I was watching Jon and Kate Plus Eight earlier today (or should I say yesterday) and Kate said something that really annoyed me. She was talking about manners that they enforced in their household and she said something along the lines of, “we don’t eat with our hands because we’re not dogs.” This really pissed me off. It reflects a prevalent ethnocentric belief that proper table manners are only Western table manners.
I remember once when my university roommate, an international student from Japan, told me of an incident where a girl asked her why Japanese people continued to use chopsticks since the fork had been invented (implying that forks were a superior utensil to chopsticks). Comments like these are just reminders that cultures that don’t conform to mainstream Western practices are seen as uncivilized, backwards and abnormal.
Why is eating with your hands considered below human? Most Indians I’ve seen eat with their hands. In many ways it’s more sanitary than using utensils just like how squatting over a hole to relieve yourself is more hygienic than sitting on a public toilet (or even your home toilet). But of course, these practices are seen as barbaric and only part of primitive societies. And of course no civilized person living in America or Canada would dare to eat with their hands! Pizza, chicken wings and “finger foods” are still acceptable though and still allow us to maintain our human status [read: sarcasm].
It is really disheartening that comments like this go relatively unnoticed and are regarded as acceptable while those who do not conform/assimilate are subject to the harsh reality that their cultures continue to be mocked and dehumanized by white privilege. And for the record, in addition to the previous examples I stated, I refuse to accept the following bullshit: no elbows on the table, no picking up bowls off the table to eat, no slurping food (noodles taste better slurped!), no cutting your food with a fork.
