Really? AOC Says White Communities 'Don't Know How to Cook' Plantains, 'Your Palette [sic] Isn't Accustomed to' It

Nick Kangadis | May 22, 2019
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She can’t be for real, folks. There’s no way someone, who’s also a member of Congress, can say the things they say and be serious. It’s like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) intentionally tries to one up herself on a weekly basis by saying the most ridiculous things, with each statement resulting in more head-scratching than the previous statements.

Apparently — and I can’t make this up — growing cauliflower in the U.S. is the “colonial approach” to growing vegetables in a community garden?

What does that even mean? She’s trolling us, right?

Here’s video of Ocasio-Cortez’s stream of consciousness that she posted to her Instagram page:

 

So at one point Ocasio-Cortez says the following:

So that’s really how you do it [community gardening] right. That is such a core component of the Green New Deal is having all of these projects make sense in a cultural context. And it’s an area we get the most pushback on, because people say, ‘Why do you need to do that? That’s too hard.’

But when you really think about it, when someone says that it’s ‘too hard’ to do a green space that grows yucca instead of, I don’t know, cauliflower or something, um, what you’re doing is that you’re taking a colonial approach to environmentalism and that is why a lot of communities of color get resistant to certain environmentalist movements because they come with the colonial lens on them.

There’s so much to unpack in that utterly ridiculous rant that I’m not sure where to begin.

First and foremost, isn’t what Ocasio-Cortez is saying racist? She actually thinks — unless she’s “joking” again — that certain communities should only grow plants and vegetables that “make sense in a cultural context.” If that’s not veiled racism, I’m not quite sure what is.

Also, “communities of color” don’t get involved in environmentalism because of colonialism? Seriously? That’s what we’re going with? Has the U.S. government been forcing “communities of color” to eat the vegetables that they want those areas to eat or did I miss a memo? There have been international food markets in every neighborhood I’ve ever lived in, and different fruits and vegetables have been available to most people for a very long time.
What the heck is she talking about?

Oh, and speaking of racism, Ocasio-Cortez then says something that only bears repeating because of how overtly racist in nature it seems to be.

The congresswoman begins talking about how her family, only “one or two generations removed,” lived off the land in Puerto Rico before going into her assessment of the cooking abilities of white people.

I give you — AOC:

If I went to a predominantly white community and said, ‘OK, you guys are going to be growing plantains and yucca and all these things that you don’t know how to cook, and that your palette [sic] isn’t accustomed to,' it’s going to be, like, cute for a little, but it’s not easy and you need to make it as easy as possible to kind of just flow into these communities and to make it work.

What?! Listen, in Ocasio-Cortez’s own little universe that she seems to inhabit, I’m sure she doesn’t think she’s being racist. She probably doesn’t even intend it that way. You can’t say something that dumb and be able to understand how it could be anything other than a personal opinion. Personal opinions can be racist, but I’m not sure she understands what true racism actually is.

Plus, on a side note, you can’t even grow plantains in New York, unless you own a climate controlled greenhouse. You know how I know? All I did was a simple Google search and voila! I got the information I was looking for.

Whatever the case, she might want to hire someone to tell her when she says things that mean something other than how she means it. And it’s not because she’s a woman, or whatever other excuse you want to give her.

It’s because what she says is literally dumb.

H/T: Washington Examiner

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