You know, I sometimes realize, mostly after the fact, that I seem to pick a theme and it more or less colors all my posts for that given day. I don’t do this in a conscious manner. It just so happens.
Well, as I posted earlier about Latoya Peterson’s analysis of mainstream feminism and how it is alienating to minorities (not just racial, but also gender, sexual, political, etc.), I just come across this post by Amanda Marcotte about The convenience of cooking at home
And funny enough (well, probably funny is not the right word, as I wanted to cry more than laugh), it perfectly illustrates the issues Latoya elaborated on in her own post. The piece is about McDonald’s new oatmeal breakfast and the author wonders why people would ever consume such product. Given that in Marcotte’s cultural context, McDonald’s is patronized by people of a certain demographic, the obvious class considerations, the glaring privilege proclaims:
One reason I really got into cooking is perversely that I’m busy and always strapped for time. I found, through trial and error, that as long as I keep my kitchen stocked, it’s just a lot less time to cook than to eat out, even at fast food restaurants. It’s one reason I’ll never, ever understand people who say they buy most of their coffee from coffee shops because it’s “quicker”. Look, it takes the clerk as much time to make your one cup of latte as it would take you to make a whole pot, even if you grind your own beans. Believe me; I’m a time fascist, and I’ve measured. Add to that the travel time, waiting in line, and ordering, and it’s at least double the time and effort, and maybe triple to go to Starbucks.
You know what happens when you are poor (amongst a whole set of other issues, of course)? You want to feel good for a moment. You want to feel that, for once, you can sit back and not have to do a thing. Even the downtime she mentions, queuing and waiting for an order is time to be spent as leisure. Because being poor is so much work. But of course, when one analyzes the phenomenon of McDonald’s oatmeal from the perspective of one’s own privilege alone, it is easy to dictate that lazy people just do not want to cook.
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