Photo Courtesy of Flickr/catharticflux
emember the New York Observer’s nasty critique of Marcus Samuelsson and his new book in June? You know — the one that says the Red Rooster doesn’t belong in Harlem because real Harlemites prefer Ms. Mamie’s, Amy Ruth’s and takeout? Yeah, that silly article.
Well Marcus Samuelsson took the time in an interview with the Washington Post to clean the Observer’s clock. Here’s the relevant excerpt. The Post interviewer’s name is Tim Carman and his initials TC.
MS: That’s also giving it a lot of thought. The other quick answer is that maybe he wanted to punch up.
TC: Punch up?
MS: Are you kidding me? It’s a joke. You’re dealing with a guy who doesn’t want to enter a conversation. Even discussing it is a waste of time. I trust the New York Times. I trust The Washington Post. I trust the New York Herald. I trust the Tribune. I trust the journalists that I’ve read and that have carefully thought about what to [say], and then render their judgment. I also trust my own work. I have zero interest to get into people who want to get famous. There’s two ways to get famous. There used to be one way: You worked really hard, and you were really good. That was the only way to get known. I still believe in that one. So if I poured a beer on you and we put that on YouTube, maybe we’ll get 4 million hits. I have zero interest in that.
I can tell you my reality: I moved myself from Midtown 10 years ago. I looked at Harlem, at 22 percent unemployment. I look at that block where [Red] Rooster is today, where there’s zero unemployment. I look at the 110 employees that I have, where 80 of them come from Harlem. I’m not here to defend garbage; I trust my work. It takes an incredible amount of effort, an incredible amount of skill to do that. To even answer garbage, why should I lower myself to that level? I, as a mentor, as a mentee, as an employee, as a chef, I have a responsibility, and it’s not to go bottom fishing and enter garbage. It is to rise above and be the person that I set out to [be]. So I hold myself to that standard. Garbage will come.
Criticism is part of the creative man’s journey, and I appreciate it. Garbage is not part [of it]. I see the game. The game is about punching up today. The game is about ‘Here’s somebody that does something great. Well, rather than applaud it, I can now punch up and be part of that conversation.’ What’s fascinating today is that . . . before, there was not an outlet for that garbage, and today, real platforms are actually writing about that. That’s what’s fascinating to me; the real platforms are lowering their guard.
I don’t know Samuelsson personally, but Eddie Huang’s essay was ridiculous.
Yes, other black chefs deserve attention. Yes, Samuelsson would probably get far less attention if he didn’t have white adoptive parents or if he were an Ethiopian chef serving Ethiopian food. But an article by an Asian-American man telling an African-American man that he shouldn’t open a restaurant in Harlem that employs 110 people — the vast majority of them black and from Harlem — is something that only the attention-desperate Internet can produce.
It might be hard for Eddie Huang to imagine that Harlem residents and non-residents are capable of enjoying Amy Ruth’s, Miss Mamie’s, Sister’s Caribbean, and Red Rooster. The old and the new are not mutually exclusive. Red Rooster is always packed with locals and outsiders because it’s one of the few places in the neighborhood where we can get dressed up for a night out. And what exactly is wrong with luring crowds of Upper East and West Siders to Harlem and getting them to spend money here?
About the Author
This was a great write up, and also my first time reading about Red Rooster or Samuelsson. On one hand, I agree with many of the comments on the initial Chuang article citing his jealousy of Samuelsson and his ulterior motives to garner attention to his own “tepid” restaurant(s) which reflect number two of the ‘two ways to get famous’ sentiment that Samuelsson illustrates above. On the other hand, I also think that many of the comments that subsequently harangue Chuang for his racial inauthenticity, his anachronistic appraisal of Harlem, and misguided references to hypocritical black figures for political correctness-sake reflects a mutually exclusive relationship between notions of authenticity and stigmatization.
The problem I have with these comments and perspectives lies within this relationship. While we are disavowing Chuang’s article (rightfully) for his racial unfamiliarity and his attention-seeking critique (‘garbage’ according to Samuelsson) of Samuelsson’s stake in the Harlem soul food scene, we also describe how egregiously erroneous it is for a Chinese man (first generation born) who makes ‘inauthentic’ food to comment on anything as ethnically inspiring as the upwardly mobile representation of black Harlem residents that Samuelsson’s background affords. It sounds like a (wrongfully)collective high-brow, ‘How dare you! Chuang you are obviously crazy to have the audacity to challenge the authenticity of a black man!’ which is in defense of ‘keeping it real’ and being ‘really different’ at the same time.
