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 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Under a policy proposal by the Evanston, IL superintendent, white and Asian students would be held behind doing remote learning while other students were prioritized for return to in-class education. When people opposed the policy, they were called racists. The condemnation was worse for Asians who objected to their kids being given a worse educational experience on account of their race—they were called, in essence, traitors to non-white solidarity.
Critical theory has some really f—ked up premises about Asians. The classical liberal, even left-liberal view, doesn’t require an explanation for Asian economic success. Asians don’t face the legacy of say Jim Crow, and the American system is otherwise basically fair, so Asians have been able to prosper even if roadblocks have hampered other groups.
Under critical theory, however, the country and its institutions are considered systematically racist and white supremacist. That creates a dilemma with respect to Asians. How can they have prospered in a system of white supremacy? The solution is to suppose that whites “allowed Asians to succeed” to “serve as a wedge with other non-whites.” Asians are thus stripped of agency—their success isn’t their own, but instead the byproduct of a ploy by whites.
Therefore, when an Asian complains when his child must continue distance learning while other students return to in-person education, they’re not merely being self-centered. They’re not merely failing to acknowledge that other kids suffer from disadvantages that their own children don’t. That would be the typical liberal view. In the critical theory view, they are collaborators. They owe their status due to white supremacy and they’re complicit in white supremacy unless they act in solidarity with other non-whites. Even if that means suffering disadvantageous treatment in schools, etc.
> The classical liberal, even left-liberal view, doesn’t require an explanation for Asian economic success. Asians don’t face the legacy of say Jim Crow, and the American system is otherwise basically fair, so Asians have been able to prosper even if roadblocks have hampered other groups.
I guess, but this viewpoint fails pretty badly at explaining why Asians prosper so much more than whites do.
> Asians are thus stripped of agency—their success isn’t their own, but instead the byproduct of a ploy by whites.
To be fair, critical theory says exactly the same thing about blacks -- their lack of success isn't their own, it's the product of a ploy by whites. I don't see why we'd expect a different analysis for Asians.
Sure, it's an uncomfortable thing to say, but I hope we're not dismissing hypotheses because of how they make us feel.
More to the point - I agree with the comment above about how the term "racist" (and "white supremacist") makes people have fairly strong emotional reactions, and we'd probably have better discussions if we somehow avoided those words. But I hope we can move past them and analyze what this theory is saying to see if it's true. As a wise man once said: "If a statement is false, that's the worst thing you can say about it. You don't need to say that it's heretical. And if it isn't false, it shouldn't be suppressed."
So let me make an analogy. You and I both pay taxes to the US government (or so I assume), which on occasion does some pretty unethical things (cf. "We tortured some folks.") We also both benefit from living in a country that's so powerful that it can get away with unethical things; such a country also gives us all the opportunities in the world. We could object and refuse to be "collaborators," in one of several ways, whether by just arranging our work situation so we don't pay, or moving to another country, or whatever. But we don't - so we are choosing to be collaborators!
But no one really faults us for not doing so - while we all understand that if it weren't for the collective tax payments of all US taxpayers, the US military couldn't commit any war crimes, we are happy to say that the individual culpability of any tax payer is negligible.
And nobody really says that we're stripped of agency and our success isn't our own simply because we chose to e successful professionals in the US, even though if you dropped us into the median country, we'd certainly be less successful.
On the other hand, that doesn't mean that we don't care about not doing war crimes, or about the good of other countries! We, collectively, the taxpayers / voters, ought to hold our country and especially its military to a high moral standard, and ought to admit wrongdoing (and make restitution, where possible). If we fail to do that, it's a shame on our country. And we the taxpayers / voters need to ensure that the US is not what it is at the expense of other countries, and even above that, there is bipartisan support for foreign aid.
If we're comfortable with all of the above, and we don't think that anyone is making "f--ked up" claims about individual American taxpayers when they accuse the country of having committed war crimes or anyone is impugning the agency of individual American professionals when we call America the land of opportunity, I don't think we should shy away from analyses of the "model minority" that would say that collectively, across society, improvements could be made.
(And, as a child of Indian immigrants to a deeply segregated town in the South, I have seen first-hand that the rational thing for non-white non-black immigrants who care about their success and their children's success is to assimilate into the dominant culture. They have the choice, and it's an easy choice to make. The term "complicit in white supremacy" also provokes an emotional response, but it would be pretty hard to argue that such rational-acting parents who love their children are not, at least a little bit, comfortable with using the reality of race in America to improve their own standing by placing themselves in proximity to whiteness!)
It could impair prosperity for Asians. Comparing raw average income alone isn't sufficient to settle the question. Consider the counterfactual possibility that Asians might be even more prosperous with even higher income if not for structural racism. I fact, it seems that Asians do make as much as 8% less than others in comparable jobs [0] though that difference may disappear somewhat for Asians born in the US, indicating a more complex dynamic than discrimination on appearance alone.
> Asians still make 8% less than whites in comparable jobs except for Asians who have been in the United States for one and a half generations, whom have reached full parity in income.
This sounds like the difference is due to things like immigration status and citizenship, not race. Most Asians are immigrants, and many aren’t citizens. That limits opportunities quite a bit even within the realm of “comparable” jobs.
