Sure, let's pretend that the use of the n-word and a pun on the word "wok" are anywhere near the same thing.
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A White Restaurateur Advertised ‘Clean’ Chinese Food. Chinese-Americans Had Something to Say About It.
- Thread starter Richiek
- Start date
Sure, let's pretend that the use of the n-word and a pun on the word "wok" are anywhere near the same thing.
So as a privileged white guy, you think that you should get to determine what's racist or not? Or how much we should call it out? That sounds pretty white supremacist you ask me, which is directly related to how you originally characterized "wok" being an "English" word.
And why should I care for your opinion when your opinion is to minimize racism?
Quapa that's probably white-passing telling me I shouldn't be offended because their grandfather is from Toi-San...lolz
My whole fucking family is from Toi-San! Does that mean my word as a full-blooded Toi-San jai means more than 4x as yours or are you pulling your authority from the other 3 quarters?
Because a wok is used....
If it was a lumber shop or tool/speciality axe shop I could see someone putting up a sign that says "Axe me a question", but not too relevant at a Soul Food restaurant.
Based on the fact that the menu also includes Mi-So Lucky Soup, do you think it's fair to characterize their overall use of puns as harmless nothing?
I mean, as long as miso is used...
How about "Wait just a cod n' picking moment" at a fish place then? That's okay? A fish is used.
This sounds more like you don't understand why black people say it to begin with and therefore have no reference as to why Asians can do it, which if you did, my post would make perfect sense instead of you coming back with whatever you call what you posted.
Yes, I think I can use facts, logic, and my subjective feelings to determine whether or not something is racist or done with racist intent. As a white person, I can do that. And it's racist of anyone to tell me I can't because of my "race." I may be an American white guy with all of the systemic privileges afforded me from the historical and current racist policies here. I'm also probably blind to a lot of it because of how it does or does not affect me. I've also experienced racism directed toward me in South America and Asia while living in those places. I know what it feels like, it sucks. It's unjust. It's wrong. And here, I'm not trying to minimize it.
It's not white supremacist of me to point out that you seem to know nothing about linguistics and how languages have been formed and evolved over time. Are you fucking serious with that? This is the issue I've got here. You're throwing around terms like this to describe somebody like me who's just pointing out you don't know shit about languages apparently. That's white supremacist of me? Wok is an English word. We use it in English. If it means the exact same thing in the source language, cool. I'm not speaking French if I order a croissant. Have you really thought this through?
Well your pun is masking an offensive phrase. I am sure we can all come up with increasingly extreme and offensives examples of where a pun wouldn't be appropriate. I think the focus on the puns obfuscates the bigger issue and allows people who passively read/glance at it to handwave it away as classic internet outrage.
Still ignoring the glaring problem about the racist comments from the owner which prompted this thread but go on and try to derail the thread. I'm sure you have no agendas or anything.
As an Asian-American that's never been to South America, I can confidently make the assertion that you didn't experience racsim in South America or Asia and that the locals would agree with me. Yeah, that sounds about right.
Sounds like transliteration is a foreign concept to you. Your framing of borrowed words in language is completely white-centric. You're not speaking German by calling a hot dog a weiner, but that doesn't make weiner an English word either. If you're going to argue semantics and pedantry, I would expect a little more nuance than ordering a croissant isn't speaking French...cause that'd be dumb.
God, you're sooooo close...but oh right, outrage culture.
Then it would behoove you to learn more on the subject of reclaiming slurs instead of making false equivalencies that don't apply.
For a dude who seems desperate to leverage argumentum ab auctoritate to claim racist intent, you sure are spouting a bunch of offensive and reductionist shit yourself.
I don't even inherently disagree that the 'wok' puns can be racist in context. I still do a bit of a double-take when I see names like 'Wok Star', 'School of Wok', 'Wok Box' or what have you.
