Taste Is Not a Crime: On Culture and the Demand to Celebrate Everything
The backlash to Sabrina Carpenter’s instinctive reaction after hearing an unfamiliar Middle Eastern zaghrouta reveals a deeper confusion between respect, preference, and approval in modern discourse.
Responding to:
Sabrina Carpenter Apologizes for Mocking Arabic Call at Coachella by Derrick Bryson Taylor
Published in The New York Times on April 12, 2026
The core disagreement:
We are told that cultural respect requires embracing all its expressions; in reality, tolerating difference has never meant approving of it.
WHAT THEY GOT RIGHT
On the opening night of Coachella 2026, as singer Sabrina Carpenter sat down at her piano, a sound rang out from the crowd: an ululation (the high-pitched celebratory trill found across the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, known in Arabic as a zaghrouta.) Unfamiliar with the sound and unable to see the person making it, Carpenter asked the crowd if someone was yodeling. When a fan called out that it was part of her culture, Carpenter said she didn’t like it. The exchange went viral. Within hours, social media had rendered its verdict calling her “so insensitive and islamophobic.” The following day, Carpenter apologised on X, writing that her reaction was “pure confusion, sarcasm and not ill intended.”
The idea that public figures should carry themselves with care is not new and long predates the age of social media outrage. History offers examples of cultural practices suppressed in ways that caused harm (Irish music and language banned under colonial rule, Indian classical dance criminalised by British administrators, African drumming outlawed under slavery). But these were not hurt feelings; they were institutional attacks on living traditions. What we witnessed in Carpenter’s case is something else entirely: a culture in which an unguarded reaction to something unfamiliar became a moral transgression and grounds for condemnation.
WHERE THEY GO WRONG
The central error lies in equating an instinctive reaction with a moral failing. A moment of surprise is not the same as contempt or discrimination. By immediately framing such reactions as “racist,” critics collapse the distinction between discomfort and prejudice. This is a mistake that inflates minor human responses into ethical violations. It also discourages honest cultural encounters, replacing them with anxiety and self-censorship.
More broadly, this argument rests on an unworkable premise: that all cultural expressions must be equally affirmed. This flattens meaningful differences and turns culture into something performative rather than real. If individuals are not allowed to register genuine reactions (positive or negative), then any engagement becomes artificial. In the long run, this undermines the very diversity such critics claim to defend.
And this is not a defense of dignity; it is a misunderstanding of what dignity requires, since dignity belongs to persons, not to practices.
THE REAL STORY
Every human being commands respect by virtue of their humanity, but cultural expressions, however cherished, are not people. They can be evaluated, questioned, or simply disliked without any affront to the humanity of those who cherish them. To insist otherwise doesn’t protect people, but rather places their traditions above honest engagement, which is its own form of condescension.
What this moment actually exposes is a cultural overcorrection. In an effort to avoid insensitivity, society has begun to demand not just respect, but emotional conformity.
WHY THIS MATTERS
If every imperfect reaction becomes a moral failing, the result will not be greater understanding, but greater fear. Genuine encounters will be replaced with careful performance: everyone saying the right thing, but no one meaning it. When the cost of getting it wrong is social cancellation, the safer choice is simply not to engage.
A healthy society depends on the ability to distinguish between genuine injustice and simple unfamiliarity. Lose that distinction, and we lose the honest dialogue in which real understanding across cultures, tastes, and experiences actually becomes possible.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Respect for people is non-negotiable. But the expectation that we must approve of every cultural expression is neither realistic nor coherent. A mature society makes room for both dignity and difference.
 | A guest post by
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I agree. For example in a public park is it ok for people to play music either from a “boombox” or with instruments so loudly that the whole park can hear. I go to the local parks to enjoy the relative quiet. Don’t mind at all the sounds of people talking, playing, enjoying a sport. That’s expected. Not every one likes your choice of music. Play it softly or wear headphones.
The question that springs to mind is why is a Muslim (clearly proud of their traditions) at a concert where a woman is, according to their traditions, effectively performing naked?