John T. Edge Under Fire At Southern Foodways Alliance

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Unless you are a bot or paid shill trying to get people to subscribe to that website.

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Looks like he is being persecuted for being white

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Shocking.

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They say he is a kingmaker. They say he is a white man — however charming — who has too much power over who tells the story of food in a region where so much of the cuisine was created by enslaved people.

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So forget what all he's done for southern cooking and the people involved with it. Since he's white and promoting what is now "black food", I guess he'll have to step away. It's absolute INSANITY.


ETA: My favorite WTF is this shite quote from the entire article.

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“What we have is a middle-aged man who like so many progressive Southerners has wrestled with the demons of his white Southern past and used that to help build a better South,” said Marcie Cohen Ferris, 63, a former board president and a professor emeritus of American studies at the University of North Carolina. “The reconciliation stance is no longer going to work in this nation. It’s about economics and justice. This is it. This is the moment.”

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Reparations. Bottom line.

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To be fair I know little about SFA. Are people upset that he purposefully neglects certain cultural or ethnic food? If so, do you care to express what he's turning a blind eye or actively neglecting?

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For years, Mr. Edge has been listening, and remained in his position at the top.

“I will listen hard and with as much intensity as I can,” he said recently. “Out of a moment of stern and righteous critique comes a better organization. The work we’ve done over the last 20 years is work that is true to our mission, work that despite flaws that I may see and others may see is intended to make progress and make positive change in a region I have always loved and sometimes hate.”

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This seems to have more to do with the fact that he's white and promoting black, southern food. He's culturally appropriated it and used it to better himself. Time for him to absolve himself of his sins and turn this shite over to a black woman.

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This seems to have more to do with the fact that he's white and promoting black, southern food. He's culturally appropriated it and used it to better himself. Time for him to absolve himself of his sins and turn this shite over to a black woman.

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No, you’re projecting a particular personal POV onto a complex issue. It is not as simple as black and white, pun intended. Another strand of the larger story is about organizations becoming too strongly identified with a single personality, or dominated by a certain person’s preferences and leanings. Nonprofit boards and founders deal with succession planning all the time—he’s hung on, and on, despite years of discussion and talking around the topic. I can only speculate as to why—perhaps the prestige of title at a job that doesn’t cut into his freelance writing is a sweet thing and he doesn’t want to give it up? Nonprofits are not like private businesses....the enterprise shouldn’t collapse without you, and the mission should come before the ego.

The SFA has done some interesting documentary and oral history work, but not nearly as much as you’d expect after 20 years. Over the years, more than a few board members have tried to move it in different directions....yet it remains the have-a-good-time at annual gatherings kind of thing, with a pretty narrow base of support. Toni Tipton Martin, Ronni Lundy, and a whole bunch of very solid food scholars and writers have called for him to move on....not just in this “culture moment”, but for a while now.

Life lesson: don’t get too comfortable, listen to your critics, and don’t overstay in a job. He could have been director emeritus five years ago with no adverse impact to reputation....instead, he’s looking at all this. Life lesson 2: if your org’s membership and staff don’t reflect the people you purport to be celebrating and including, you might need to do some work. If a LA foodways group had zero ethnic or cultural cajuns, I’d level the same criticism.

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Ronni Lundy

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Called on him to move on because he didn’t focus on women enough.

I appreciate what you are saying, but no where in that article did I read any of what you are insinuating. Organizations need to change at points and leadership certainly needs refreshing, but NONE of that is in the article posted.

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Seems to me that if they don't like him in his role, they could start their own organization, rather than trying to change his.

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That’s not conducive to grifting.

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That’s not conducive to grifting.

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Look, I wielded a pry bar and swung a hammer for more than a few hours rebuilding Willie Mae’s Scotch House with the SFA after Katrina. To accuse all of his critics of being grifters is 100% inaccurate. I know many of the players personally.

As much as I wanted to love the show "True South", Edge makes me cringe. His Faulkner wanna be style of narrating drives me up a wall....that being said I always thought he did an awesome job of painting a really complete ethnic picture of the South. I really don't understand this