I think that it unnecessarily and incorrectly ties the Sakura Mochi post to the recent (and deplorable) anti-AAPI violence. I think they are stoking the flames for clicks.
Re: de-platforming
The posters do not have any rights (legal or moral) to any speech on someone else’s private Instagram account. It is not de-platforming or silencing voices to delete some comments and keep others.
Besides this one stupid and wrong post that he has admitted was wrong and has apologized for, has Schlosser ever done anything else to hurt the AAPI community?
Has Schlosser ever done anything to uplift the Japanese community and be a strong, authentic ally? Yes. He has been serving and educating his guests on authentic, and yes, often under-represented (but not non-existent) Japanese dishes (e.g. shiokara, karasumi, tofuyo) for the last 5 years. He has used his platform to support numerous Japanese government culture-related initiatives over those years. He has helped numerous small Japanese producers over those years. Being recognized by the Japanese government as a Japanese Cuisine Goodwill Ambassador speaks to these contributions.
Where do those good actions get factored into the equation?
Why are so many people willing to let him burn at the stake for one stupid social media post?
The more that chef opens his mouth, the deeper the foot gets lodged in.
I was sympathetic at first, but the tone as portrayed in the Eater article attributed to Chef Schlosser is what we call “ue kara mesen” which essentially means condescension and looking down at others.
The chef knows of a piece of Japan that he was shown and perhaps lived/experienced for a few years. But sadly, the cracks also show when he believes that the Japan he experienced is the be all and end all and he’s the authority of all things Japanese. Sakura mochi in February isn’t wrong. It’s a harbinger of Spring and Hina Matsuri. A bit of STFU can go a long way.
Full disclosure: I didn’t know who Schlosser was b/f this, and I kind of, couldn’t care less about him now.
I think it’s there some signals here that are being crossed (to put it mildly). I don’t necessarily read a ton of motives or motivation onto people’s external actions. Was Eater LA trying to tie this incident to AAPI violence? I don’t know. But, separate from recents events and that overlay, I do think the metaphor was very apt. He was specifically targeting all other Japanese restaurants in the US (or LA? I can’t recall the exact comment) w/ that post. Not cool. And, TBH, really gross and creepy, actually.
Removing comments is absolutely silencing others, in the most concrete sense of the word. Is it violating someone’s constitutional rights? No, of course not.
How does one discern authenticity when we cannot read his mind and when authenticity in this context is time-specific (since cuisine changes, like everything else). Was he “authentically” interested in the “uplifting” the culture or, by educating guests on under-represented dishes, simply narcissistically using a culture to feed his ego (“See, I know more than you do. You didn’t now about this dish, but I do, and hence I am superior”)?
It’s sort of like George Zimmerman consciously treating all other black people but Treyvon Martin well. Implicit bias and the unconscious work in weird, and possibly very destructive, ways. And, in this instance, Schlosser gave us all insight into how one aspect of his mind works. And it was ugly.
Perhaps this is too personal an example, but it’s sort of like when I discover that people who have been politely smiling at me for years voted for a candidate that doesn’t support the LGBT+ community. It causes me to think, “Gosh, were you hoping I were dead the whole time you’ve been smiling at me?” I dunno, but I think the strong reaction you’re seeing here might be analogous…
Why does a private individual/company have to host content on their platform that portrays them in a negative light?
I used “authentic ally” to differentiate from “virtue signaling” or similar claims (ally signaling?). Please feel free to substitute “real” in place of “authentic”. There is a history of actions to show his support of the Japanese community.
And, yes, there is the possibility that maybe he was doing his best to serve Japanese cuisine according to traditional methods and techniques in order to show how awesome he is and lord his excellence over us. Or maybe he just loves the cuisine and wants to share his passion??
I am asking a real question: Has Schlosser done more to help or hurt the community of the cuisine that he serves (Japanese)? I believe the evidence supports that, yes, he has done more to help and that this regrettable (and wrong!) comment does not need to be dismissed or forgotten, but should be forgiven.
