Have we all been gaslighted?

We need to hit where it hurts

I usually end my newsletters with reading recommendations but I’m going to start with one today, because it’s an excellent analogy for how I feel about the culture wars happening right now in the food world. The article is called The carbon footprint sham, by Mark Kaufman, published on Mashable. If you’re not clicking across to read now, here’s a summary: “carbon footprint” is a marketing term created by Ogilvy & Mather for BP, designed to distract you from the fact that BP creates more fossil fuel emissions than any of us could individually. It puts the focus on us, instead of them. Clever, right? But as the Carbon Majors Report [PDF] of 2017 says, “the distribution of emissions is concentrated,” just 100 companies are responsible for over 71% of carbon emissions since 1988, including ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, and BHP Billiton. Meanwhile, here we are, trying to fit a year’s worth of rubbish in a jam jar, and shaming people for eating meat. Alright, so at this point of the analogy, I’m finally getting closer to my actual argument.

There’s been a lot of talk in my (food + media) world about who can cook what, who can write about cooking what. Take The God of Cookery’s “White Food” series, for instance, about how White people have been presented as authorities in Chinese cuisine in the West, and profited from it. Earlier in the year, of course, was Bon Appétit’s series of scandals which included allegations of a racist work environment where the editor did brownface, and would throw around racist remarks, and non-White staffers were used as a token display of diversity. These are all serious – don’t get me wrong – but like the idea of carbon footprint, blame is being put on individuals active in the day-to-day, but with little decision-making power – that power is concentrated in places out of our reach. Condé Nast, the company that owns Bon App, fired the “offending” staff members, sure, but then what? They paid some lip service. No changes to the board – ie. the real decision makers, while Bon App staffers like Chris Morocco are still getting harassed via Instagram comments for not speaking out (except, um, he did, kind of). Again, I’m not saying that individual, daily actions don’t matter – if you undermine someone on the basis of their race, you’re definitely an asshole – but the argument is far from complete without looking at the likes of Advance Publishing (owner of Condé Nast). Advance is a private company held by a family (the Newhouses), and is therefore under no obligation to be transparent, but it’s reportedly one of the largest media companies in the US, making over $6 billion a year, reaching 384 million people just through Condé Nast’s social media platforms alone. They are also one of three owners of Discovery Inc., the most popular pay TV network in the US (and beyond – one of its channels, TLC has 450 million viewers outside of North America), that takes pride in amplifying exploitative shows like 90 Day Fiancé and problematic reality stars like Chip and Joanna Gaines – time and time again, this company has chosen profit over responsibility, because that’s what business is, isn’t it? This 1989 article in The New York Times Magazine is a brilliant reminder that Condé Nast was founded as an elitist establishment (“class, not mass” used to be its motto, for crying out loud!) and that S.I. Newhouse Jr (who oversaw Advance’s glossies) was a recipient of substantial generational wealth, and was only concerned about maintaining it.

Like carbon emissions, wealth is concentrated. At the end of the day, the conversations about inequality will not end until structural changes happen – structural changes meaning who has money, who’s in power. Just as BP gaslighted us with the concept of “carbon footprint”, the beneficiaries of current Cantillon effect (aka “the one percent”) want us to be preoccupied by a White guy cooking Chinese food*, when in fact, we (the 99%) should be questioning them about the consequences of colonialism, of stolen land, of financial and legal systems that they and their forefathers made.

“Stick to your lane,” I can almost hear you say, “keep writing about rice and XO sauce,” “stay angry at people who copy from press releases!”, I mean – I want to, but when I start tracing the source of all the problems I care about (media, climate change, farming, food waste…), and every problem goes back to entrenched systems of concentrated power, I can’t help but think that we’re not directing enough firepower on bringing down the big guys.

* also, I can tell you that in Hong Kong, where Cantonese people are the dominant culture, people watch that stuff and laugh: “haha stupid gwailo doesn’t know how to cook” and don’t really comment on how much they’re earning and/or not giving back to the Chinese community – is it because they’re not “woke”, or because they’re the dominant culture and don’t feel threatened? I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot about it but haven’t worked it out. Comments welcome.