Controversy Over Chocolate Cupcakes Leaves Behind Racially Tinged Taste
The dark chocolate and ganache cupcakes sold by a bakery along the French Riviera may taste sweet, but an ongoing controversy over the treats is exposing the sour history of race relations in the Gallic nation.
Late last month a judge ruled that the “God and Goddess” desserts, which have been sold for the past 15 years by La Belle Epoque, a boulangerie in the town of Grasse, were so racially offensive that the business would have to stop displaying them. But on Thursday, the Council of State overturned the ruling, reported Le Figaro.
As you can see in the photo above, the cupcakes are made to resemble a rotund man and woman, complete with protuding pink lips and genitalia. The bakery’s owner, Yannick Tavolaro, said the desserts are cartoons and that he has to use dark chocolate to model them. However, to some passersby they might resemble members of a blackface-wearing minstrel show or caricatures of people of African descent in France’s colonial age.
After a resident of the town complained in early March about the desserts, a local antiracism organization got the mayor involved and went to court to get them banned. The court ruled that the cupcakes showed “two people of colour in grotesque and obscene attitudes” and said that they offend “human dignity, especially that of the African people or people of African descent.”
The ruling allowed the bakery to keep making the cakes; they just couldn’t be displayed. That way folks who wanted to enjoy the cupcakes could still buy them, but offended residents and tourists—Grasse, about a half hour inland from Cannes, is considered the perfume capital of the world—wouldn’t have to see them.
According to the judge for the Council of State, although the cakes seem to recall racially motivated colonial stereotypes and are “likely to cause offense,” prohibiting their display would violate the individual freedom of the owner of the bakery. As for Tavolaro, he has filed suit against the antiracism group for defamation.
The situation indicates that not all of France’s racial problems are behind it. In February, the Council of Europe’s human relations commissioner issued a 52-page report detailing that race relations in the nation are getting worse. In particular, the report noted a growing intolerance of and discrimination against Jews, people of Arab descent, and recent African immigrants.
Although the cupcakes in Grasse have been around for a while, the growing racial and ethnic diversity in the area may be spurring greater awareness of the derogatory nature of the dessert. Meanwhile, the cakes are back on display, a not-so-sweet result for those who were offended.
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Original article from TakePart