And even if you are not able to forgive him, what should his punishment be? To lose his business?
I had one of my best meals of 2020 there.
Dismissing his obsession with and reverence for Japanese cuisine because of a stupidly phrased post on an antisocial media site is ridiculous.
I hope you know that I respect your knowledge (and I imagine that, if I were to meet you in-person, I’d respect you as a person, too). But I have to say that I’m a bit confused about some of your arguments.
If you wish to advocate for him to give more balance to the discussion, by all means continue to do so.
If you wish to call out Eater for language that could be excessively inflammatory, again, con’t to do so.
But I don’t think you get tell people how they should feel. With all due respect, that is simply not your place.
If people want to be mad, they’re going to be mad. And that is their prerogative. To a certain extent, it needs to run its course. In a year where people have lost so much through no fault of their own, defending a man who might lose his business (and, in all honestly, he may not) b/c he put his own foot in his own mouth just seems a curious choice to me. But that is your prerogative.
I don’t know if people “want” him to lose his business. But, if it’s anything the year 1-5 yrs has taught has, it’s that logic and rational thought do not always win.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we should abandon all rational thought. But, IMHO, it would come across differently (and perhaps be more digestible to others?) if you simply con’t to present what Schlosser has done to support the Japanese community and express a hope that other people forgive him.
My final $0.02 on the matter.
maybe he is all for promoting Japanese cuisine but it seems he has a lot to learn about Japanese Americans and their history.
Maybe Japanese and Japanese Americans are totally different, nuanced things and maybe he could’ve avoided all this by not putting JA’s and their restaurants down.
It’s just another Rick Bayless type of attitude coming to LA and claiming the Mexican food here is bland.
How long has Schlosser been here in LA? He’s been here awhile now. Did he take the time to learn about what Japanese had to go through in America, the internment camps, the assimilation they went through to be accepted? the freakin JA museum is right there in Little Tokyo
It’s the arrogance and ignorance that’s off putting. The flippant attitude of him thinking he knows best.
I don’t want his restaurant or him to fail but maybe he needed to get called out and eat some humble pie.
I definitely don’t think he should be canceled or lose his business I don’t think anyone here is saying that but people are pissed off and he handled it really poorly.
It doesn’t come across that he’s learned anything from all this, if he had been a little more humble it would have gone a long way.
That being said I doubt he’ll lose his business but he didn’t make any friends and considering he’s opening another high profile place his antics could hurt other good people.
TL:DR So chef David should just quietly make his sakura mochi, promote it on instagram and shut the F*** up about how other Japanese businesses are preserving their own culture.
This. You sell foods outside your culture frequently—no one has ever (at least to my knowledge) complained. And to my knowledge, Shibumi hasn’t had such a big public outrage prior to this. Because it’s not and never been about who can cook what.
Maybe it’s because when you were promoting your com gà hai nam, bánh mì, yakitori, okonomiyaki, and oden…you didn’t tell the Vietnamese and Japanese restaurants/community how you know and care more and how yours is so superior. Maybe.
Why does everything have to be about racism? I don’t think what he said was racist. I don’t know him, never met him, only know what I’ve read about him online, but his post just came off as a very arrogant egomaniac not unlike many other chefs everywhere in the world. Why are we so fixated that he’s a white guy cooking japanese food? He obviously has studied japanese cuisine, lived in Japan, and seems to have high reverence for the culture and cuisine? Do we judge with the same lens when a jewish chef cooks italian food? Or when an asian chef cooks french food?
Sigh…
Everything isn’t about racism but in this specific case what he said had racial implications because he is a white person that is cooking a minority culture’s cuisine and that minority group has faced a history of discrimination and repression in the past. Context matters.
That is your opinion and you’re totally entitled to that, but just because you don’t think it’s true doesn’t mean others shouldn’t think its true. And especially if you’re not a minority in this country (I’m not saying I know if you are or not) I really don’t think it’s appropriate for the white majority to tell minorities what is racist or not. It’s like white people deciding how and when black people can and can’t use the n-word.