Don't leave me hanging, bro. Tell me why it's offensive and reductionist.
edit: And just because my argumentation style is "appeal to authority," it doesn't mean I'm wrong or that it's a fallacy. I'm not going to attach a cv or my bona fide to every post I make nor should I need to. I don't have to have gone to Harvard or studied critical race theory to be an authority on this subject, but it sure as hell helps. And no, I didn't go to Harvard nor did I study critical race theory in any formal sense. But I did study Asian American history and worked/volunteered at Asian American non-profits to do grassroots organizing.
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Then what's your fucking definition of racism? Is being prejudged for how you look or talk or your background something white people can't experience at all? You realize how absurd that is when everywhere in the world has shitty people and shitty people act racist and bigoted, even to white people? Or to get some more street cred here do I need to tell you about how I was picked on as being a fat kid? Having a lazy eye? Being an oppressed religious minority? Do you think I need some exact 1:1 experience with you as different kind of minority to understand why being bullied and having people treat me like shit because of stuff I can't control is a bad thing and I feel empathy for you? You're confident I didn't experience racism though. Ok cool I guess, as a white person, you got me all figured out already and my opinion is uninformed shit. And that's not racism to you.
This rule applies to all languages. There are Japanese words that have English roots, that doesn't mean they're not Japanese words. Is Kanji not Japanese because it came from Chinese? Calling this white-centric is just more ignorance of this concept. Try to boil a language down to only the words that are totally unique to it or haven't been borrowed from elsewhere. You can't, because that's not how languages became a thing. If a word is used and understood as part of a language, it's a part of that language regardless of where it came or evolved from.
It's not pedantry or semantics when the topic of debate here is whether or not a pun/play on words is inherently racist. Because the words being used are English words, and the pun works because of the American English pronunciation of them, my argument was it wasn't inherently racist or making fun of an accent. As others have pointed out, and I have agreed, given all the other shit in this story, it's still probably insensitive or another reason to be offended. That's valid. But your accusations of white supremacy because I have a little bit of a background in linguistics and complete dismissal of me experiencing racism in other countries is bafflingly stupid.
First off, you're using your identity as a white male, in a society that privileges white males, with literally no experience with dealing with racism against Asians, to define what racism is to Asians. The fact that you couldn't put two and two together and see that I was marginalizing your experiences in the same way you're doing to me clearly how little empathy and understanding you have on the subjects of discrimination, prejudice, and racism as a demonstration...and I listed those separately for a reason.
Being a fat kid with a lazy eye and religious are things you can change given the will, time, and resources. No amount of money will make you Chinese nor me, white. Dealing with prejudice for being a fat kid with a lazy isn't necessarily a life sentence and doesn't have to be a factor in your outcome, but being Asian in a white supremacist society is something I and my descendants will have to deal with for their entire lives. And yes, your opinion on racism is woefully uninformed..
And when did "wok" enter the modern lexicon? Did you learn about colonialism and how that shapes our education too?
Yet you still twist yourself into a pretzel to avoid calling what the owners are doing, racist. And at the same time, you're reiterating that you've experienced racism. Don't blame me because your shit is suspect.
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The concept here, and I acknowledged that these things are not the same, is that I have some experience with prejudice because of my looks. I have some experience trying to speak a second language in another country and being laughed at for how poorly I did. I have some experience having someone pull a knife on me because I'm from America. I have some concept of being a child feeling like society would never accept me because of these others things and just wanting to die and get it over with. I have a concept of feeling like a worthless piece of shit nobody will ever love because of it.
My point isn't that these things are the same as the racism experienced by someone in America who looks a certain way. My point is that they don't have to be exactly the same to have empathy and imagine what it might be like to walk in someone else's shoes.
You're right, it's not the same. I finally got in shape, I left the religion, and figured out how to strengthen my eye muscles to align them better. But I haven't forgotten what it felt like to be a bullied, scared child who didn't see any kind of future or possible way out. Maybe you as a grown ass person know that these things could change over time. That child did not. Maybe not being white would've made my situation worse, but when it comes to having empathy for our fellow humans, it really shouldn't be a dick measuring contest in order to dismiss other people's experiences based on what level of bullshit we've had to deal with. I'm just saying, I get being prejudiced against. And I think the way you're dismissing it all because I happen to be white is racist nonsense itself. I don't think racism is the answer to racism.