Yes, that is possible. One way that might help determine things would be to look at the income of first-generation immigrants from European countries to see if there is a similar dynamic (but not English-speaking countries, to keep that variable constant). It bring my example only to show that merely point to income isn't sufficient to show the existence of structural racism, that it's more complex than that. (and harder to measure)
Economic prosperity isn't the only metric that matters. Racism isn't just about money - the deck can also be stacked in social, cultural, and political ways.
It's called being biased, misinformed, or at worst stereotyping, and it used to be accepted that everyone does it and it's not the end of the world that your aunt from Wisconson thinks MSG gives her hives.
Nowadays that aunt is racist, her whole family is racist, and it's the reason why everyone else can't get ahead in life.
> it used to be accepted that everyone does it and it's not the end of the world that your aunt from Wisconson thinks MSG gives her hives
I think you're taking the accusation of racism as much stronger than it actually is. No one has claimed that this is uncommon, or "the end of the world", or "her whole family is racist", or "it's the reason everyone else can't get ahead in life". They've simply said it's racist, and that claim seems uncontroversial given the definitions.
For example, if it turned out someone gave 1 cents more on average to white vs non-white beggars (due to unconscious racial biases), that would clearly be racist, but it also wouldn't be the end of the world, and I don't think person would be a particularly bad person.
If something fits the definition of racism, it doesn't become not racism just because someone feels attacked by calling it racism.
Now, in common parlance, racism is a loaded word, so I don't think it's advisable to call someone racist over these issues, and I wouldn't do so. But that doesn't mean we should censor ourselves when discussing these topics in the abstract. Otherwise, we're basically practicing political correctness.
Totally agree. The problem is that the word "racism" has meant a lot of things over the decades continues to be used to describe many gradations of behavior and outlook. It's used to describe brutally beating a black man to death in the street, it's meant denying housing opportunity, and it also describes moving to the other side of the sidewalk when a black man is on your side, or picking a white candidate over a black candidate in a job interview.
The spectrum that the word "racist" covers is simply too large.
That's why I've pointed out that it used to just be called "stereotyping" but there's been a concerted effort on the part of those pushing identity politics, to make this about power. It's to the point where they've redefined "racism" to mean "at a minimum, stereotyping another person from a position of power or authority".
The implications of that new definition are that many people who were previously guilty of stereotyping, are now racist. In fact, basically any white person who stereotypes, because they generally have privileges' and power in society, are now "racist".
I don't agree with the redefinition, and I think it's an example of a pendulum that has swung too far.
I might agree that the pendulum has swung too far, but we also now have a better understanding of how bias and stereotyping can nonetheless be damaging. though yes, racism is much too loaded of a term to be thrown around the way it currently is. If you admit to no gradations, well that's when you get cancel culture, when a joke in poor taste that might reveal some bias can result in the same consequences as blatant hate speech.
Totally. Some might even say it was a necessary evil, that the pendulum swung far, for progress to be made.
I'm glad that society as a whole recognizes systemic "racism" and how unfair the world is for many. I'd love nothing more than for us as a world community to move toward a reality that is a true meritocracy and equal opportunity isn't just a buzz word. Who can honestly say they enjoy unfair advantage? No one.
That said, not everything is a product of your race/gender. We have a long way to go and I hope we don't eat each other before we get there. The cancel culture and reverse racism that I'm seeing is an unfortunate side effect of "progress".
Maybe. But I have observed that so many cameras in people's pockets the past decade have shown us no evidence of UFOs nor of Bigfoot — but holy hell Black men do get killed when arrested disproportionately in the U.S..
> but holy hell Black men do get killed when arrested disproportionately in the U.S..
This is selection bias. The ratio of police shootings to arrests is not higher for black people. Police shootings of black persons are national news, police shootings of white persons are not.
> This paper explores racial differences in police use of force. On non-lethal uses of force, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police. Adding controls that account for important context and civilian behavior reduces, but cannot fully explain, these disparities. On the most extreme use of force –officer-involved shootings – we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account.
The systemic racism happens one step removed from that. Police are far more likely to engage into interactions with Black men, as a result of more aggressively policing Black neighborhoods, bias in engaging with someone in different circumstances, etc.
> But I wish there was another word for it, or that racism were not used interchangeably with systemic racism.
Especially where in this case it's much more like systemic culturalism.
Suppose the same thing had happened, but rather than the initial dispute being between the vendors of British food and the vendors of Chinese food, it was between the vendors of British food and the vendors of Italian food. So you would have a lot of people believing that they're allergic to the gluten in pasta, when almost none of them really are, and also ignoring that plenty of British food contains gluten as well.
It would be pretty hard to argue that as racism unless you're using a definition of racism not characteristically used in America, but you can still imagine the same thing happening in the same way. So what does that tell you?
But I wish there was another word for it,
or that racism were not used interchangeably
with systemic racism.
I understand both sides of the argument.
Many people learned an overly simplistic definition of "racism" at some point. Essentially, "overt racism" or "active racism" -- using slurs, joining the KKK, refusing to hire people of a certain race, etc.
Anything less overt than this is not "racism" to them. Having generally steered clear of such actions in their lives, they are dismayed to consider the possibility that there are a lot of other institutions and individual actions that are racist.
