An ethnic studies professor wonders why it took so long for James Corden's "Spill Your Guts" segment to be seen as racist

The New York Times

The Late Late Show has been doing its “Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts” segment since 2016. Yet its potential to offend didn't receive widespread notice until 24-year-old Kim Saira created a petition earlier this month calling for the segment to end. While Corden has previously used British food from his homeland such as haggis and a smoothie with fish, chips and mushy peas, his repeated portrayal of Asian food as disgusting has been the source of the recent controversy. Lok Siu, an associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Ethnic Studies, said the segment disrespects people’s cultures. “Why is this not seen as racist immediately?” Siu said. “If he made fun of any other group, would there be a much more broader understanding that that’s racist? It’s not immediately thought of as being racist and damaging because it’s Asian food. There is such a denial of anti-Asian racism in the U.S., and this is a prime example of it.” Siu added: “You use food as a metaphor to describe that distance, the kind of strangeness between a group of people that you don’t understand and their habits, the way they’re eating, the smell that comes with the spices. There’s something around the way we discuss food, the way we think about food in our acceptance or rejection of it, it’s a rejection of a culture and the people that’s associated with it.”