So so sad . Fucking idiots .
From the horseâs mouth:
âŚthe sickening, maddening realities of never-ending racism are sharing â stunningly â equal billing with the theft of an IMac Pro and a case of barolo.
Easy to say when you own your home, have a nice pension, and your businesses are well insured. Lots of other owners of looted and vandalized businesses are in dire straits.
I do not find anything in the piece offensive.
The sentiment is so generous, considering what their restaurant and lives have been through.
The phrases called out, âscattered like roachesâ and âbats,â are not used in a derogatory manner at all.
Comparing looters to roaches? What did roaches do to deserve such an insult?
Agreed. Nothing was offensive. The woke left is dissecting every word that anyone of any influence says to find fault and turn everything into racism. I hope she doesnât apologize for her words.
A lot of Asian Americans are very offended with the flip remarks regarding corona virus.
The demonstrations are profound â and we praise them â but it is the upheaval in Los Angeles and across the country that has really kicked the media into high gear and, remarkably, relegated COVID-19 to the inside pages. (You remember the pandemic, right? That Wuhan, China, bat thing? We quarantined and wore face masks?)
Very offended? Seriously?
From the article:
âYep, I remember. I remember how flip, inaccurate descriptions of covid-19 led to an increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans. Disappointed in this piece by Nancy Silvertonâ tejal rao nyt writer
Frank shyong, lucas Peterson and Andrea Chang all spoke out against it.
So yeah I would say very offended.
There is nothing inaccurate about mentioning the Wuhan, China bar thing. I say this as an Asian American myself.
Bat thing, not bar thing.
Well, that one bar-hopping guy in Hong Kong infected 73 people.
First of all, Mozza is firmly a positive force in these protests and in their support of workers during the pandemic. The entire op-ed is explicitly supportive of the protests and Mozzaâs actions to assist workers (even as Nancy Silverton contracted Covid herself) speak for themselves.
However, also as a mixed asian American I have to say that words do matter.
It is accurate to say that in some cultures some people in that culture eat dog meat. However, calling anyone of that culture a âdog eaterâ is obviously not about accuracy, itâs for degradation. Especially someone in the food industry should remember the xenophobic rumors that went around about the pandemic starting with people eating bat soup and the like and explicitly avoid anything that could be used in that narrative. Polemics have hovered around conflating China and the virus as a scapegoat since day one so to give any ammunition to that claim and in a dismissive âhey Iâm just kidding aroundâ tone isnât great. The rest of that jokey aside (âYou remember the pandemic, right? âŚWe quarantined and wore face masks?â) is not bereft of the meaning without the reference to China and bats.
the looters shouted and scatted like roaches
If there was any intended animosity it was obviously towards the looters and the idea of looting at this time but dehumanizing people by likening them to animals or insects is a fundamental tool in racist and genocidal language. Immigrants have often been likened to cockroaches because of abhorrent stereotypes about cockroaches being numerous, invasive, etc. The word âcockroachâ was explicitly used in the Rwandan genocide to dehumanize Tutsis.
Especially in a time trying to bring awareness to police brutality and systemic racism word choice is important to not give malicious voices the chance to reinforce their own narratives or twist meaning. As pointed out elsewhere, we have to be careful not to conflate protestors with looters and further conflate looters with minorities. People are always looking for chances to devalue or delegitimize meaningful protests and we need to guard against this possibility at all times.
Again, Mozza very clearly means well and is a force for good. This op-ed is a part of that. However, part of meaning well and doing good is knowing the language you use can have history and impact you were not aware of. LA Times also should have been aware of that and edited appropriately. I think we can appreciate the work and ethos Mozza has put out there as well as the LA Times food writers for standing up to their own publication in pointing out problematic language in this difficult time.
Conflating China and the virus as a scapegoat? LA Times should have edited appropriately? You and I clearly live on different planets. Which is fine.
Genuinely, thank you for saying that
Fair point that I should clarify China obviously handled the outbreak poorly to say the least (like really, you can spend thousands of words on that and people have). What Iâm objecting to is the conflation of China with the virus then turning into racism against people of Chinese and other asian descent regardless of where the virus originated.
Where the hell did you come up with that? Not here, not in the Silverton-Krikorian piece.
Thereâs a fair chance that if Wuhan had no market for bats, SARS-CoV-2 would not have evolved. (Epidemiologists have been warning for years that the human-wildlife interface would lead to new diseases.) And if the local Wuhan officials had reported the new disease as they were supposed to rather than covering it up, COVID-19 might have been controlled like SARS (774 deaths worldwide).
Itâs awful that amoral politicians and ignorant nitwits turn these relevant facts into racist nonsense, but thatâs no excuse for censorship.
Right⌠Which is why I think people calling it âthe China virusâ is clearly racist.
But thatâs not what the authors did in this case, IMHO.
Pretty sure that Silverton, as a Jewish woman of a certain age who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, is well aware of how immigrant populations can be denigrated.
Then I feel the blame lies w/ the LA Times, not Nancy or Michael.
Given the commander in chief and his follower seem not be at all rooted in anything resembling reality, I think anything that is said that disagrees w/ their world view is going to be twisted and re-purposed for their own vile purposes, no matter how beautifully itâs considered or written.
I think your views and aims are commendable. I do think you are preaching to the choir. And the people outside the choir, unfortunately, do not care and will not continue to care.
All JMO.
I mean, I feel that the energy spent by the Asian/Asian American writers criticizing Nancy and Michael for their article mightâve been better spent questioning why so few people are mentioning that the Asian population in LA County appears to highest fatality rate from COVID-19âŚ
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavirus/locations.htm
I came up with that participating in a writing group where someone created an irreverent Archie Bunker type character that called an asian character in Koreatown a dog eater.
We had a really nice discussion about it (all of us, not just me weighing in) and the consensus resulted in my input above.
Yeah, Iâm not disputing the possibility of where the virus comes from or that it was handled extraordinarily badly. Totally agree on those points.
Agreed on this point.
We should always be wary of censorship and encroachment on free speech. However, we also watch ourselves for what we say constantly out of consideration for others and how it might affect them. For example, it is our right to use explicitly racial epithets but we refrain from doing so out of consideration, not practicality.
I am NOT saying that the op-ed reference to China and bats was racist, but rather that they should have thought about how that might affect others and whether or not it was worth that joke.