We could invent a new term for "systemic racism." But, ultimately, it's still racism. To the people experiencing it, it has the same net result as other forms of racism. If a white person in a predominantly white society doesn't hire you because you're non-white, there's no material difference to you whether that person did it for overt, conscious reasons or otherwise. That is why is it is useful to think of systemic racism as racism, rather than inventing a new word for it.
Here's an interesting thought experiment. Think of the people in your life who are vehemently opposed to the use of the term "racism" to include systemic racism. Suppose we actually did invent a new term for systemic racism so that they could feel more comfortable. How do we think these people would respond?
I think a significant number of them would complain about the new term just as much. I can hear them now in my mind. "First we have to worry about being 'racist', now we have to worry about $SOME_NEW_TERM!?!? What will 'they' think of next?!?"
Because it's not really about words for them. It's about a refusal to examine their own actions.
The distinction isn’t between overt and passive. The traditional definition of “racism” still includes “implicit bias.”
The recent distinction is between “prejudice” and “effect on racial equity.” Ibram Kendi distills the view quite clearly. He explains that the lower tax rate for capital gains is “racist.” He doesn’t say it’s motivated by racial prejudice (either overt or implicit), or deny that it’s nearly universal in the developed world, including in non-white countries. What he means is that the tax preference has the effect of delivering more benefits to white people because white people are more likely to own capital assets.
In the traditional view, by contrast, racism is a mental state—it’s an attitude that’s held by people, whether consciously or unconsciously.
The recent approach has been to reuse “racism” to refer to systems that create or perpetuate racial disparities whether or not they’re motivated by what’s now called prejudice.
An example of this usage is saying that “standardized testing is racist.” To people familiar with the traditional definition, this implies that test makers have racial prejudice and, consciously or unconsciously, designed tests to hinder minorities. Under the new definition, this just means that the practice of using standardized tests perpetuates racial disparities because it hurts students that have suffered disadvantages.
Of course we had words for this before. I studied what would now be called “environmental racism” in law school. We would say “minority communities suffer disproportionately negative effects from the siting of coal plants.” We don’t need to come up with a new term for this, as you speculate. That’s a concept I could easily explain to my Trump-voting in laws and they’d get it. But when you call that “racism” that implies (not only to my in laws, but to my Biden voting non-white dad) that people involved in the siting decisions were motivated by racial prejudice. They’d say, “no, they’re just putting the coal plant where the land is cheapest.” Under the traditional view, a decision like that based on purely objective, relevant, non-race factors can’t be “racist” because that concept refers to a state of mind (whether overt or implicit).
Now, there is a logic to academics and activists using the term “racism” for that. As you observe, the effect on the groups themselves is similar. Most important, by framing “racism” in terms of effects rather than mental state, it forces a consideration of racial equity impacts on otherwise race-neutral policies.
That is one of the best and most succinct descriptions I've read. Bravo.
I mean that sincerely. I'm afraid it may read as sarcasm, but it is not.
Of course we had words for this before. I studied
what would now be called “environmental racism”
in law school. We would say “minority communities
suffer disproportionately negative effects from
the siting of coal plants.”
“Minority communities suffer disproportionately negative effects from the siting of coal plants” is a nice description of that specific thing. What about more general construction and zoning choices that aren't about coal plants? What about systemic practices in general that have disproportionately negative effects on minorities? I don't feel we had an overarching term for those phenomena, besides "rascism." Language, but not a term.
The recent approach has been to reuse “racism” to refer to
systems that create or perpetuate racial disparities whether
or not they’re motivated by what’s now called prejudice.
The approach has changed, but how much?
Whether the year is 1860 or 1960 or 2020, surely even the most fundamental understanding of racism has always required an understanding of both intent and effect.
When I was in school in the 1990s, we learned about the many "kindly" slaveowners who viewed themselves as benevolent caretakers of their slaves, whom they viewed as simple savages that would not prosper on their own. We learned how race-based humor could have innocent intent but negative consequences. And so on. The frequent dissonance between intent and effect was in my opinion vastly underemphasized, but this was not a new line of thought even 30 years ago.
[The coal plant thing] is a concept I could easily explain
to my Trump-voting in laws and they’d get it. But when you
call that “racism” that implies (not only to my in laws, but
to my Biden voting non-white dad) that people involved in the
siting decisions were motivated by racial prejudice. They’d
say, “no, they’re just putting the coal plant where the land
is cheapest.”
The practical argument for calling this something other than "racism" is, essentially, that we need to make things more palatable for folks in order to help them understand the effects of their actions.
I would certainly agree that labeling such acts as racism precludes many people from understanding these concepts. We have been taught that racism is one of the greatest of transgressions and nobody wants to think of themselves as racist. I don't even think many members of white nationalist groups even consider themselves "racist."
When I tell people “you’re on fire” They do just fine differentiating when I’m complementing their golf game and when I’m literally telling them they are aflame.
On the surface your suggestion of a different word seems reasonable but it’s not.
People are perfectly capable of choosing to seek understanding of nuanced use of words and phrases. The fact that they disengage rather than doing so is not the responsibility of the speaker.
MSG aversion is relatively new. People’s attitudes about it change over the scale of decades. This is pretty consistent with most other food additives, like aspartame, certain preservatives and certain food colorings. While I agree there exists racism against Asian Americans in many places, it would behoove people who feel passionate about the elimination of prejudice around the world to fight for things not because of how they interface with ignorant people (ie because all ignorant people seem to like good Chinese food, like all other human beings) but because the goal is worthy. And personally, “greater acceptance of MSG as a food additive in Chinese food as opposed to Doritos” is better achieved by better marketing, clearly.
