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The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

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Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#191

Post by rrauenza »

tptacek wrote: post #153
Droobfest wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think it's wrong to dismiss people's experiences out of hand and lump it all onto the racism pile. So it's likely not the MSG, but maybe the chinese restaurants these people go to have a reputation for not being the freshest? This can raise histamine levels in the food and cause the same symptoms as an allergic reaction (which it basically is). Whatever it is, there is no reason to assume the food intolerance…

On the one hand, you think it's wrong to suggest there's racism involved in MSG's reputation tying back to "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome", and on the other hand, you offer an axiomatic derivation of Chinese restaurants being unhealthy ("histamines") because of their "reputation for not being the freshest".

To be fair, the poster said "the Chinese restaurants they go to..." Not necessarily all.

But it's a weak argument...

I wonder how much is from blood sugar spikes from white rice and everyone's favorite Americanized sugar glazed Chinese dishes combined with the MSG nocebo effect.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#192

Post by rayiner »

wpietri wrote: post #150
yongjik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish people stopped invoking racism everywhere, when plain "being misinformed" explains things just fine. Millions of Koreans swear up and down that MSG is bad for health. Are we also being racist? (Against whom?)

I used to think the same way. But now that I see how pervasive a force racism has been in America's history, I have a different view. Now I think it's worth asking both questions: Is racism really at play? And given America's lasting, endemic racism, is there reason to think something makes it absent in a given case? A couple of the books that turned me around here: Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning", a history of…

I’m really not sure there is a sound conclusion to be drawn from comparing the Tulsa Massacre to people being skeptical of food from a different culture. The former is something that’s a unique and very ugly aspect of American history. The latter is pretty much universal.[1] You can squint and lump both things under the umbrella of “racism” but they’re so different as to be two completely different kind of things. And I don’t think it’s particularly useful to analyze both through the same lens.

Note that when Kendi talks about “racism” he’s talking about anti-Black racism specifically. I think folks try to generalize his ideas in a way that goes beyond what he actually purports to address.

[1] My Bangladeshi mom had a tinge of skepticism upon first learning my girlfriend (now wife) was from Oregon, “because they eat snakes.”

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#193

Post by reitzensteinm »

wwweston wrote: post #116
yongjik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish people stopped invoking racism everywhere, when plain "being misinformed" explains things just fine. Millions of Koreans swear up and down that MSG is bad for health. Are we also being racist? (Against whom?)

Does anyone who swears that MSG is bad for health do so because they personally hold anti-chinese racist views? Probably not. Is it possible that: * the MSG mythology in some Western nation was proposed by those with some degree of bias against foreign things or chinese cuisine or people specifically * it caught on and was repeated by people who were enthusiastic about it because of some degree of that bias * MSG was…

It totally is systemic racism.

But I wish there was another word for it, or that racism were not used interchangeably with systemic racism.

There's a hell of a difference between "you're racist" and "you're spreading misinformation that only exists because your grandparents were racist".

The latter will get a reaction from the vast majority of people like "oh shit, I had no idea, that's awful". The former will cause anger, frustration, defensiveness and denial.

If the idea is to get everyone on board with the idea that the deck is still stacked against minorities even in the absence of conscious contemporary racism (which I believe to be true), telling people they're racist is probably the worst way to go about that.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#194

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

This whole MSG thing has irked me for decades, and despite many articles dispelling the myth it still persists.

But why are Americans suprised? Anti-vax. Anti-5G. Anti-round Earth. Anti-2020-Election. MSG is the least of your worries.

N.B.: I recommend Knorr's Caldo de Tomate. It's an MSG-based seasoning that will up your Spanish Rice game by 3-5x.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#195

Post by darkerside »

yongjik wrote: post #26
louisvgchi wrote: post #10

Dave Chang has a small scene in one of his Ugly Delicious (great show, by the way) episodes where he gets a group of non-Asian Americans, who claim to be MSG-allergic, to come and share their stories of MSG-related symptoms after eating at Chinese restaurants. He then hands out Doritos and American products that the participants claim they love and can eat all day. Hard to see where this is going... he says, all thes…

I wish people stopped invoking racism everywhere, when plain "being misinformed" explains things just fine. Millions of Koreans swear up and down that MSG is bad for health. Are we also being racist? (Against whom?)

Bro don't pretend Koreans never act racist towards Chinese!

