‘Girls’ Star Lena Dunham Is Outraged By Cafeteria Sushi, Says It’s Culturally Insensitive


With shootings, Black Lives Matter rallies, a bizarre presidential election, and Brexit, it certainly seems odd to take on the cause of the cultural insensitivity of cafeteria sushi at Oberlin College, but that is what Girls star Lena Dunham is doing.

Dunham is taking on one more cause at her alma mater and is taking the school to task for disrespecting foreign cultures by doing a disservice to their cuisine in a cafeteria setting. But this begs the question: What cafeteria does a service to any cuisine? School cafeterias have never been known as the best places in town to get authentic food of any kind, and their meals tend to be largely constructed by food service companies that serve processed foods.

According to the Inquisitr, Oberlin College has been known as the capital of the teapot movement, where attention-seeking people seem to congregate to make inflammatory statements. Oberlin has a long history of valuing the protection of speech regardless of the accuracy of that speech.

For example, Joy Karega, a professor at Oberlin, has taken it upon herself to blame Jews for 9/11 and has long been protected by the president of Oberlin, who happens to be a Jew himself. Karega has made Oberlin a hostile environment for Jews without proof of her assertions, yet she is protected. Karega is also offended by the Oberlin cafeteria melee.

Page Six accurately reported that the calls of the whiny students of Oberlin have once again reached the ears of their savior, Lena Dunham, and she has picked up their cause because cafeteria sushi is offending their delicate sensibilities. It is unclear whether Lena Dunham truly believes in all of the causes she champions, or perhaps she is just grateful for new topics on which to exercise the sound of her own voice. Regardless, she is deeply offended by “culturally appropriated” foods in the Oberlin cafeteria. It seems that Oberlin should only serve foods that originated in Ohio. And what would that be? Potatoes? No, that’s Idaho.

Lena Dunham has pledged her solidarity with the students who are standing up for the cultures being intentionally offended in Oberlin cafeterias. For real.

“There are now big conversations at Oberlin, where I went to college, about cultural appropriation and whether the dining hall sushi and banh mi disrespect certain cuisines. ?The press reported it as, ‘How crazy are Oberlin kids?’ But to me, it was actually, ‘Right on!'”

It seems that Oberlin students and Dunham are protesting because the versions of foods being served in the Oberlin cafeteria is a “slap in the face” to people from those countries. Queue the tiny violins. Tomoyo Joshi, an Oberlin student from Japan, wrote an op-ed piece in the paper to express his disgust.

“The undercooked rice and lack of fresh fish is disrespectful. When you’re cooking a country’s dish for other people, including ones who have never tried the original dish before, you’re also representing the meaning of the dish as well as its culture. So if people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative.”

But there seems to be no understanding that much of the cuisine that is considered “American” was long appropriated from other countries and cultures, such as pizza, pasta, hamburgers, and bagels, and those served at the Oberlin cafeteria are likely not comparable to those found in better restaurants.

Twitchy shared a variety of social media posts that question the term “disrespectful” when it comes to the food choices Lena Dunham is complaining about at Oberlin. Twitchy is preferring to call Dunham “painfully dumb.”

“Some say Lena Dunham should be put on a rocket and fired into the sun. I disagree. The sun is our friend.”

The Washington Post weighed in on the complaints of Oberlin students, supported by the actress Lena Dunham, who seems to have never met an activist cause she didn’t like. The Washington Post believes that if only American food was served at Oberlin, they might be dining on only Twinkies. One also supposes if only American food was served, the students of Oberlin and Lena Dunham would be complaining about a lack of diversity in the cafeteria. But, at least the cafeteria scandal is keeping the students of Oberlin busy.

It is being suggested that these issues are just providing one more fuse for victimhood culture on campus. The cafeteria system at Oberlin has reportedly gone much further to take political causes into account when choosing food than most other university systems, according to the Oberlin College cafeteria materials.

“The dining halls at Oberlin College do more than feed students, faculty, and staff. Through progressive procurement policies, including an extensive Farm-to-Fork program, sustainable seafood principles, animal proteins free of human-therapeutic growth hormones and antibiotics, socially aligned coffee choices and cage-free eggs, Oberlin College and Bon Appétit Management Company provide nutritious meals that invest in nearby farms, dairies, ranches and aquaculture operations, preserve the bounty of our oceans, lakes and fields so they can feed future generations, and provide sufficient incomes to food producers so they can live with dignity.”

But Lena Dunham and Oberlin College students will continue to get out their pitchforks, um, picket signs, and demand that if foreign foods are served, they are culturally accurate, for fear of offending someone, somewhere.

Do you believe that Lena Dunham and Oberlin College students need to focus on something of importance, or do they have a point?

[Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images]

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