Just weeks after launching its Great Tastes of America burger series in the United Kingdom, McDonald’s Corporation reports it is shutting down amid accusations that they ripped off their recipes.
The accusations arose after advertisements touted a “sweet and tangy South Carolina sauce” that some viewers believed may bear a vague resemblance to mustard-based barbecue sauces used in some regions of the state. Fox News reports:
Though the eatery had been open for several
monthsdecades, the owners ofKooksMcDonald’s were only recently accused of cultural appropriation . . .“Because of
Portland’sthe UK’s underlying racism, the people who rightly own these traditions and cultures that exist are already treated poorly,” The Portland Mercury said, calling the closure ofKooksMcDonald’s a “victory.”
In explaining the seriousness of the situation, columnist Jagger Blaec speaks for the people of South Carolina in writing:
Week after week people of
color in PortlandSouth Carolina bear witness to the hijacking of their cultures, and an identifiable pattern of appropriation has been created. Several of the most successful businesses in this town have been birthed as a result of curiouswhiteYankee people going to a foreign country, or an international venture, and poaching as many trade secrets, customs, recipes as possible . . . to claim it as their own and score a tidy profit. Now don’t get me wrong: cultural customs are meant to be shared. However, that’s not what happens . . .Because of
Portland’sthe UK’s underlying racism, the people who rightly own these traditions and cultures that exist are already treated poorly. These appropriating businesses are erasing and exploiting their already marginalized identities for the purpose of profit and praise.People of
colorthe South are nothing more than an afterthought when thewhiteYankee perpetrators of this tradition continue to do this on a regular basis. WhilePortlandEverywhere But the South is supposedly a progressive place, super liberalwhiteYankee people usually only have other superwhiteYankee liberal people to answer to—which means this cycle of cultural appropriation will never end until people ofcolorthe South call attention to it.
The shutting down of the restaurateur was effected without consultation with or compensation for the indigenous people of South Carolina, who would have insisted on a settlement of free Extra Value Meals, but declined out of concern that Dolly Parton, Texas, and some sorry football team with light blue jerseys might try to get in on it.
A campaign to educate corporate citizens about the indigenous sauce traditions of the Southern peoples of the United States is underway:
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