How to Cook Like The People You Just Deported

Image description: a faux cover to a cookbook entitled, "How to Cook Like The People You Just Deported: Authentic Ethnic Flavors for Bigots who Don't Deserve Them."

It never shocks me how much ethnocultural impact communities of color, the Global Majority, Black and Brown folx, have on people of pallor and what they think is the "American way" of life.

There is no "U.S. culture" without melanin building its foundations and giving the whole thing flavor and life.

A whole lot of y'all hate AAPI communities, yet love your Christmas Day Chinese dinner.

A whole lot of y'all hate Black folx but love fried chicken, peanut butter, every bit of southern cuisine on the continent, and hundreds of dishes and food combinations created by Black folx as the original struggle meals that you now posit as "upscale cuisine."

A whole lot of y'all hate Indigenous communities but have stolen their fashion and cultural heritage to use as aesthetics to deck out your bodies and homes.

A whole lot of y'all hate Mexican, Hispanic, and Latine communities but enjoy the creature comforts of the food they harvest, cultivate, and grow.

But, you know, gon' 'head and deport and endanger the legitimate backbone of your country like it's not going to upend the comfy-ass multi-colored tapestry of an existence you live in and benefit from.

[Image description: a faux cover to a cookbook entitled, "How to Cook Like The People You Just Deported: Authentic Ethnic Flavors for Bigots who Don't Deserve Them."]

On An Election and A Country's True Identity

I'm not surprised. I'm saddened, but I’m not surprised.

I'm unsurprised that 59% of men of pallor and 52% of women of pallor voted the way they did. I'm sadly not surprised that after everything he said and will do to immigrants when he takes office, he still got 54% of the masculine-identifying and 37% of the feminine-identifying Latine and Hispanic vote.

I'm saddened, but I’m not surprised.

I am disheartened but unsurprised.

I didn’t need a reminder, but for those who did, this election was a firm reminder that the United States is precisely what it has always been: a country steeped in individualism and fear of moving forward, unwilling to be progressive and care for all its citizens, and legitimately uninterested in trying to be the country it likes to claim it is.

He won this election, and it wasn't even close in the popular or electoral vote. A party with a platform of hate, oppression, and regression will be in complete control of the Government come January 2025, and it wasn't even a fight.

And I know so many of y'all voted for this man and this party while playin’ in the faces of the people in your life who you know their policies and governance will do extreme harm to. Most of y'all are quick to bust out a Black Lives Matter sign or bring up trans and reproductive rights just to have a smoke screen to vote against everyone’s best interests.

I loathe that most of y'all won’t own your hatred and fear of losing what you think is exclusively yours - rights, privileges, and safety from tyranny.

I loathe that most of y'all won’t own who you are in front of those your choices impact.

I loathe that most of y’all will be shocked when the people you elected do the exact things you hired them to do and you find yourself and your families adversely impacted and in physical, mental, emotional, and economic distress.

But I’m not surprised.

You're Americans! That's what Americans do, right?

I'm saddened. I'm disheartened. I'm not surprised, though.

This is the American way, y'all.

Note: This poll data is from a subsection of the voter base from 10 states.

On Melanated Olympics for Survival and the Responses of Pallor

I don’t think people of pallor understand or grasp the intricacies of the mental, emotional, and linguistic gymnastics that most melanated people, most Black and Brown folx, most Native and Indigenous folx, and all Black women and femmes engage in to maintain employment and stay safe in communities and workplaces of pallor. I’m talking about Olympic gold medal-level sh—.

“But Pharoah, I underst - - “

No. No you don’t.

“Really, Pharoah. I think I get it - - “

Nope.

“I’ve read about - -“

Oh, no boo-boo. You don’t want to say that.

“But - -“

Shhhh. Less talking and defending yourself and more acknowledging your complacency and participation in white supremacist culture.

Ain’t nobody got time for your Olympic-level deflection and defensiveness.

Listen. Learn. Disrupt. Own your actions and words.

We’re tired of medaling.

[Image description: A picture of the rapper Mase. He is looking at the viewer while holding his left pointer finger up in front of his mouth, essentially making the universal gesture for remaining silent.]

Image description: A picture of the rapper Mase. He is looking at the viewer while holding his left pointer finger up in front of his mouth, essentially making the universal gesture for remaining silent.

On Affirmative Action and the Designing of Systems

Affirmative action.

It's wild to me that the United States always finds a way to ensure the melanated, especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous folx, know that they don't deserve anything. No options. No opportunities. No possibilities for advancement or breaking the generational shackles of white supremacy.

It's wild to me that those who have power and positionality provided by their proximity to white supremacy (or, in some cases, those who sell their souls to garner favor from white supremacy) get to make decisions that impact those whom laws were supposed to support and amplify.

It's also wild to me that white supremacy continues to try and wield Global Majority folx as weapons against one another, in this case, trying to place the onus for their decision to dismantle affirmative action on the heads of AAPI communities so they don't have to take ownership of the fact that white supremacy's goal is to own nothing that it inflicts upon those it views as less than.

It's wild but not surprising.

It's all working by design.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Affirmative action was appeasement. Affirmative action had become a tool almost exclusively structured for white women to achieve academic access. The data shows this. Hell, white women were suing colleges and universities a few years ago because they felt they didn't get the college placements they "deserved." However, it was one of the only things still in place in this country that remotely offered educational access and socioeconomic progress to communities that were never meant to move beyond poverty, hate, and enslavement. And when you live in a country that likes to parade around how good it believes it is to its citizenry for the world to see, you find yourself clinging to the ledge where the little things you fought for by the tips of your fingers while hoping something better will come.

But we're not getting something better this time, are we?

Instead, we're getting an oily ledge that will impact the grips of melanated folx for generations.

All by design.

The beat goes on. The generational chains of poverty will continue to chafe the wrists and ankles of Black bodies. The progeny of the Black bodies that endured being considered subhuman slaves for hundreds of years will still be regarded as such. AAPI communities will continue to be weaponized to harm others in the name of whiteness, preserving the perceived right to power and comfort of whiteness while doing generational harm to AAPI folx. White women will continue to have the ability to harm melanated folx and take opportunities from their communities because of their proximity to white masculine cisgender societal norms, losing a system of advancement that catered to them exclusively for decades but believing that this decision is not aimed at them. Hence, their place in the pecking order is "safe."

The design is working.

It just isn't working for those who aren't white.

By design.

On Hate, Shock, Awe, KFC and Baskin-Robbins

I am legitimately mystified by how many people with privilege, power, and positionality are still shocked that they live in a country with so much hate, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and bigotry toward many communities as they watch mass shootings, hate crimes, and hateful legislation run rampant from coast to coast. I can understand being disappointed, scared, and even overwhelmed by the constant deluge of hate in our cities and communities via physical violence and legislation. That makes sense, especially for those of us whose lives, or their family, friends, and communities, are in danger. But shock? How is anyone still shocked after those harming many of us have been explicitly clear about why they aim to harm and kill others? At this point, there's a legitimate precedent that many communities are in constant danger due to bigotry and white supremacy. It's undeniable what's going on around us. So what are y’all still shocked about? 

That’s like going to KFC and being shocked that they fry chicken.

How are some people still so willing to try and rationalize or intellectualize harm to others? How are some people still so taken aback or surprised that a country built from colonialism, white supremacy, enslavement, and genocide is still perpetuating those original sins? The level of privilege, the lack of humanity, humility, and empathy, and the learned generational ability to shut out anything you don’t want to acknowledge while the world burns around you in some U.S. Americans is wild to watch.

I bet some of y’all are the kinds of people that are shocked that Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors.

Shake my damn head.