Sigh…
Everything isn’t about racism but in this specific case what he said had racial implications because he is a white person that is cooking a minority culture’s cuisine and that minority group has faced a history of discrimination and repression in the past. Context matters.
That is your opinion and you’re totally entitled to that, but just because you don’t think it’s true doesn’t mean others shouldn’t think its true. And especially if you’re not a minority in this country (I’m not saying I know if you are or not) I really don’t think it’s appropriate for the white majority to tell minorities what is racist or not. It’s like white people deciding how and when black people can and can’t use the n-word.
When an egomaniac says something that is [insert additionally poor adjective] that person is both an egomaniac and [insert additionally poor adjective] it’s not a mutually exclusive proposition.
To my knowledge prior to his post no one has been fixated that he is a white guy cooking japanese food, especially not in a negative manner. From all the posts prior he has been massively embraced by the LA community (including LA Japanese American community) at large. But when a white guy calls out the culture that he is supposedly representing/promoting and when that culture has faced a history of repression and discrimination within the country and locale again that context matters.
Great no one is denying his credentials! He’s earned the right to be considered knowledgeable about the cuisine but that doesn’t meen that it’s ok for him to go about denigrating and talking down to the japanese culture and people and then deleting AAPI posts when he supposedly is an ally of asian americans. And that is what we are all calling him out for, not because he hasn’t studied japanese food or that he isn’t entitled to provide an opinion, or solely based on the fact that he is white. He gave his opinion and that along with his continued behavior revealed how much of an ass he is.
All those contexts are different, it depends on the race relations in that culture and what has occurred historically in that society. I would be happy to dissect each one for you, but to quote @JLee