Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Three Carnegie Mellon University officials have come out in support of the Conflict Kitchen, the Oakland restaurant at the center of a controversy over its focus on Palestinian fare.
The eatery, which aims to promote understanding by serving food from parts of the world in conflict with the United States, had been closed since Saturday because of death threats. It plans to reopen today at 11 a.m.
2 comments:
I think Carnegie Mellon did the best they could in this situation. They must be careful with how they align themselves due to donors and funding but they were well spoken on the issue when they stated that "Art is not about presenting a balanced view of ideas, but about offering a creative perspective". CMU was smart to get ahead of the issue before it could have blown up in their face. I remember hearing in the news that University of Pittsburgh had been staying mum on the issue and they were receiving negative criticism for this. Conflict Kitchen is such an interesting, wonderful art project and for it to be closed permanently would have been a shame so I'm glad things played out as they did.
It's seriously silly that people were sending death threats over food. It's food - you get it, you eat it, it's good. I understand that this situation has to do with the wrapper and the working of the information about Israel and Palestine, and ultimately about a long standing war in itself, but it's still food. If you don't like it, you could go to Chipotle, get a burrito without an opinion, and move on with your day. This is the nature of many art based projects though. People do similar things over drawings, paintings and books. It seems to be part of the human condition that there are some people who have to protest what they do not agree with rather than respecting its place in the world. These people don't even realize that this is making them part of the conflict instead of part of the solution.
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