Precisely. This is not the racism you are looking for.

“And the fact that so many Asian Americans are reacting negatively proves the lack of foresight and the amount of white cultural insulation that surrounds The New Yorker”. TNY is indeed a den of privilege, but this guy is not the racist you are looking for.

Trillin’s been writing about China and provincial Chinese food for a long time. He got that memo a while ago. But don’t let me interrupt your mob justice.

Yes, yes and yes. Or it could have been about ‘world’ cinema, or drugs, or travel, fad diets, exercise brands etc etc etc. Chinese provincial cuisine is an excellent example though because there are so many provinces and so much variation, therefore so much anxiety for the eagerly trendy White Person.

Yes, that is in the subtext of the poem.

This is okay satire, but not universally understood. Which is hardly surprising, because not everything is for everyone. I don’t get all the jokes on the original Are You The One. And I have to google hip hop lyrics all the time. I try not to assume that because something offends me, that it is trying to. On the other…

But it’s not really about Chinese culture or this province or that. It’s about how White People view themselves as cultured or not depending on whether they are eating, for example, the ‘right food.’ It’s about middle class anxiety about being hip. You could just as easily write the same poem about watching the right…

I don’t see any intended ironic racism here. This only okay poem is very simple to explain. White People are worried about not eating the right fashionable food at the right time. This pertains to provincial Chinese cuisines but also food trends in general. White People worry that other White People will think they…

I’m with you all the way. This poem mocks White People who are worried that they aren’t eating food from the trendiest province. For many people, cuisine choice is driven by fads, and people are anxious to be on the right fad. It’s simple.
It’s like the guy said, once upon a time, us ignorant westerners just knew of…