Yes, there’s a strong, recurring aversion to food additives that doesn’t require racism as an explanation. I think the MSG/Chinese connection was because the restaurants would add it to their dishes, which was at the time kind a unique thing - even though many processed foods contain MSG, having it added to your prepared food would be as strange as them adding Yellow #5 to your dish, and the reaction no different. There’s a quality of integrity to prepared dishes that most all but the modernist restaurants trade upon. Chemical additives, in the days Red Dye #2 scares and the rest hardly need a racist explanation to understand the aversion.
Not being a “conscious racist” doesn’t make you any less racist. Racism isn’t about intentions, it’s about consequences. It’s a convenient slight of to pretend otherwise.
Appropriating words to steal the emotional strength of them for your own, novel concept is silly. Not everyone will buy the new definition, and you'll end up with two groups yelling at each other, about different things, with no common understanding.
If you cannot read "racism isn't about intentions" and not laugh, you are doing yourself a disservice.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> > 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.
> 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.
That seems pretty clearly to be a racist motive. "Black people make you uncomfortable" is literally traditional racism, and action taken based on that motive is racist. Doing something like that without thinking through your intentions too hard doesn't make the act unintentional, because the intent is there whether you consciously evaluate it or not, and it doesn't change the motive. That person wants to be racist, and then directly is.
Someone who buys a chicken sandwich only because they want a chicken sandwich has no such motive or intent.
> "Black people make you uncomfortable" is literally traditional racism, and action taken based on that motive is racist.
Good, you caught what I was saying.
> Doing something like that without thinking through your intentions too hard doesn't make the act unintentional, because the intent is there whether you consciously evaluate it or not, and it doesn't change the motive.
This seems to require a tortured interpretation of "intentional". Especially as it can be subtle and difficult to tease out the reasons we do things and make snap judgments. When your mind tells you "he just didn't seem like 'an engineer'" or "I don't think he was a culture-fit" or "I got a bad vibe about how he'd treat the rental property" --- we don't necessarily see the chain to [because he's black and not able in this instant to look 3x more professional than would be required of an equivalent white candidate for a positive impression]. There's no intention there, even if the outcome is racist. And in this scenario, it's not impossible for the black person to get hired, but the bar is unconsciously higher. That's one reason why this is all so insidious and so hard.
> Someone who buys a chicken sandwich only because they want a chicken sandwich has no such motive or intent.
Someone might have a hell of a lot more idea why they want a chicken sandwich than why they are making subtly biased decisions against disadvantaged people.
Motive and intent are not important to the person being discriminated against.
Not getting a job because the hiring manager is outwardly racist and not getting a job because the hiring manager worries you're a poor "culture fit" or that your HBCU degree isn't prestigious enough has the same effect on the job applicant.
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 racist ideas. And Loewen's "Sundown Towns", a look at the wave of ethnic cleansing during the Nadir that happened across America. I had known about the Tulsa Massacre, but what I didn't know was how common smaller-scale events were for decades.
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.”
I'd go even further and say that just because America has a history of racism and racist ideas does not mean that racism continues to be a major factor today. I've read Kendi, and he offers scant evidence that it is.
Ok? None of them look like books whose goal is to prove that racism exists. With a book title like, "How to be an Antiracist", I would think anybody would understand that the target audience is people who are well past questioning whether racism is still a thing. It's like expecting a cookbook to open with studies on why meals are a good idea.
Good thing that's not what I said, then. I pointed you at an endemic, centuries-long pattern of widespread American racism. You reduced it to one landmark event and then dismissed it.
It is also true that people are skeptical of different foods period. But more than one thing can be be happening at once.
You pointed to a book that focuses on racism arising out of the enslavement of Black people in America and subsequent events over 500 years, in an article addressing the MSG myth. My point is that whatever inferences you can draw from that aren't usefully generalized to Americans being skeptical of what Chinese restaurants put in their food.
Skepticism of foreigners and the food they eat is universal to human societies. Enslavement of a distinct minority group, amounting to 1/8 of the population, for hundreds of years, and the social and economic consequences that remain when slavery ends and the groups must subsequently live alongside each other, is sui generis. It's not analytically useful to look at both things through the same lens. The causes, consequences, dynamics, and solutions are more or less completely different.
Skepticism of Chinese food ingredients is much better understood through the lens of the experience of prior generations of immigrants: Germans, Irish, Italians, etc. Anti-German antagonism in World War II accelerated uptake of English in German-speaking communities in the midwest and caused people to change their names; JFK's candidacy was met with charges of Popery; and people were actually quite skeptical of Italian food and unfamiliar ingredients like garlic.
I pointed to two books that helped me understand a pervasive phenomenon in America. I agree I can't generalize two books to all of everything. But then, I didn't do that. There's an ocean of scholarship on this.
That you keep building straw men out of what I say makes me think this is not a great use of my time.
I'm not criticizing your generalization because you're basing it on two books. I'm criticizing your generalization from books that are mainly about one context (the legacy of the enslavement of Black people) to a different context (American skepticism of foreign food). I disagree with your basic premise that the two things arise from the same "phenomenon"--generalized "racism."
