A Twitter mob drilled international affairs professor Tom Nichols with accusations of racism after he said he didn’t like Indian food.
While quoting a recent tweet asking people to respond with their “most controversial food opinion,” Nichols wrote, “Indian food is terrible and we pretend it isn’t.”
Indian food is terrible and we pretend it isn’t. https://t.co/NGOUtRUCUN
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 23, 2019
Nichols, clearly winning the “most controversial food opinion” battle, sparked outrage online. Some of the criticisms were lighthearted, but others accused Nichols of racism. Kenyan poet Shailja Patel, for example, claimed Nichols’s tweet was proof that white men only care about themselves.
Do you not have tastebuds? https://t.co/o2IVYsrr8R
— Padma Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) November 24, 2019
Trips over himself with eagerness to spew racist bullshit in the name of “I’m going to say something controversial tee hee.”
Then chortles at the clapback: “People are tOuChY.”
Why yes, centuries of colonial slaughter, plunder, and mass starvation tend to have that effect.
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 23, 2019
Stuff like this is straight up ignorant. There’s no such thing as a unified national food culture, anywhere. India has 1.3 billion people from thousands of different cultures. If you wanna say, “I haven’t enjoyed any of the indian restaurants I’ve been to,” that’s on you. https://t.co/4SdJqwrBca
— Josh Scherer (@MythicalChef) November 23, 2019
Nichols explained why he doesn’t like Indian food, noting that he couldn’t handle spicy food and doesn’t understand how some people enjoy eating hot dishes while looking as though they are suffering.
“I think people whose eyes are watering, gulping water, sweating, and telling me they enjoy it are doing it because they are somehow trying to embrace an authentic experience, not because they like it,” Nichols wrote. “I know many people love it. Me, I don’t.”
He added, “I think people often pretend to like non-American cuisines as a way of showing sophistication. I’m honest enough to say that my mostly Irish taste buds can’t handle whatever it is that is called ‘Indian’ in the U.S. and UK. You may all continue with your outrage now.”
I said it many times. I think people whose eyes are watering, gulping water, sweating, and telling me they enjoy it are doing it because they are somehow trying to embrace an authentic experience, not because they like it. I know many people love it. Me, I don’t. /1 https://t.co/EbnP5UEYp1
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 24, 2019
Several still raged on against Nichols, including Patel, who claimed the professor was “retweeting the gleeful endorsements” of his racism because he didn’t cave to the outrage and shared tweets voicing similar opinions about the cuisine.
“I see you retweeting the gleeful endorsements of your racism. You’re fuelling the harassment of every South Asian call center worker, service industry or retail worker, cultural worker, student, child on the playground,” Patel wrote. “It must be nice to never have experienced, or even imagined, being a target of hate crimes.”
It must be nice to never have experienced, or even imagined, being a target of hate crimes.
It must be something else to live in a bubble where no one you know has ever been a victim of hate crimes either. pic.twitter.com/otDQlmrMlg
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
In a Tuesday USA Today op-ed, Nichols explained that he understands that many people sincerely enjoy Indian food.
“Nothing is less funny than having to explain a joke, but of course I don’t think a billion people are lying about loving Indian food,” Nichols wrote. “In the same way I think millions of Led Zeppelin fans are wrong and no one should listen to them, and that The Catcher in the Rye is a stupid book that no one should have to read anymore, I was being my usual curmudgeonly self and saying that no one should like what I don’t like.”
He added, “I am told that spicy food releases endorphins and dopamine. Personally, I think of food as pleasure, not as a test of character, and at dinner I am not trying to trigger my brain into releasing natural painkillers.”
Nichols is a member of USA Today’s board of contributors and teaches at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island. The professor is also a member of the Jeopardy Hall of Fame after five undefeated appearances on the game show. He described himself as an “ex-GOP Never Trumper.”
