‘We have been complicit’: How Bon Appetit went from a classic American brand to a woke flagship

Events of 2020 hastened magazine's reinvention as a platform using cooking as vehicle to "talk about each other's race, identity, culture in the most delicious way."

[justthenews.com]

"We have been complicit with a culture we don't agree with and are committed to change. Our mastheads have been far too white for far too long."

That was the message from staff at Bon Appetit last year, who issued a lengthy "long-overdue apology" in early June amid the frenzied explosion of Black Lives Matter-led activism throughout the country.

Launched in the mid-1950s, Bon Appetit remained a flagship of American food publishing into the 21st century. It bills itself as the "leading arbiter of taste" and has won numerous expert and readership awards, including placing multiple years in the National Magazine Awards' General Excellence rundown. The New York Times in 2010 called it "the biggest old-guard food magazine left standing."

But the storied cooking magazine was among the many brands that took a strong left-wing stance last year in response to the wave of bitter, often violent, sometimes deadly racial activism that swept the U.S. in 2020. Following a staff shakeup last summer amid allegations that leadership was racially discriminatory and insufficiently ethnically diverse, the magazine has taken on a distinctly woke vibe, its food content very often dovetailing with progressive political goals.

Bon Appetit began last year's transformation innocuously, promising in January of 2020 that its test kitchen would "be more sustainable" throughout the year. By June, its staff had issued their "long-overdue apology," a missive that came in the immediate wake of the resignation of the magazine's editor Adam Rapoport amid a bizarre Instagram scandal.

An old photo had surfaced of Rapoport and his wife Simone Shubuck in Halloween costumes resembling Puetro Rican street attire. Critics had claimed Rapoport had dressed himself up in "brownface," though the picture did not appear to show him in makeup and Rapoport himself expressly denied having painted his face in any way.

The longtime editor nevertheless resigned. In their apology, the staff called the photo "horrific" and claimed that it spoke to "the much broader and longstanding impact of racism" at the magazine.

Major shakeups at the institution followed throughout the year. Multiple stars of the brand's popular Test Kitchen departed over claims that the magazine and its parent company, Conde Nast, were not doing enough to address alleged racism within the organization. Two black editorial staff members resigned in August.

The magazine in late 2020 installed black writers Dawn Davis and Marcus Samuelsson as its new editor-in-chief and brand adviser, respectively. Davis expressed a desire to use the magazine to "change the way we even think about food" and signaled Bon Appetit's upcoming shift to "being more diverse in terms of stories, in terms of voices."

Samuelsson, meanwhile, said he and other new hires had been working to "transform the platform and add value to it," claiming: "Cooking could be this incredible, delicious way where we can talk about each other's race, identity, culture in the most delicious way … [T]hat's one of the things that I look forward to at Bon Appétit: telling more untold stories, so we work to a more equal food community, equitable table."

Throughout last summer and into this year, the magazine has pushed the style of racial activism that dominated much of the U.S. political scene last year, urging readers to support black-owned restaurants, giving major ink space to claims of racism in the restaurant industry, examining how the original Black Panther Party's food program "laid the groundwork for modern activism," and profiling efforts to address the wine industry's "diversity, equity and inclusion" problems.

Bon Appetit declined to comment for this report. In its "apology" from last summer, meanwhile, the staff of the magazine signaled that their struggle was only just beginning.

"This is just the start," they said. "We want to be transparent, accountable, and active as we begin to dismantle racism at our brands."

As I have said previously -

The Left has made everything Political.

The Left has made everything 'racist.'

Case in point:

Roads/Highway System is now 'Racist'

The Agenda Behind Buttigieg’s Claim That Highways Are ‘Racist’

Midcentury road projects displaced blacks and whites alike. Tearing them down now won’t help.

[www.wsj.com]

The Biden administration claims that its proposed $2 trillion infrastructure program would accomplish everything from expanding mass transit to launching an era of green energy. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has articulated another ambitious goal recently: reversing the “racist” history of America’s highway system.

“Black and brown neighborhoods have been disproportionately divided by highway projects or left isolated by the lack of adequate transit and transportation resources,” Mr. Buttigieg tweeted in December. In an interview earlier this month, he reiterated that “there is racism physically built into some of our highways” and said the infrastructure program includes money “specifically committed to reconnect some of the communities that were divided by these dollars.”

The average American might not think of highways as relics of Jim Crow. But some urban planners claim that building the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s evolved into a plot to segregate black neighborhoods. The point of running new highways, the theory goes, was providing middle-class whites with a path into suburbia. Academic literature is filled with studies with titles like “Segregation Along Highway Lines” and “White Men’s Roads Through Black Men’s Homes: Advancing Racial Equity Through Highway Reconstruction.”

Activists now argue it’s time to right those wrongs, including by dismantling roadways in the same way vandals have been pulling down Civil War monuments. “Want to tear down insidious monuments to racism and segregation? Bulldoze L.A. freeways,” a Los Angeles Times opinion piece argued last summer. In New Orleans, activists want to tear down a section of the Claiborne Highway that crosses the traditionally black Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans.

***************

Buttigieg Accuses Interstate Highway System of Racism

The only thing wrong with the interstate system is the missing pieces.

[www.wsj.com]

Pete Buttigieg seems not to know the underpinnings of the Interstate Highway System (“The Agenda Behind Buttigieg’s Claim That Highways Are ‘Racist,’ Steven Malanga, op-ed, April 20). Called the National Defense Interstate Highway System, it was built to provide roads for national emergencies. The lane widths, clearances and grades were all designed to accommodate military equipment.

At the time, some said bypassing towns would kill them. Others said it would remove traffic that had no intention of stopping. Many urban areas were crisscrossed. While some neighborhoods were disrupted, many gained easy access to jobs and services. Many thought it wonderful to be able to drive from New York to San Francisco without a single traffic light. The only thing wrong with the current interstate system is the missing pieces. If Mr. Buttigieg really wanted to do some good, he would put completion on his agenda.

Villanova professor encourages adoption of Critical Race Theory due to its roots in Marxism

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