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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 m

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 attended to in some food but not in others because of some degree of that bias * as this reached critical mass in western culture the idea became common wisdom even among those with no particular bias and exported anywhere that western culture has reach People sometimes refer to this kind of construction as "systemic" racism. The majority of people subscribing to the myth might be entirely innocent of any kind of identifiable racial stereotyping or discrimination and yet inputs from people who are might be enough to tip the system that way. Maybe there's other equally credible explanations, but this one is hardly incredible.

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sellyme 6y ago
> Maybe there's other equally credible explanations While I have very little doubt that xenophobia was a large factor in the hysteria over MSG in the United States, there's definitely no need for a "Maybe" here. Just look at the "pink goop" claims about McNuggets that range from two decades out of date to completely falsified - people are willing to believe all kinds of nonsense that fits their preconceived notions.
- KMag 6y ago
  See also the number of people who believe they have a gluten sensitivity or peanut allergy, or who are worried about the pH of their food, etc., etc. A large segment of the US population has been conditioned to be paranoid about food. A rise in self-diagnosis combined with the placebo effect when testing a self-diagnosis certainly hasn't helped matters.
eli 6y ago
You don’t have to knowingly possess a racist motive to be racist.
- Frost1x 6y ago
  I think you do, otherwise this opens the door to anyone and everyone being a "racist" by some secondary, tertiary, or nth order effect. Essentially everyone would have some degree associated with them of how racist they are. I propose the following question: are people who eat at Chik-fil-A anti-LGBT (specifically gay) rights because they financially support a business through continued purchases that support anti-LGBTQ activities? Probably not (some are, a lot of people... just like their chicken sandwiches). I'm LGBTQ and I occasionally eat one of their chicken sandwiches. Customers may be indirectly supporting systemic opposition of LGBTQ rights, but I think most average people aren't looking at these n-th degree removed effects, nor could anyone be asked to all the time (I think consumers are being a bit too negligent on this front but that's another story). From a few studies I've read, it's actually harmful to give small sums of money to homeless panhandlers because it perpetuates their situation where higher volumes of money and support services are needed to actually help them. Does that mean people who donate money to homeless people are trying to keep them homeless or cause harm, if that's exactly what handing a panhandler a $20 bill does? Probably not. We don't have words for these types of biases (systemic or not), but if we did, I don't think it's reasonable to claim anyone who has any n-th order contribution that sways a bias one way or another happens to be anti-whatever to the degree racists are against the basically fictional concept of "race." Every action you take likely helps someone and hurts someone else and the same could be said about inaction. Motive and intent are quite important IMHO. Both are incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to prove undeniably but the advantage of many racists is that they're actually proud to be racist and tell you their intent.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    > > You don’t have to knowingly possess a racist motive to be racist. > I think you do, otherwise this opens the door to anyone and everyone being a "racist" by some secondary, tertiary, or nth order effect. Surely there's something in-between. Say, perhaps, black people make you uncomfortable, such that you're inclined against hiring them and you preferentially hire whites instead. Then, you wouldn't knowingly possess a racist motive but would be definitely acting racist and perpetuating racism. Everyone has, from their own point of view, good motives and intentions.
Frost1x 6y ago
I think we need to create new language for dealing with these sorts of cases to differentiate what's being said. When you make a claim that a statement someone makes displays racism, that usually implies indirectly that the speaker is actively/knowingly/intentionally being racist. Being a racist voluntarily implies a lot of negative baggage. It often implies not only ignorance but more consequently, unjustified: bigotry, hatred, willingness to commit violent acts against another on this bias, and so forth. When you promote an idea that happens to prop up or create institutional racism, the vast majority share only one feature: ignorance. We're all ignorant of somethings to different degrees so I wouldn't put a scarlet letter like "racist" on someone due to ignorance. Unfortunately, this also sets the stage for sociopaths to push academic dishonesty, to essentially truly be racist in the traditional sense and promote/support features of institutional racism while feigning ignorance, so you'll get some false negatives, but I think it seems reasonable. I'm not exactly sure what the term, phrase, or linguistics should be but I think something new and distinct from "racist" and "racism" needs to be developed, otherwise the terms become wild cards for any and every type of bias that may arise, even if the bias has no real intent of being racist, directly or indirectly. The more you throw "racism" and "racist" around outside the well established context, the less power it carries in language. Right now it carries a lot of weight still and I don't want to see that language lose its power.
reitzensteinm 6y ago
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.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > 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 https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353.
  - aksss 6y ago
    Thurston County in WA, which is the seat of the state capital, has decided Asian people are not “people of color” anymore because they’re doing too well. https://reason.com/2020/11/16/equity-report-north-thurston-asian-students-of-color/ https://reason.com/2020/11/16/equity-report-north-thurston-a...
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sellyme 6y ago

> Maybe there's other equally credible explanations While I have very little doubt that xenophobia was a large factor in the hysteria over MSG in the United States, there's definitely no need for a "Maybe" here. Just look at the "pink goop" claims about McNuggets that range from two decades out of date to completely falsified - people are willing to believe all kinds of nonsense that fits their preconceived notions.