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.
Trump throws a lot of stuff at the wall to see what sticks. That one didn’t even register with his own base. I remember having lunch one day in central Illinois—a rural county that went for Trump by 20 points this year. The most popular restaurant in town was a Mexican place. Even Breitbart likes taco trucks: https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/09/17/video-daughter-h...
Perhaps it would help knowing that dislike for MSG flavor enhancer is also a thing in other countries besides the US, and can happen without any exposure to Chinese food whatsoever.
It is justified with following reasoning. If:
1. I trust that my body will enjoy the taste of well-prepared food from healthy fresh ingredients, and will inform me when I ate enough.
2. MSG makes anything taste better.
It follows that:
3. With MSG added, my body can be fooled into eating unhealthy food and it can be fooled into wanting more food than it needs.
4. All else equal, I will assume that a chef who does not use MSG is more skilful than a chef who does.
This logic may well be faulty, superstitious, misinformed, etc., but what it is not is racist.
(Addendum: “Chinese restaurant syndrome” is a different thing though, and unlike basic distaste for MSG it does give off an antagonistic vibe. It’s interesting that it happens in the US of all places—I bet many people around the world associate MSG first and foremost with snacks from American brands like Pringles.)
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 actually learn anything about American's history and ties with racism at an adult level. So instead people think they know the history of it, and as a result think (based on what they've learned) it's overblown.
Anyone I know who has actually taken time as an adult to read about American history and its relationship with racism, comes away with a very different view point.
That was certainly my experience. What I learned about racism up through high school was basically, "This stuff happened, but long ago and far away, unconnected to what's going on around you."
And it's no coincidence that I learned this in a suburban school with a student body that was 1% black. In a state that was 14% black. And that had a long history of racial exclusion and white flight.
I'm shocked now at how one-sided my initial education was on this. Shocked, but not surprised.
> What is the reason Koreans think it's bad for health?
Pretty much the same reason why Americans think it's bad for health. It has a scary-sounding name (it's also called "MSG" in Korea), it sounds like a "chemical", and you can find it in ingredient lists of all popular junk foods - most notably instant ramen, which is basically an MSG+salt solution masquerading as noodles.
Give something in food an exotic name, and people will invent reason to fear it, like all those people demanding gluten-free bread.
Besides, if "racism" is the explanation behind it, how are you going to explain the immense popularity of Chinese food everywhere in America?
It’s still not an appropriate comparison. Taco Bell is junk food. Americanized Chinese food (or Mexican food) is not at the same level unless you’re intentionally using that term as a pejorative.
Your equivalent statement about Mexican food would be that you assume Taco Bell is what most Americans are eating as Mexican food. That doesn’t seem a valid assumption at all - maybe for a certain demographic (e.g. young) that’s true, but I’m very skeptical that such a claim would stand up to scrutiny.
Similarly, you cannot group the corner store (nominally) Chinese restaurant owned by a Chinese (or as likely in much of US, Korean) family as being in the class of highly processed, pre-made food as Taco Bell. Sorry but no.
The silly thing about this is that in Korea (as in Japan) seaweed/kelp based stock is incredibly common, and that's the historical origin of MSG as we know it today.
I think that’s because the original brand of MSG anywhere is Ajinomoto 味の素 which means essence of flavor. 味塩 is the same thing but comes mixed with salt.
In fact, if you want to eat ramen at home it’s the most practical (at least for the soup.) Actual ramen broth takes a lot of time to make from scratch.
I've heard that before, that many people like to buy Top Ramen (I think, IIRC it's considered better than Maruchan, but I may have it backwards) and then toss the noodles and keep the powdered soup pack. Much easier than the real thing, and respectably good given where it comes from.
Personally, I much prefer any of the Korean Nongshim brand for instant. (Shin Ramyun, etc.) The noodles have a better texture.
And for slightly more goodness, Asian marts will generally carry ready made broths and alkaline noodles. And one can whip up a broth from box stock if one wants something better.
That term is over 50 years old and not commonly used, if at all, ever. The only time I've seen "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" brought up is either in a article about how that term is racist, or a historic piece referencing the origins from the 1968 New England Journal of Medicine.
However, my local Hippy Organic Community Grocery Store has all sorts of products proudly claiming the absence of MSG.
I’m pretty sure you hit the nail on the head with your last point. We all saw it when avoiding gluten became a fad. Very few people had the need to avoid gluten, but enough for it to be added to some packaging. That steamrolled in to people thinking that gluten was somehow bad for them, regardless of the fact that if they had celiac disease they would have known about it.
My friend and I had a competition to point out the most ridiculous gluten free indicated packaging. I won with sand.
There were certainly other factors in play (and in this case, nobody needs to avoid msg) but once you sees the thought in people’s mind that something should be avoided, they’ll come up with all sorts of reasons on their own.
MSG is bad is a myth that came out from the US years ago and spread world wide. I have seen no MSG signs in Thailand, Singapore, Pakistan and Malaysia. And when I asked the cooks why is MSG bad they did not have an answer just that everyone thinks so or that they are tourist hot spot and such signs get foreigners into the restaurant.
Ah but people didn’t make up that term. It was ‘popularized’ by the likes of the NYT. I’ve never heard a regular person refer to their perceived reaction to msg as Chinese restaurant syndrome. That comes from the press —the same ones now chastising people.
