Hey all,
This is very much a 'part two' from Tuesday's post. Please refer back to it before proceeding...
Thanks for reading,
Tim
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Let's play a round of true-false-racist...Miso Hungry, reader, is it true, false...or racist? Let's break it down, one option at a time, and see if we can't reach some sort of a conclusion.
There is not much of a case for 'false' here. The use of the expression involves Japanese food and a description of hunger level, both appropriate when used separately by a restaurant seeking to draw in customers. The factual accuracy here rules out 'false' (1).
So, is it true? I suppose a hungry person with a particular hankering for soup might say 'yes' without malicious intent. It's a pun and puns are in good fun, right? And the 'Me so...' opener is commonly used in mimicking or parodying 'the hungry brute'. The 'me so hungry' line would not be out of place in a caveman movie. There is certainly a kernel of truth here (and definitely an escape route for anyone looking to deflect the question I'm posing here).
But I think the racist argument is solid. 'Me so..' is not just Fun For The Neanderthal Family. It's a cruel imitation of broken English. Is it coincidence that the way a native Japanese speaker might describe their hunger sounds an awful lot like this expression?
Perhaps.
But do coincidences excuse racism?
Verdict: racist
Footnotes / the internet is judge, jury, and...
0. An article I was unaware of at the time I started writing this post...
Could the 'Miso Hungry is racist' position be strengthened
if others used the expression without the word 'Miso'? I searched
Google for such an example and found one out on the west coast. A food
truck in the Bay Area called 'Me So Hungry' serves burgers and fries.
Well done, Me So Hungry, for at least attempting to sidestep the
issue...and perhaps, for sealing the fate of Miso Hungry today.
By the way, I'm not here to suggest 'Me So Hungry' gets off the hook - this story is perhaps a crystal ball into the food truck's future...
1. I think we need a better expression but for now, it'll do...
I'll use the expression 'factual accuracy' in the book quite a bit, I think, at the risk of offending lazy readers, since it seems to best describe cases where I've ruled out 'false' but have yet to decide between 'true' or 'racist'