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#196

Post by rrauenza »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #36
louisvgchi wrote: post #10

Dave Chang has a small scene in one of his Ugly Delicious (great show, by the way) episodes where he gets a group of non-Asian Americans, who claim to be MSG-allergic, to come and share their stories of MSG-related symptoms after eating at Chinese restaurants. He then hands out Doritos and American products that the participants claim they love and can eat all day. Hard to see where this is going... he says, all thes…

Yep! I remember being taught it was something "shifty" Chinese people do to their food to make it taste better as a sort of dishonest competitive trick, at the cost of the health of their customers. I was told so many ethnic groups were "shifty" like this compared to the "moral" white majority. I think growing up in the USA means being exposed to a lot of different kinds of racisms and "otherings." Its incredible how…

I hesitate to add this because it's anecdotal, but I have had more than one person tell me of restaurants that say no MSG on the front window, but when passing behind the restaurant, noting empty cartons of MSG.

The prejudice comes in when people then assume all Chinese restaurants are therefore dishonest, discounting that restaurants everywhere are capable of being a bit dishonest ... Kangaroo meat in burgers, selling pork as veal... Frozen food sold as fresh. Just watch a Gordon Ramsey show.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#197

Post by Frondo »

rayiner wrote: post #192
wpietri wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think the same way. But now that I see how pervasive a force racism has been in America's history, I have a different view. Now I think it's worth asking both questions: Is racism really at play? And given America's lasting, endemic racism, is there reason to think something makes it absent in a given case? A couple of the books that turned me around here: Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning", a history of…

I’m really not sure there is a sound conclusion to be drawn from comparing the Tulsa Massacre to people being skeptical of food from a different culture. The former is something that’s a unique and very ugly aspect of American history. The latter is pretty much universal.[1] You can squint and lump both things under the umbrella of “racism” but they’re so different as to be two completely different kind of things. An…

Before you edited your comment, you said something about Americans being very willing to embrace foods from cultures around the world. For some reason, that remark reminded me of one of the talking points of the 2016 election, the specter of "taco trucks on every corner," and how the Republican campaign that year suggested that that'd be a bad thing.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#198

Post by dsohn0 »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #184
wpietri wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think the same way. But now that I see how pervasive a force racism has been in America's history, I have a different view. Now I think it's worth asking both questions: Is racism really at play? And given America's lasting, endemic racism, is there reason to think something makes it absent in a given case? A couple of the books that turned me around here: Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning", a history of…

I think you've hit on the true issue. The majority of people have only leared on a superficial level of of the intertwined racism of America's past - often times mostly the light touches they learned in elementary school. And what's taught in elementary school is intentionally simplified to something deemed appropriate for children. Some summary of slavery is bad, MLK, Rosa Parks, sit-ins... Most people don't actuall…

Black people want their victimhood to last 1000 years. Let's not pretend American racism is somehow exceptional. Africans have been committing ethnic cleansing as a continental pastime for centuries and no one cries a river about that.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#199

Post by rayiner »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #193
wwweston wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone who swears that MSG is bad for health do so because they personally hold anti-chinese racist views? Probably not. Is it possible that: * the MSG mythology in some Western nation was proposed by those with some degree of bias against foreign things or chinese cuisine or people specifically * it caught on and was repeated by people who were enthusiastic about it because of some degree of that bias * MSG was…

It totally is systemic racism. But I wish there was another word for it, or that racism were not used interchangeably with systemic racism. There's a hell of a difference between "you're racist" and "you're spreading misinformation that only exists because your grandparents were racist". The latter will get a reaction from the vast majority of people like "oh shit, I had no idea, that's awful". The former will cause…

> If the idea is to get everyone on board with the idea that the deck is still stacked against minorities even in the absence of conscious contemporary racism (which I believe to be true)

Chinese Americans have higher incomes than white people on average. In terms of income mobility: Vietnamese Americans who came here in the 1970s as refugees went from being among the poorest groups in the country, to parity with white Americans today. Asian Americans are richer, have higher income mobility, and live longer than white Americans. Once you adjust for age and citizenship status, they’re also pretty close to evenly represented among billionaires and Fortune 500 board members.

That is not to say they don’t face unpleasant racism, xenophobia, and stereotypes. But saying “the deck is stacked against them” is a much stronger statement. It implies a structural racism that impairs prosperity. While some minority groups do face such structural racism, specifically, Black and indigenous people, others do not: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#200

Post by scruple »

eplanit wrote: post #128
baby wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m half Chinese and my whole family think MSG is bad lol.

My wife and her family immigrated to the US from China -- they all believe that MSG is bad, too.

Same here. Wife is first generation Chinese-American. All of the immigrant generation thinks MSG is bad. The family still in Hong Kong and Guangdong have said it, too. My mother-in-law believes MSG prevents her from getting to sleep easily at night. She can "always tell" when some restaurant uses MSG because of it. Lots of stories like that to be heard among this part of our family...
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