So stop calling MSG sensitivity "chinese restaurant syndrome" and disconnect the phenomenon from the racism. Does hysteria does not exist because it is a sexist word?
Yeah I never heard that term before reading these comments. I remember back in the late eighties the jokes about MSG were like (and about as lame as) the jokes about tryptophan in turkey. I don’t recall it ever being a critique of Chinese people, but of the Americanized Chinese junk food (e.g General Tzo’s chicken), very much so. The same way people criticize(d) chicken McNuggets. Nobody ever spoke down about expertly done Peking duck that I recall.
> Given that in the west it was also dubbed "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" I would think some form of prejudice played a part.
Given that 60 years ago the only place anyone in the US would run into manufactured MAG was in a Chinese restaurant, calling it that doesn’t seem the least bit related to race.
And given that I’ve grown up in Canada and the US, eat Chinese food regularly, and have never heard this term before today, it seems incredibly overblown.
In Switzerland, some of the people most concerned about MSG in their Chinese food grew up in households where pretty much the only seasoning used was Aromat. You would also find it next to the pepper and salt shakers in simpler restaurants for decades. Aromat is mostly MSG, and yet, no cases of "Swiss Restaurant Syndrome" are known in the medical literature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromat
Bro, Asian on Asian racism is like way higher than western racism towards that region.
I’m almost positive Koreans think they are better than Chinese, and the Chinese think they are better than Koreans, and they both low key hate Japan’s uppityness (Of course the Japanese consider them ‘less than’, we can certainly throw in some historical advantage taking to add flame to this). This is like a age old tale in almost any region (think Pakistan/India/Bangladesh).
So ya, I can bet you there’s a level of passive aggressive racism to this day, like everywhere else on planet earth.
As Korean, yes there’s plenty of racism of Asians vs Asians. My aunts in Korea were terrified of Chinese people when they were kids because there were always rumors of them kidnapping kids etc.
There’s a lot of anger across Asia for Mainland Chinese these days. Practically all countries look down on Mainland Chinese, even those in Hong Kong does too. They think Mainland Chinese are dirty and loud and obnoxious because as tourists they are very obnoxious.
Koreans have general hate towards Japanese because of the war, but prefer Japanese to Chinese and all other Asians are looked down on, like Vietnamese, Philippines, etc.
My (Chinese) stepmother told me to be careful about dating/marrying Korean girls because “they get a lot of plastic surgery and your kids will be ugly”.
Definitely some ingrained racism between all these different Asian ethnic groups.
I agree that there are unfortunately too much hate among different East Asians, but it doesn't seem relevant here.
I mean, if you think Koreans' fear of MSG is somehow related to our prejudice against Chinese/Japanese cuisine, then clearly you haven't seen many Korean dishes.
I think that just reinforces the point. If your culture eats tons of food that’s packed to the brim with glutamate but you’re vocal about the MSG in Chinese food… what should the takeaway be?
I guess I wasn't explicit enough, Koreans aren't vocal about MSG in Chinese food - we are vocal about MSG in our own food !!!
(But of course, only when it's added as factory-made "chemical" - if it's from dried anchovies and seaweed, that's natural, so of course that's totally OK, either in Korean, Chinese, or any other cuisine.)
What kind of (racist) actions are taken in the east due to this prejudice they have? And how does that compare (or how is it way higher) to how western racism is towards those minorities in the western countries? Thinking they are better doesn't really compare.
You make it sound like racism only occurs in USA. This is naive. Racism is across the world and some are worse than others. Japanese took Korean women as literal sex slaves during their occupation and didn’t give them rightful citizenship in Japan and just looked down on them.
In China during the Rape of Nanking Japanese also did horrible atrocities, like cut open pregnant women and gamble on the sex of the fetus. Really horrible things but in America is only sounds like only white people commit racism, which is not true.
The most modern incidents of genocide happen in Asia. Cambodia in the 1970s and even Myanmar committing genocide in the last few years against Rohingya, lead by former Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.
In Korea, many half-Korean Half-black children from American army were born and until recently they were openly spat on by Koreans in public. Until Hines Ward who is half Korean half Black won MVP for NFL Super Bowl, then it raised awareness in Korea over this.
So please don’t think racism is only in the US. What blacks experience today is much better than what they experience in other countries where there is true hate, not just stereotyping.
Absolutely not, in fact I didn't mention USA anywhere in my post. I was curious on what constitutes racism in the east vs. the west and I don't have experience in the east. I'm also not disregarding anywhere in between the countries of the east and west.
I know of the historical factors but that's like saying Germans are still racist because they have a history of being Nazis - I was more interested in what kind of experiences of racism between Asia are happening in modern times which I've seen you've written so thanks for that. I was also curious whether there were any parallels in one of the bigger issues like police brutality of minorities in Asia.
There is a whole other discussion when talking about true hate vs. stereotyping.
Sure, so the passive aggressive racism is a far cry from what would have been real manifestations of it that occurred in those regions historically. How does it manifest today? Maybe they hear a msg rumor and go ‘yeah, figures’. A better example might be that mainland Chinese people genuinely think Hong Kong people think they are ‘better than mainlanders’, and low key believe in and support the crackdown and integration of Hong Kong (put them in their place). Wild stuff, amongst your own you have this informed hatred.
