Superiority complex and cultural ignorance among the White race is still strong and present in today’s world — regarding racist comments on Zohran Mamdani eating rice with bare hands

Civilized people in America don’t eat like this.

If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World. https://t.co/TYQkcr0nFE

— Congressman Brandon Gill (@RepBrandonGill) June 30, 2025

Is he… eating with his hands? pic.twitter.com/3JLP2BaXiX

— Jack (@jackunheard) October 20, 2025

The superiority complex among individuals in the Western world, and the ignorance demonstrated in expressing it, are still as absurd as ever. The criticism of Zohran Mamdani’ s eating etiquette exposes that little progress has been made in Western mentality towards the rest of the world. A U.S. congressman and public figure in today’ s world could openly and publicly, without shame, imply that the dining etiquette of another culture is uncivilised for no other reason than that it is not the same as Western or White dining etiquette. In a sane world, this would be career suicide.

Not only are the hypocrisy and double standards obvious, and the attempts to argue the “backwardness” of eating rice with one’s hands extremely poor in reasoning and logic, but the mentality that the West dictates what is right and proper in others’ culture is still strongly present.

The double standard, of course, is that if they eat French fries, crisps, hotdogs, burgers, pizzas, burritos, sandwiches, chicken wings and popcorn with their hands, there’s nothing to criticise. But if it is rice, it’s unhygienic, backward, and barbaric.

Hygiene is a fair point in determining progress versus backwardness. But there is nothing to justify eating rice with bare hands at the dining table or in restaurants, where one has access to running water and soap, as being less hygienic than eating popcorn with bare hands in the dark in a cinema, where sanitation is unavailable until leaving.

A more sophisticated argument against eating rice with bare hands is that if it requires you to put your fingers into your mouth, then you should be using utensils. This argument is “not bad” because it eliminates Western foods like hotdogs, burgers, pizza, French fries, and crisps, but it doesn’t eliminate popcorn and other finger foods.

Regardless of the “not bad” argument, using hygiene as a reason is a dishonest excuse for criticising eating rice with bare hands. What justifies the idea that washing your hands before and after meals is any less hygienic than washing utensils before and after every meal when handling food with utensils that will later be reused?

Some even argue that it is disgusting because he isn’t using bread or “roti” to scoop the rice before placing it in his mouth. Others argue that it is acceptable to eat with bare hands on a banana leaf or while sitting on the floor, but not when wearing a suit in a restaurant. I consider this a “not bad” argument as well. But this argument introduces an important element into the discussion, which it then ignores — eating customs and etiquette based on the dish. Mamdani was eating, briyani, an Indian dish which has also been localised in Southeast Asia. Mamdani was eating biryani, an Indian dish that has also been localised in Southeast Asia. Saying that biryani rice should be scooped with bread is like saying popcorn should be eaten with chopsticks. Both alternative methods are still feasible, but based on the dish, that’s not how it’s eaten culturally.

There are at least four large cultural groups that eat rice as their main staple food — South and Southeast Asians, the Arab world, Afro-Africans, and East Asians. In all except East Asia, rice is meant to be eaten with the bare hands. In East Asia, rice is mostly semi-sticky, allowing it to be eaten with chopsticks. In South and Southeast Asia, another method of eating rice is with a fork and spoon. Our utensils are not the knife and fork, as dishes like steak and fish and chips are not local dishes. When using utensils, we use the concave part of the spoon to hold the rice before placing it into our mouths, not the convex part of the fork, as some Westerners might do or even dictate as correct. Not only is it odd to use a utensil with gaps in it, let alone the convex part, to hold rice — it’s simply impractical.

You would never come across a South or Southeast Asian, Arab, or African dictating to an East Asian that they are eating their own dish wrongly because they’re using chopsticks. You would never hear an East Asian dictate to other cultures that they’re eating their dishes wrongly for not using chopsticks. You would never hear an Arab or African dictate to South or Southeast Asians how to eat rice with their bare hands (our techniques differ) or vice versa. And yes, it is perfectly acceptable to eat rice dishes with bare hands in these cultures while wearing formal attire in restaurants — just as it is acceptable to eat East Asian dishes with chopsticks in a formal setting.

You would never hear non-Westerners dictating to Westerners that they’re eating their own cultural dishes wrongly — be they British, Italian, French, or Mexican dishes, or finger foods. But it is the non-rice-eating peoples who want to dictate to rice-eating peoples how to eat rice. Westerners no longer criticise chopsticks as backward due to their supposed lack of complexity compared to silverware, nor call raw fish in Japanese cuisine “disgusting” — because of their familiarity with East Asian cuisines in today’s world. They would be quick to call out such criticism as cultural ignorance, yet fail to see that the same applies to eating rice in South and Southeast Asian cuisines.

Sadly, in modern society, it remains the norm for Westerners to dictate to non-Westerners what is “right” in their own customs and cultures — not based on hygiene or practicality, but purely out of cultural ignorance and cultural superiority complex — i.e. racism.

The other hypocrisy in this topic is that it is often voiced by people who walk around with faecal matter in their underwear in public on a societal level. This is not a small percentage or anomaly in Western society — it is almost all of them. In terms of sanitation, it is fair to call this practice dirty, backward, and barbaric.

The separation of defecation and faecal matter from public spaces — whether through sanitation, irrigation, or any technology that promotes hygiene — is one of the key signs of progress and civilisation. Yet most Western societies have not progressed in this area.

Societies that wash away faecal matter from the body after defecation follow a simple rule: as long as there is texture, colour, or smell of faecal matter, it is still considered unclean. This eliminates the need for scientific instruments to detect molecular traces. We wash until there is no more texture, colour, or smell from our anus and the hand used to wash — traditionally the left hand, as most people are right-handed and use the right for handling objects and greeting others. The Western world, to this day, still walks around with the smell, stain, and texture of faecal matter in their underpants when they go to school, to work, to social events, or to visit friends and family.