When an egomaniac says something that is [insert additionally poor adjective] that person is both an egomaniac and [insert additionally poor adjective] it’s not a mutually exclusive proposition.
To my knowledge prior to his post no one has been fixated that he is a white guy cooking japanese food, especially not in a negative manner. From all the posts prior he has been massively embraced by the LA community (including LA Japanese American community) at large. But when a white guy calls out the culture that he is supposedly representing/promoting and when that culture has faced a history of repression and discrimination within the country and locale again that context matters.
Great no one is denying his credentials! He’s earned the right to be considered knowledgeable about the cuisine but that doesn’t meen that it’s ok for him to go about denigrating and talking down to the japanese culture and people and then deleting AAPI posts when he supposedly is an ally of asian americans. And that is what we are all calling him out for, not because he hasn’t studied japanese food or that he isn’t entitled to provide an opinion, or solely based on the fact that he is white. He gave his opinion and that along with his continued behavior revealed how much of an ass he is.
All those contexts are different, it depends on the race relations in that culture and what has occurred historically in that society. I would be happy to dissect each one for you, but to quote @JLee
I’m sure the French people, so protectively of their culture and cuisine, would surely but outraged picketing if any of these Asian chefs with Michelin starred French restaurants said the same thing about French food and culture.
" [Insert iconic French dessert] . Yet no French restaurant are featuring it? So sad. Makes my life harder. It’s because these French restaurants don’t understand, appreciate or care about promoting what French cuisine is all about. Come get it at…"
I agree, and for the record, I think what chef David said was disrespectful to all the chefs cooking Japanese food in our city. My point simply was that there’s no racism at play here. He clearly loves everything Japanese.
i don’t think anybody here accused him of being racist, did they? just an arrogant prick.
I 100% agree with @JLee that he should make his food, promote it, and sell it while minding his own business. No reason to belittle other chefs.
If this was said by a Japanese chef, I still think it would have been disrespectful and unnecessary. But I don’t think anyone would care.
Here
Oh, I don’t know about that. Would it have caused the same uproar? Prob not. But, depending on whether said hypothetical chef was Japanese vs. Japanese-American and depending on what generation said chef belong to, it absolutely would’ve gotten a response from within the community, if “that culture” operates anything like other East Asian communities.
Posters have said here that part of the reason why this whole incident is getting so much attention is b/c the chef is white. Well, that works in multiple ways. Perhaps intra-ethnic culinary conflicts don’t get as much popular press is b/c it’s not considered particularly “important” unless it involves a white person…?
Yes, again that is why Asian Americans are not happy because unfortunately racism does exist in America and it permeates throughout our society and affects our personal experiences day to day. This is getting more and more personal but I think it’s important to add personal anecdotes and color to these discussions as a means of perspective, as I respect most members of this board and hope that by having a lively but respectful discussion we can all see each other’s points of view.
My wife is pregnant and neither of us are comfortable with her walking to the grocery store by herself due to asian american targeted violence in this country. I am born and raised in America and this is 2021 and I have to worry about carrying something around to protect myself and my family during the day solely on the basis of my skin color? I’ve never been what you would describe as “woke” person but clearly something isn’t right in our society.
Now back to the topic at hand, whether David’s post was directly racist or just denigrating of the Japanese culture, I guess everyone has to decide that on their own. You’ve voiced your opinion that you don’t feel its racist, which I respect. I personally don’t even know that if I feel that his post is directly racist, but what I know for my own self is that it’s not ok and should be called out especially here on FTC in a community where we clearly all are passionate about food. Does his race and the type of cuisine and the minority culture that it originates from factor into this specific discussion? IMO it definitely can’t be ignored, but others may disagree.
I think it’s more like if the Japanese chef of a French restaurant in Japan complained that other French restaurants weren’t serving pain au chocolat with dinner.