Similar to Karens in America, we don’t have outright segregation, we have a diluted form of it, which of course is a far cry from what it was.
The water is not totally filtered yet, need a few more pass throughs (few more generations).
As to why I think it’s way higher, it’s simply because the West has strong shallow racism. But the East actually knows the nuances of their region and still find ways to be prejudiced. That just simply takes more bigotry imho, where as in the West they only need pure ignorance.
The racism addition into everyday online discourse is what 'flavors' an article or topic, kind of like MSG flavors Doritos or stir-fry. Is it racism, is it not, it leads to a heated fight-or-flight type of feeling, or an indignation, or a strong nod and interest. Similar to the way salaciousness gets our attention in an ad or gossip story.
My parents used to have an msg shaker. I don’t even recall what they used it for.
The first time I heard something about avoiding MSG foods was from upper middle class fresh transplants from HK. Others of less means never mentioned it. So it’s news to me that someone would apply a blanket accusation as to where the myth comes from.
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...
As a half-Korean, I can personally attest that Koreans are unfortunately (and kind of surreally) quite racist. Koreans also tend to hold quite naive views about racism encountered by Asian Americans.
I'm not taking a position on whether "MSG is bad" is purely due to racism, but I can't really buy "I'm Korean and I don't like MSG" as evidence against that claim.
Ironically, many asians know that over-consumption of MSG leads to the symptoms that are now "racist" to discuss.
Here's popular chef (and half-Japanese) J Kenji Lopez-Alt discussing how he experiences "MSG Symptom Complex" rarely, and that his Japanese grandmother was intimately familiar with the idea that msg overconsumption could those symptoms
The racism angle totally takes over people's minds and this has quickly become a "taboo" subject where any questioning of the new order makes you a villainous racist, even though the science very clearly does not rule out msg causing these symptoms and concludes "more research is needed".
Is what it is, I'm pretty left-leaning in most ways, marched with BLM, and aggressively vote for racial equality: but I guess I'm a racist for not believing that this is settled science. And, as you mention, many east asians must also apparently be racist against themselves.
I mean, it wouldn't be at all surprising for Koreans to be racist against Chinese, unless you take a specific American perspective in which Koreans and Chinese are the same thing.
Exactly - it's definitely not racism. I do experience "chinese restaurant syndrome" (maybe the name is prejudiced???) when I get dim sum in the UK, US, Canada, sometimes Singapore but rarely in Hong Kong. Stuff like 豉汁蒸排骨 and 糯米鸡can be the worst. Generally, I dislike cantonese restaurant food outside of China/HK and that's really not racist given I have cantonese origins. I experience "Chinese restaurant syndrome" less when I consume "mainland" chinese food - like Sichuan, Hunan, Xinjiang, Shanxi food.
Who knows whether it's MSG - I definitely don't experience that lethargy eating Japanese food. But I'm also unconvinced that MSG and konbu/katsuo dashi are the same thing. The viewpoint "chemical x is chemical x in all its delivery mechanisms" is remarkably naive. The chemistry of digestion is really quite complex and the purified salt of something rather than in-aqua extraction to direct consumption REALLY is not the same thing. You ignore all kinds of subtle interactions that could be going on and is wholly unnuanced. Anyone who has spent any time in a chem/biochem lab knows all too well the strange and weird world of solvation and impurity and its effects on reactions, not to mention enzyme chemistry is insanely sensitive.
It's not the same but just compare smooth vs pulpy orange juice vs eating a raw orange. The nutrition profiles of that already are different even if you are par for #oranges consumed.
Invoking racism and gender discrimination when it’s not the reason, causes more racism and it gives more than ample opportunity to actual racists within us to exploit it for their own nefarious needs.
There’s a long history of racism against Chinese immigrants in America. Among the only jobs they were allowed to have was having restaurants. Of course this led to rumours of Chinese restaurant being dirty and their MSG causing sickness. It’s a very long history and it’s well documented. While you’re at it, read on the Chinese exclusion act.
And now you’re saying that people who call this racism for what is is are the ones responsible for the racism. You’ve got to be kidding.
You probably should look at more than just the start date for that act.
> Exclusion was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943, which allowed 105 Chinese to enter per year. Chinese immigration later increased [to 2000/year from the "Asiatic barred zone"] with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which abolished direct racial barriers, and later by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished the National Origins Formula.
MSG sensitivity has never been shown to be true in a replicable clinical environment in humans. The few studies that have shown this to cause symptoms use extremely large doses of MSG that aren't used in food (for one thing, the dosages involved would be unpalatable even for those without the symptoms; overseasoning is generally unpleasant)
> MSG sensitivity has never been shown to be true in a replicable clinical environment in humans.
Actually, it has been. The fine article even mentions that.
> The few studies that have shown this to cause symptoms use extremely large doses of MSG that aren't used in food (for one thing, the dosages involved would be unpalatable even for those without the symptoms;
So you do accept that some studies have demonstrated MSG sensitivity? So why the lie in the previous sentence? I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I just don't see how you claim the former statement given this statement.
In any case, yes, you are correct here. As per the fine article, the dose at which symptoms become common is six times the normal dose. Do you find it utterly impossible that some people could be sensitive at one-sixth the dose that "most people" become sensitive at?
