The Eternal Dumb Whines Of The Offended Mind

I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have become surprisingly controversial lately.

In 2012, Verenice Gutierrez, principal of the Harvey Scott school in Portland, suggested that talking about them was racially insensitive. “What about Somali or Hispanic students, who might not eat sandwiches?” she asked. 

In 2018, Lexi Ebensberger made the internet lose its mind by asking whether the peanut butter and jelly should be applied to separate slices or layered on the same slice (if you think it’s the latter, you’re wrong). 

And in this now-legendary tweet from 2021, @monkeys4anarchy reminds us that only an insensitive monster would invite people to reminisce about eating PB&Js as a kid. After all, “people have peanut allergies and gluten intolerances and you're out here acting like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a universal experience.”

If PB&Js can teach us anything, it’s that there’s no such thing as a wholesome or inoffensive cultural touchstone. There’s no such thing as a reasonable assumption or a benign topic of conversation. The only way to talk about anything is to remember that somebody, somewhere, will find a way to be offended by it.

And if they are, they'll find a way to blame you.

Of course, as good, socially responsible citizens, you know it’s not just PB&Js that are “problematic.” We’ve entered an age where it’s dangerous to speak freely on almost any topic. 

Hairstyles, novelty pronouns, publishing deals, the word "field," all of these are now potential minefields. Previously uncontroversial ideas about the mental energy you're required to spend on strangers are now bordering on hate crimes.

And God, it’s so exhausting. 

Not because cultural sensitivity is a bad thing, not because it's too difficult to care about people, but because caring about people is not the same as pandering to their worst, most self-obsessed instincts. It's not the same as feeding their most reality-denying impulses. It's not the same as ignoring their entitled, self-centred behaviour.

Caring about people means admitting there's a point where they need to take personal responsibility for their emotional health. There's a point where the demands you're making of total strangers become unreasonable. There's a point, and for most people, it hits before they're even teenagers, when you learn that the world doesn't revolve around you and your neuroses.