Posted on 07/16/2007 6:50:19 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
...Nevertheless, China has been portrayed as a nation blind to hygiene and blissfully unconcerned about recent reports of food contamination. That's troubling, because it reinforces the notion that befouled food is the consequence of a foul culture. Chef and gustatory adventurer Anthony Bourdain may have said it best in a 2006 Salon interview in which he noted that there's "something kind of racist" about culinary xenophobia: "Fear of dirt is often indistinguishable from the fear of unnamed dirty people."
And this, in turn, spells danger. What one might call "food libel" has long been an aspect of a larger fear of China. The association of Chinese with dubious edibles has insinuated itself into our cultural consciousness in small and seemingly trivial ways -- in schoolyard taunting, in sitcom gags about takeout food, in standup monologues about puppy chow mein.
But when the stakes are raised, as they have been by recent scandals, such jokes turn deadly serious. The fringes of the pundit set have already been intimating that these tainted-food incidents are deliberate. In May, the conservative news organ WorldNetDaily.com asked, "Is China Trying to Poison Americans and Their Pets?" The nativist drumbeat has only pounded louder ever since, suggesting that China has been waging a secret biowarfare campaign to destroy the United States from deep, deep within -- planting WMDs in the Wal-Mart cart, if you will.
More troubling still, yellow-peril imagery has been oozing from the extreme margins into the mainstream. Recently, the Utah-based health food company Food for Health International even became the first to take this "China equals menace" meme to market, instituting a new label and ad campaign promoting its products as "China-Free." There's talk about calling the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing the B.Y.O. Olympics...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Just another example of the left siding with that which is evil, wrong, and failed,
because of their fear of (rightfully) discriminating against dangerous behavior.
Judging by this stupid article, I'd say the Washington Post seems to be full of it.
As usual!
Geezus, Yang, project much?
Good old left wing. These are the people who rail against big business, then turn around and defend big contamination from China. HA!
Bourdain really needs to stick to area of expertise, which is *not* social science. By his standard, the Chinese are the biggest racists in the world. The average Chinese thinks non-Chinese food is slop.
“Anthony Bourdian is a prize jackass” Amen. He is a pompass ass. I hope he gets a bad 1000 Year Old Egg and chokes on it.
MMMM... racism. Tastes like ... melamine.
Well, hey, if a “gustatory adventurer” thinks it’s so, then I’m convinced it’s true.
Okay, okay. So you CAN drink the water in Mexico. Knock yourself out.
This article reads like a ChiCom “plant”.
That’s what I thought. I was wondering why this “Chinese American” is siding with the communist Chinese in their efforts to poison us. Seems to me like he identifies with the China part of his heritage rather than the American part.
When facts fail you -- assert racism. Anything that Anthony Bourdain says is suspect in the first place, he is an open borders whining liberal.
Wrong.
Fear of dirt is often indistinguishable from the fear of disease and tainted food.
Idiot.
Should have been a barf alert self ping.
Racism against Chinese? Rubbish. Except for the hard core commies they’re good people. And it’s a shame that Truman literally gave China to Mao (can we impeach a dead POTUS?)
As if MSG wasn’t already bad enough.
Frankly as I see it, it is not a racism issue per say but a protectionist issue. All of the recent media “pushes” have been designed to form public opinion in support of protectionist policies. In spite of FR’s dislike for the “mainstream media”, people are still inexplicably rely on it wholesale and are extremely malleable to media manipulation. As Kennedy said the enemy of truth is not lie, but myth, and in this case omission. In light of the surging trade deficit with China, certain members of Congress are looking for public support to put in place laws limiting Chinese imports, what better way than to stoke public furor regarding the safety of Chinese products.
Despite the fact that imports from India and Mexico are even more unsafe, China continues to hog the media spotlight. Part of the answer for this is because of the “yellow peril” phenomenon, but mostly its because of incompetent journalists’ mentality of monkey see, monkey do.
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