hard times for Bon Appétit

The Bon Appétit magazine and YouTube channel—which are all about food and are not political in any way—have been rocked by a scandalous double-whammy: (1) the resignation of producer Adam Rapoport after photos of him in "blackface" appeared online recently, and (2) the controversy stirred up by frequent contributor Sohla El-Waylly, who became very vocal about how BA (as it's called) has failed to pay its "people of color" staff at the same level as it pays its white staff. The Bon Appétit YouTube channel—to which I subscribe—has been eerily silent for over a week as a result; the channel used to put out several videos per week, even filming its popular chefs while they've been at home and engaged in "isolation" cooking.

I was pretty sure, from the beginning, that most of the staff at BA leans left. The test kitchen is in New York City, after all, so the odds that this crew is mostly conservative are slim. That being said, all the chefs do great work, with each one bringing his or her unique personality and style to the mix. I generally enjoy most of the little "sub-series" that BA produces, e.g., Brad Leone's "It's Alive," Claire Saffitz's "Gourmet Makes," and Chris Morocco's "Reverse Engineer." All of the shows steer clear of politics and concentrate on the making of decent food, a fact that I can appreciate as someone who is far from being on board with woke leftism. But wokeness doubtless permeates the behind-the-scenes reality of BA, and as BA has discovered, you can be woke, but you can never be woke enough. There is no pleasing the far left, and there will always be some scum-sucker who digs through your past in order to bring you down. This is what I think happened to Adam Rapoport. I saw the "blackface" picture in question (many new articles are calling it "brownface" because it satirizes Latino culture); it's less about blackface and more about dressing in a way that parodies a certain ethnicity—in this case, Puerto Rican (see the photo for yourself here). I personally didn't find the photo offensive, but I come from an era when people were more relaxed about their own and each other's ethnicity, which was a standard topic for standup comedy. Americans' collective sense of humor has been draining away over the last few decades; the PC scolds are winning the battle by preaching the evil gospel that humor should never be at anyone else's expense.

Sohla El-Waylly's case is related, but a bit different, and there might be more substance to this controversy. El-Waylly is both a chef on the show and an assistant editor for BA's magazine. Recently, she complained about how BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) staffers were not compensated fairly compared to white BA staffers. If it's true that minority staffers have been unfairly compensated for doing essentially the same work as white staffers (which is exactly what El-Waylly alleges), then I'd agree that this is a grave injustice that must be rectified. El-Waylly publicly complained about this problem during an emergency Zoom conference among BA staffers (story here), and Adam Rapoport—who was in a position of responsibility at BA and would have had a hand in things like the fair or unfair payment of staffers—resigned the same day. You don't get a lot of love when you're the guy in brownface who unfairly pays his minority staffers.

So BA is in turmoil as it sorts this thing out, and for the time being, it seems that the company isn't producing any new videos until it figures the best way out of this PR nightmare. As for me: when it comes to the question of diversity for diversity's sake—i.e., forced diversity—I think that's nonsense. At the same time, Bon Appétit is supposed to be a show about diverse culinary traditions, so if the emphasis is already on diversity, then BA had damn well better pay its staff fairly, no matter what any person's skin color is. Assuming that Sohla El-Waylly isn't grandstanding or race-baiting (I don't know her history), she is pointing out a huge problem that needs to be resolved now. I hope BA manages to untangle itself soon so I can go back to watching its well-produced, entertaining, and educational videos.