an associate dean at New York University, and starting in January he’ll be director of student experience and enhancement at ACU’s North Sydney campus. In 2018 he wrote a 409-page dissertation about how white people eating ethnic food is deeply problematic.
The announcement of Burdick’s arrival was made last week by deputy vice-chancellor Professor Tania Broadley, instead of the actual vice-chancellor, Zlatko Skrbis, who’s been monstered by conservative Catholics for being a bit woke. Not that Burdick’s arrival would deepen that impression or make it worse, even though his profile picture on X shows him holding a sign that says “DISMANTLE WHITE SUPREMACY”.
You’re thinking: hang on, it’s not like Burdick has made an academic career out of asking whether white people eating delicious foods from foreign lands – what he terms “culinary slumming” and “cross-racial eating” – might be voyeuristic, exploitative, and might reinforce “a particular sense of social, class, racial superiority over the immigrant populations who inhabit urban neighbourhoods”.
Well, actually … from his 2018 dissertation: “The foods of racialized (sic) groups are not simply used to articulate or challenge a marginalized (sic) racial positionality, but are also a central part in the construction, articulation and perpetuation of racial privilege, whiteness, and as such are central to the very foundations of the racial hierarchy.” In short: your Tuesday night butter chicken was an act of oppression.
Yes, and that smoky charcoal chicken you had from El Jannah last week? Racist. Those investment bankers with their slicked-back hair and Goldman Sachs fleeces queuing round the block for it? All making it worse. Apparently. And the private equity plan to buy out the franchise (as in, the owners themselves courting a sale)? Burdick would call this “cultural hijacking”.
Because according to him, white interest in ethnic food “must be read within the logic of a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy that … commodifies ethnicity and racial difference and views it as ‘spice’ or a ‘seasoning that livens up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture’”.
Now stop right there. Dull? White culture is dull? Has this man never heard Bohemian Rhapsody? Has he never tried a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks? Has he never enjoyed the sheer magnificence of Love Island?
Look, we want to be fair here. Burdick is an academic, not a lunatic. He’s not saying every white person who eats a burrito is literally a fascist. What he’s saying – once you strip away all the patriarchy-this and commodification-that – is how when white people eat ethnic food they’re actually, without realising it, asserting a sort of dominance. A sort of cultural superiority.
Don’t ask us how. The dissertation is too long and our deadline’s too short.
“We must push towards deeper understandings,” Burdick wrote, “of the complex racial dynamics at work every time food is shared across cultures and how the larger power dramatics (sic) inherent in those exchanges can be dismantled.”
Must we? Really?
Because we’ve always thought food brings people together. That it breaks down the barriers. That sharing a meal can be a glorious human experience. But apparently all this time, enjoying a lifesaving kebab at 3am, we were asserting an unforgivable superiority on the Turkish gentleman slicing the meat behind the counter. A superiority we should have known about all along. Because he kept calling everyone “boss”.
What matters here is that Burdick’s appointment is clearly annoying some of ACU’s Catholic leadership. Archbishop Anthony Fisher wrote a furious letter last year after students walked out of Joe de Bruyn’s graduation speech. Then the university hired a pro-abortion dean of law, quietly sacked her for her views, and paid her $1m to keep quiet about it.
Except now, when challenged about hiring Burdick, ACU is suddenly championing “academic freedom”. They say it “allows scholars to publish on a wide range of ideas, including the PhD thesis and academic paper” belonging to Burdick, which date back “more than five years”. As though that makes any difference whatsoever.
And it shouldn’t really matter to Burdick himself. It’s not his fault. His job is student experience. Making sure students from under-represented backgrounds succeed. Equity. Inclusion. All that. Which is admirable. Truly.
Just don’t let him anywhere near the university canteen. Or the vending machines.
