The folks at Psycho Donuts in downtown Campbell have pretty good imaginations—their signature comestible is a donut topped with pretzels, chocolate, marshmallow and chili powder (tastes better than it sounds). But there’s no way they could have dreamed this up.
Some self-appointed mental-health advocates have launched a campaign against the shop, claiming that it’s insensitive to the mentally ill. The donut shop does, in fact, make light of the whole idea of insanity. Its donuts have names like “Cereal Killer” (Froot Loops) and Split Personality (you guessed it); the shop has a padded-cell booth; and the waitresses wear sexy-nurse outfits. “Psycho Donuts has taken the neighborhood donut and put it on medication, and given it shock treatment,” reads the mission statement.
All of this is apparently driving some people crazy. (Oops.) “Imagine if a new restaurant was proposed in Campbell called the ‘Coon Café,’ and it featured cartoon Black people eating watermelon and tap dancing to banjo music,” reads one letter. Other folks are demanding that owners Jordan Zweigoron and Kipp Berdianski take sensitivity training classes. They respond on the company blog: “If our donuts are crazy, does that make us insensitive to the mental health community? Is El Pollo Loco insensitive to Crazy Chickens? Is it insensitive to call a donut bipolar?” The blog also points out that Psycho Donuts donates to NARSAD, a charity committed to mental health research.
Never heard of the place, but since the PC crowd has placed it on the radar, I’ll be sure to locate it and patronize it whenever possible.
This is even worse than the Santa Cruz county govt. folks who forced a health club to hire a morbidly obese woman some years back.
I like donuts and these donuts sound like delicious. I think I’m gonna make my way there today to get me a taste. As far as the names being insensitive, really? It’s a donut. Come on. I don’t think it minds the name calling. And anyway, it’s not about what’s on the outside, but what’s in the inside. A donuts a donut no matter what you dress it up with.
I’m not sure if this article has anything to do with San Jose… But if the donut shop owners are contemplating opening a second location in downtown SJ, then I hope they’re aware that a goodly number of their potential customers pounding the pavement here at any given time of the day have got some considerable mental-health issues of their own and will probably be more than capable of giving the donuts a run for their money in the “psycho” department. Actually, it could be a pretty good fit now that I think of it. Maybe they should petition RDA for a grant.
It’s not “PC” to seek different and better ways to label people and things. Questioning names and labels is actually a very healthy thing to do in a community that is committed, as ours is, to a slur-free society.
We saw the Mercury News give space on its editorial page recently to a writer who argued against use of the term “retard” as a general purpose put-down, except when it was diverse young white kids being insulted. The writer deliberately insisted that only “minority” (a term now usually rejected) kids deserved freedom from being slammed by “retard.” That writer pretended to be sensitive, but betrayed her true objective by creating two categories of kids, one category deserving protection and the other category deserving slurs. So there are a lot of people who are mixed up about this effort to create a slur-free society.
Generally it’s all a matter of naming, labeling, defining, and describing entire demographics by a member of another demographic. Very simple rule of thumb, can’t go wrong if followed.
The matter of pastries described above is a little different. The store owners are not referring to people as psycho or crazy, so it’s not a matter of a slur. It fits more into the category called “hate caricatures” which are simply pictures drawn with words that mock, stereotype, misrepresent, and demean those pictured.
It does do what all slurs do, and that is that it discloses the state of mind of the perpetrators which is shallow, rude, misinformed, and careless.
We had something like this a few years ago when a sandwich shop in San Francisco made, advertised, and sold “WOP Wraps.” The Italian-American community was quite angry and picketed the establishment.
While it is not exactly the same issue, European Americans are slurred with food names more than any other demographic—cracker, white bread, vanilla, and Wonder Bread are just four examples.
A wise person supports a slur-free society, and refrains from language that tends to demean, denigrate, or negatively stereotype other groups or demographics.
Using “paddy” is not a cost-free slur. You can read the “Peter Campbell & Ernesto Guzman Story” that explains the “paddy” controversy here:
http://missioncitylantern.blogspot.com/2009/04/peter-campbell-story.html
I appreciate the plug, Dale, and you are right, but let’s have some fun.
Hmm, the Armando Gomez donut,
large, plain cake donut, with gobs of mayo (Armando seems to love to do things with it that we should not wonder about) on top.
Victor Ajlouny pretzel donut, burnt BBQ sauce and black licorice bits on the side to show off the Ajlouny greasy eyebrows.
Peter Campbell butterscotch donut, with a topping of Irish Creme!!
Brian Darby donut, big, fat, glazed donut with the same glaze Brian uses when he oils his hair and talks before groups about how the Confederacy shall rise again.