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This morning the Washington Post’s staff writer for the food section published a lengthy article titled “Stop calling food ‘exotic’.” The gist of the piece is that the use of the word “exotic” implies a white, western reference point from which all else is outside. This process of othering food from Asian or other non-western cultures is therefore racist.
The first problem with the word is that, probably within the past two decades, it has lost its essential meaning. The second, more crucial problem is that its use, particularly as applied to food, indirectly lengthens the metaphysical distance between one group of humans and another, and, in so doing, reinforces xenophobia and racism.