I don't know why you think this is relevant from a linguistic point of view. This seems like a dodge of what is actually being discussed to talk about something else. White people have been shit, and colonialism is bad. You're not going to get an argument from me about that. That doesn't change the fact languages are amorphous evolving things that get words from everywhere, and that is completely independent of being white centric or supremacist as in the examples I provided.
What the owners are doing is racist. I'll say that 100%. I thought I've been clear about singling out the one issue I found about that pun and then acknowledged by singling it when there's the greater context was probably not the best thing. I still think if the wok pun happened in a void, my thought process isn't wrong on it. But I'm willing to hear other people's opinions on why it's offensive and move on that. On the other hand, you seem to be making the case that there's no way a white person can struggle or be oppressed in a way that can inform an opinion on racism, because it's not the same as being a different race. And that's bullshit my dude.
All this is cute and all until you ask yourself why Japanese internment is so hard to remember. Or why the Korean war is so bare in history books.
This lady is so high off the smell of her own shit I think it'll be a while before she comes back down to earth! That "free" menu she's cooking up is a big no-go-zone for me because it always tastes like shit so I'll stick with the "unclean" shit thanks cuz it tastes fucking amazing (I just bought Chinese for lunch after reading this lol).
We live in a white supremacist hegemony and to act like that doesn't effect every single aspect of our lives is naive. I'm dismissive because you don't know as much as you think you do about racism. In fact, you've just been whitesplaining away. If you're down, you're down and don't make excuses. You don't get twisted when someone tells you that you don't know as much as you think and frankly, you've got some self-reflection to do with your continued attempt at reframing the issues by removing context as if we like in a contextless world.
Would you call a black slave from the 1800`s racist if they hated all whites? Is that the equivalent to the racism of whites against black people?
And fuck Gordon Ramsay
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Wow what a shitshow. Ramsay looks like a huge piece of shit here.
Eh, it sounds like he was more set off by the personal attacks on his chef's wife.
"Ramsay said Hui was being "personal and hugely disrespectful" when she referred to Orpwood's wife as a"token Asian wife."
The critic in question sounds like a swell person.
Just read that and was like ok she's right and then got to that part and said yeah fuck her. Calling someone's wife a "token Asian wife" is not ok at all.
From the comments in the article...apparently Orpwood's wife was in a promo for the restaurant as a measure of authenticity. If that's true, she may not be a token Asian wife but she's certainly being advertised as a token Asian.
The only thing in Hui's actual article regarding the wife was the chef saying the inspiration for the last course came from her. The insult comes from her Instagram story.
OP
OP
Eater has an article on the uproar on Asian restaurants names Lucky:
https://www.eater.com/2019/4/16/18311375/lucky-lees-cricket-cat-chinese-restaurant-controversy
https://www.eater.com/2019/4/16/18311375/lucky-lees-cricket-cat-chinese-restaurant-controversy
Never. The day that happens I'll know the game has been won by gentrification.
You're gone but I'll give you and everyone else a guess as to why most don't give a fuck.
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Why not just advertise that she makes Chinese food, and leave it at that? Too simple? Not denigrating enough to her competition?
60% of restaurants close in the 1st year. 80% by their fifth year. It's a really hard market to get into.
They were doomed the second they got bad press.
Honestly even without the bad press, generic asian fusion is a pretty tough market to break. I don't think pushing it being "healthier" was really the winning strategy they thought it was going to be.
The Wok thing she might have been able to get away with if it wasn't wrapped in all that other ignorant shit. Plenty of chinese takeaways run by actual chinese people use similar puns.
Yep. I remember reading how the rise of Yelp and other online reviews has made the market even harder to be successful in. Before. even if your restaurant was bad you had some time to fix the menu/service or whatever and get customers back with word of mouth.
But now with Yelp, a new restaurant has to be great from day 1, because those first few bad reviews aren't going anywhere and will be all that people see when deciding to eat at your restaurant or not.
