What on earth is General Tso's chicken?

I keep meaning to post about cultural appropriation since I think it's a really important and interesting issue, but since I'm still figuring it out my ideas never quite coalesce. But in the meantime White American culture is General Tso’s Chicken and Chop Suey.

The video (by Jennifer 8. Lee) is definitely worth watching, about the way that "chinese american" food is as american as beer and pizza and the history of it's invention and misrepresentation.
It's interesting as someone from a different non-chinese country, with it's own different "chinese" food. It took me years to figure out what "egg rolls" and "pot stickers" were :)

The article (by Restructure) is more interested in why this is bad.

Something Restructure brings up in the comments which really pinged for me is that people go on about "authenticity" and it gets this social cache (ie "authentically exotic" food/clothes/music etc as a sign of being cosmopolitan) when what we should worry about is if something is representative.
( my thoughts )

Pondering stuff white people like

Reading the article I mentioned in my last post I was reminded of stuff white people like, specifically this video of the creator talking about his experiences was interesting, the way he went from making a blog for fun to book deal in like a month is intense.

Something he said, which took me a while to realise when I first saw the blog, is that it's not about "white people", it's about upper middle class left wing types and the way they we see ourselves as free-thinking unique snowflakes¹. Really most of the digs are about class not race but since "White people" care more about being seen as non-racist than non-classist² and are very self conscious about white guilt etc that name is more effective. Kind of annoying for white people who aren't White People and don't get the joke, I imagine.

See for example #62 Knowing what’s best for poor people. I am often amazed at how openly "left wing" people despise the poor. They watch Today Tonight! And have badly dyed hair! And use bad grammar! (Unlike poor people from other countries who are adorably authentic and charming. Unless they chop down trees or eat McDonalds or something)

Also there was a link to this black guy who set up a stall so people could have their photo taken with him, I salute his bravery :)

I've often pondered talking more about class but am worried about (a)Coming up against the fairly unselfconscious classism a lot of people have³ and (b) Collapsing in self consciousness as I ponder my own class.

1)And I think a large part of the appeal of the blog for White People is feeling smug at how much more self aware they are compared to all those other White People.
2)Which is very different from being less racist
3)Cue my friends from the country saying "Bah! You have it easy!" :)