KMag 6y ago
See also the number of people who believe they have a gluten sensitivity or peanut allergy, or who are worried about the pH of their food, etc., etc. A large segment of the US population has been conditioned to be paranoid about food. A rise in self-diagnosis combined with the placebo effect when testing a self-diagnosis certainly hasn't helped matters.

eli 6y ago

You don’t have to knowingly possess a racist motive to be racist.

Frost1x 6y ago
I think you do, otherwise this opens the door to anyone and everyone being a "racist" by some secondary, tertiary, or nth order effect. Essentially everyone would have some degree associated with them of how racist they are. I propose the following question: are people who eat at Chik-fil-A anti-LGBT (specifically gay) rights because they financially support a business through continued purchases that support anti-LGBTQ activities? Probably not (some are, a lot of people... just like their chicken sandwiches). I'm LGBTQ and I occasionally eat one of their chicken sandwiches. Customers may be indirectly supporting systemic opposition of LGBTQ rights, but I think most average people aren't looking at these n-th degree removed effects, nor could anyone be asked to all the time (I think consumers are being a bit too negligent on this front but that's another story). From a few studies I've read, it's actually harmful to give small sums of money to homeless panhandlers because it perpetuates their situation where higher volumes of money and support services are needed to actually help them. Does that mean people who donate money to homeless people are trying to keep them homeless or cause harm, if that's exactly what handing a panhandler a $20 bill does? Probably not. We don't have words for these types of biases (systemic or not), but if we did, I don't think it's reasonable to claim anyone who has any n-th order contribution that sways a bias one way or another happens to be anti-whatever to the degree racists are against the basically fictional concept of "race." Every action you take likely helps someone and hurts someone else and the same could be said about inaction. Motive and intent are quite important IMHO. Both are incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to prove undeniably but the advantage of many racists is that they're actually proud to be racist and tell you their intent.
- mlyle 6y ago
  > > You don’t have to knowingly possess a racist motive to be racist. > I think you do, otherwise this opens the door to anyone and everyone being a "racist" by some secondary, tertiary, or nth order effect. Surely there's something in-between. Say, perhaps, black people make you uncomfortable, such that you're inclined against hiring them and you preferentially hire whites instead. Then, you wouldn't knowingly possess a racist motive but would be definitely acting racist and perpetuating racism. Everyone has, from their own point of view, good motives and intentions.

Frost1x 6y ago

I think we need to create new language for dealing with these sorts of cases to differentiate what's being said. When you make a claim that a statement someone makes displays racism, that usually implies indirectly that the speaker is actively/knowingly/intentionally being racist. Being a racist voluntarily implies a lot of negative baggage. It often implies not only ignorance but more consequently, unjustified: bigotry, hatred, willingness to commit violent acts against another on this bias, and so forth. When you promote an idea that happens to prop up or create institutional racism, the vast majority share only one feature: ignorance. We're all ignorant of somethings to different degrees so I wouldn't put a scarlet letter like "racist" on someone due to ignorance. Unfortunately, this also sets the stage for sociopaths to push academic dishonesty, to essentially truly be racist in the traditional sense and promote/support features of institutional racism while feigning ignorance, so you'll get some false negatives, but I think it seems reasonable. I'm not exactly sure what the term, phrase, or linguistics should be but I think something new and distinct from "racist" and "racism" needs to be developed, otherwise the terms become wild cards for any and every type of bias that may arise, even if the bias has no real intent of being racist, directly or indirectly. The more you throw "racism" and "racist" around outside the well established context, the less power it carries in language. Right now it carries a lot of weight still and I don't want to see that language lose its power.

reitzensteinm 6y ago

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.

rayiner 6y ago
> 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 https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353.
- aksss 6y ago
  Thurston County in WA, which is the seat of the state capital, has decided Asian people are not “people of color” anymore because they’re doing too well. https://reason.com/2020/11/16/equity-report-north-thurston-asian-students-of-color/ https://reason.com/2020/11/16/equity-report-north-thurston-a...

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