Just a little dab of racialism

In the Age of Trump the line for “real racism” keeps getting moved, to the point where if somebody isn’t wearing a white robe and a pointy hat and screaming the N word in front of burning cross, then suggesting any sort of racist motivation or subtext or insensitivity is just PC censoring etcetera etcicero.

Still, here’s the lede for a NYT piece on the surprising presence of post-neolithic foodways in Tucson:

There are food deserts, those urban neighborhoods where finding healthful food is nearly impossible, and then there is Tucson.

When the rain comes down hard on a hot summer afternoon here, locals start acting like Cindy Lou Who on Christmas morning. They turn their faces to the sky and celebrate with prickly pear margaritas. When you get only 12 inches of rain a year, every drop matters.

Coaxing a vibrant food culture from this land of heat and cactuses an hour’s drive north of the Mexican border seems an exhausting and impossible quest. But it’s never a good idea to underestimate a desert rat. Tucson, it turns out, is a muscular food town.

What is this I don’t even . . .

Call me a hyper-sensitive Person of Mexican Heritage, but I kinda doubt the Times would, for instance, write a piece on the foodie scene in Stockholm that would lead off with the observation that it’s hard to coax a vibrant food culture out of a land where the soil is locked into plow-repelling permafrost and fresh vegetables are only available three and a half weeks a year.

Not to mention the tortured metaphors and generally horrible writing. Editors anyone?