It reflects a sentiment culinary Historian Michael Twitty articulates in the article, which is “we have to walk a very fine line between exceptionalism and tokenism”. I personally think sometimes we are far too busy celebrating our individual cultural maturity that subtly “divides and conquers” instead of creatively solving this problem of tokenism myopia and balancing ourselves to as Twitty observes ‘put that stereotype to death’. When when we are prolific in the skin that we are in it draws a lot of attention far and wide. But can people of color be objective enough to see that Samuelsson as a Black Swede is someone who is possibly influenced by ‘racist swedish cake’ as a joke? Because Samuelsson is black he feels he has the ‘green light’ and racial familiarity to proliferate the stigmatization of black males when according to Chuang’s quotation of his memoir he writes:
“The women of color and the gay men of color really thrived in the early days,” he writes, but “the straight black men came in with a chip on their shoulders the size of Lil Wayne’s gold teeth and they stepped to me with all the impatience and fury of men who did not know how to deal with authority figures.” Really??
Would we (white, black, etc) be able to criticize Chuang in the same way for appraising the authenticity of Samuelsson’s restaurant if he were black? Or even better, would we be able to thoroughly challenge, and disavow Chuang if he inherited the same racial complexity and ethnic challenges (via adoption) as Samuelsson’s? I think we understand that gentrification comes with it’s remixes, and it’s ups and downs, but discussion of the benefits Harlemites accrue and how class structures converge upon culture becomes a gray area when someone with a racial background as complex as Samuelsson’s can assert himself to make analogies like the one mentioned above, and Chuang can be harangued as a Chinese man for exposing some of Samuelsson’s shortcomings, and because of his article (and ill-fated business reviews) become vulnerable to exposing on his own.
Thanks for this thoughtful response!
I agree that the statement about “men who don’t know how to deal with authority figures” sounds fishy. But I haven’t read Samuelsson’s book, so it’s hard for me to say — without the full context — what he may have meant by it. (Remember the flap over Obama saying “You didn’t building that. Somebody else did that.”) And I’m reluctant to trust Huang — not because he’s Asian — but because he doesn’t grasp that a lot of Harlemites want restaurant diversity. I cited his racial identity only because I think it’s ironic that he questions someone else’s right to be in Harlem.
I agree that gentrification has its ups-and-downs. And I’m a strong believer in affordable housing and mixed-income developments. But if I hear a black person say Harlem doesn’t need a shi-shi restaurant like Red Rooster — especially with the subtext of challenging Samuelsson’s authenticity — I’d respectfully challenge them. I don’t think Red Rooster is Harlem’s problem. The real problem starts with a NYC housing policy that too easily deregulates rent-controlled apartments and an economic policy that underutilizes black labor, causing 50 percent unemployment in NYC within the past 12 months.
Harlemites are right to be angry about those problems and a lot more. But blaming Samuelsson for trying to start a business and employ people in the community seems wrongheaded to me.
You’re welcome. I’m a frequent visitor and big fan of the website!
I haven’t read Samuelsson’s book either and I also do not have the full context to refute or agree with Huang’s ( not Chuang, oops) claim even though it is quite possible that Samuelsson’s comment was that visceral, and needed no context at all. Agreed it is honorable, and good policy of Samuelsson to hire people from the neighborhood his business is located in. Samuelsson’s business is one of many examples of economic turnaround and growth in Harlem but as long as housing policies like you mentioned exist there will always be many more problems that gentrification creates in all spheres of life.
It affects education in similar ways as well. Many schools that become gentrified in the inner city (e.g. Beacon School) tend to operate to exclude brown and black people and adopt cultures of ‘concerted cultivation’ which are more likely to hire out-of-towners, and cater to those that can afford rising housing and subsequent educational costs. There is always something to be done.
thanks for alerting me to this controversy – very interesting!
Great write up and you conclusions is entirely right, Harlem needs the diversity of a Red Rooster in the mix. These types of changes are the ones that can bring dignity to a community that needs and deserves it. Thanls for shedding a light on the critique and chef’s response.
Gladly! Thanks for reading.