> So you do accept that some studies have demonstrated MSG sensitivity
No, some studies have shown that high doses or unusual methods of introduction (e.g., IV) of MSG can cause symptoms; no properly controlled studies have shown sensitivity (i.e., a trait in which people are prone to symptoms at lower thresholds that are typical, such that they might experience symptoms with doses that might actual be encountered outside of deliberate mass ingestion.)
> Do you find it utterly impossible that some people could be sensitive at one-sixth the dose that "most people" become sensitive at?
“It’s not utterly impossible” is not the same thing as “clinical studies have provided evidence for it”.
I've heard this repeated so many times but I don't actually understand what that means - can you elaborate? Mentioning racism causes more racism? Doesn't that make sense?
Sort of sounds like the same thing as "the more you test for COVID the more cases there will be"
I've read your sentence like 10 times and it makes no sense to me. How would one exploit someone calling out (false by your definition) racism to cause more racism?
A reminder of the HN guidelines and I'll assume in good faith you didn't mean me by "you."
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Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
I’ve made this point before, it’s similar to dry snitching, ‘I’m happy to hear you finally stopped beating your wife’. Uh? I never did, but Jesus way to throw something over my head that I now have to clean.
Will this cause more racism? Inadvertently, yes. Racism occurs due to bigotry and ignorance, one which needs to be systematically exposed and the other requiring remedial education (what you think you know is not right). If the problem requires intellectual engagement and discussion, and the intellectual battlefield is a Vietnam helicopter drop off where your average time of survival is 7 minutes before you die, lots of people will be dodging that draft.
I think they're referring to a more long-term and less direct causality when they say crying wolf causes more racism. In my reading of the GP, "leads to" would be a better word choice.
> enough to turn him in to a racist
If I were to call you a sexist for your choice of pronouns (and throw in "self hate is the worst kind" if your pronouns happen to be he/him), and you were to see several other likely unwarranted accusations being thrown around against you and others, you'd be less likely to take notice when real sexism is called out. Fewer people taking notice of real actionable cases of sexism would likely result in more sexism over time.
I'd consider myself very socially liberal, but I accept that at least everyone experiences prejudiced thoughts and impulses.
From that premise we can proceed to the idea that "racists" act on those impulses, while people who are "not racist" resist them. However, these impulses can be extremely subtle, and no matter how we struggle, I don't believe that that any human being lives a life avoiding racist acts entirely.
Would you still argue that I'm a racist perpetuating a false claim as an excuse for my own racism? I mean, I accept that I'm prejudiced and every once in a while racist despite my best efforts, so that part is true in a sense. I'm don't think I'm trying to excuse myself, though.
I think your mistake is to think being racist is bad. We are all racist. It's part of being human, we form groups, it's how we invent vaccines and go to the moon.
I see MSG as Japanese, since the purified process was invented there. I have no idea if Koreans in general consider it a Japanese invention?
Equally it could be the power of Hollywood. It changes culture.
But it's not "being misinformed". It's well know MSG is ok. MSG can also replace fat and sugar for taste, I'd consider this a worse public health issue than the anti-vaccine movement (outside of pandemics) for instance.
Humans are also naturally violent, but me saying "Hey, I'm going to stab you because I'm just human" is probably not something you'd shrug off.
In particular, what you're indulging here is the naturalistic fallacy, or the is/ought fallacy. What's natural tells us nothing about what's good. Tooth decay is natural and your toothbrush is artificial. But I'd bet you're not going to stop brushing your teeth just to stay philosophically consistent.
Yeah, but you can’t put an end to violence, and violence serves an incredible biological purpose. Racism will never cease to exist, nor should society try to force it away, since that will only make things worse. Perhaps racism even serves some meritable biological purpose.
Come to think of it, racism is like a social heuristic. Antivirus software uses heuristic analysis to quickly group certain classes of malware based on code similarity. In the same vein, humans do it to categorize people, based on slightly fuzzier logic.
Yeah. There are some foods that give me terrible migraine headaches, but not always. It seems to require eating a lot. I'm not certain but I think the culprit is MSG. Now people want to say I'm racist for thinking that? WTF?
And they removed it as a valid mental diagnosis because it has sexist connotations? I doubt it though considering current political climate, I wouldn’t be surprised. His point still stands, however.
It was removed as a mental diagnosis because it only applied to women and basically functioned as a catch-all for "we don't understand why women are freaking out." It was overly broad as to be unhelpful.
The diagnoses that have succeeded it do not only apply to women, and they also have more specific requirements.
"... a disturbing undercurrent of racism that seemed to blame the unsavoriness of Chinese food"
You can't be racist towards food. Chinese people aren't the only people capable of cooking food originally consumed and prepared in China. If you don't like Chinese food and find it unsavoury, no normal person would think you're a racist. This whole "red under the bed" approach to racism is getting out of hand.
Do you ever use the phrase "long time no see"? It is treated as innocuous today but it is rooted in a mocking jest at broken English spoken by Chinese immigrants. The funny part is that I know Asian Americans who say it without knowing where it came from. You can be misinformed about something that is fundamentally racist.
The twisted MSG belief system is just a less overtly racist version of "Chinese restaurants serve cat and dog". i.e. This ethnic food is not trustworthy and worthy of derision, as are the people by extension.
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.