[bookface]

Sorry if I'm being insensitive, but how is Chinese Restaurant Syndrome "absurdly racist"? If people were having health problems as a consequence of eating corned beef, I would, as a Jew, have no problem with that condition being called "Jewish Deli Syndrome".

[pcurve]

I think "absurdly" is a bit too strong, but the problem comes down to 4 things:

1. Only small percentage of people was afflicted with physical symptoms.

2. These symptoms were vague and so variable that they had to refer to as "syndrome", rather than "symptom".

3. Ultimately, MSG allergy proved to be largely false.

4. MSG is found everywhere.

"Jewish Deli Syndrome" could be considered racist depending on the surrounding circumstance.

However, if there is set of ingredients that are unique to Jewish deli meat scientifically proven to cause problems for non-trivial percentage of population, then I would agree with you that it wouldn't (and shouldn't) be racist to call "Jewsih Deli Syndrome".

[sjwright]

I completely agree with the OP; there's no reason to suggest there is anything racist about the label Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. It appears a few people have been hyper-sensitized to a bad definition of racism.

[pessimizer]

You mean other than the implication that it is exclusive to restaurants owned by the Chinese?

[sjwright]

That's quite naive -- and dare I say a little racist -- to assume that all chinese restaurants are owned by Chinese people, or that Chinese people only run chinese restaurants.

[michh]

A better analogy would be to say losing all your money due to corrupt and greedy bankers is "Jewish Banker Syndrome". Still not offensive?

[bookface]

I think the main difference between the two is the intent that's being implied. "Jewish Banker Syndrome" is implying something about me as a person. It's saying that, as a Jew, I'm more likely to be greedy and corrupt. "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" isn't really blaming the Chinese for anything, it's just noting the correlation that was observed.

Maybe a better comparison would be "Jewish Bank Syndrome", which to me sounds a lot less harsh than "Jewish Banker Syndrome".

[andybak]

A marvellous false analogy.

[michh]

Really?

Evil bankers exist of lots of ethnicities and faiths but lots of people do (often but not always subconsciously) link greedy bankers and jewish people.

Just like using unhealthy or even dangerous additives is often linked to Chinese cuisine even though they're used just as much in tons of other cuisines as well.

Equating an existent stereotype with one which doesn't actually exist and saying "it's not that bad, I wouldn't be offended by that" is the false analogy. Because then it doesn't have the personal impact a prejudice or misconception you've actually been exposed to has.

A white person might say that if someone joked "all white people are lazy", they wouldn't be offended so a black or latino person shouldn't either. A black person is much more likely to be offended by "all black people are lazy" because that's something that's actually rooted in societal prejudices. Change it to "all white people are racist" and suddenly by their defensive tone, you'll note that you've hit a nerve and they're actually uncomfortable and/or offended.

[bookface]

I didn't originally see the connection between MSG and Chinese food as coming from a place of racism, but you might be right. I'm still not so sure though. If somebody said to you "I got food poisoning from a Chinese restaurant last night", would you say "That's racist! An Italian restaurant could have just as easily given you food poisoning."?

It's pointless to try to tell people what is and isn't offensive. Normally, I err on the side of thinking that if somebody is offended, they must have reason to be and I should be sensitive to that, but in this case I had no idea what racism the author was referring to.

[michh]

Perhaps the stereotype of Chinese restaurants specifically being untrustworthy/unhealthy/unhygienic (i.e. Chinese chefs don't care about their customers / they're not up to our western standards) isn't universal, but it definitely exists in some parts of the world. MSG is an example of that, another one is the myth that you might just be eating cat or dog being advertised as something different (also often applied to Korean food in a similarly racist way).

Not saying it's high on the prioritised list of racist tropes we need to be fighting, but yeah, it's there.

[andybak]

Your reading just seems wilfully tortuous and unnatural.

"Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" has nothing to do with Chinese food being bad or unhealthy or dangerous. It's just that is is (was?) fairly common for there to be more MSG in Chinese Food. So it was a natural shorthand. It hadn't even occurred to me that someone would think it was racist before today.

I'm torn between finding this funny and finding this irritating. There's enough genuine problems that people face based on race, nationality, gender or sexual orientation that debates like this just make it harder to get people to take us seriously on things that matter.