# MSG and racism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 4, 2020, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/msg-and-racism/927200 "2020-12-04T14:12:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/msg-and-racism/927200/41 "2020-12-16T16:23:52Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I am, of course, assuming the “from somewhere else” definition of foreign, no the “unknown” definition. If the guy just has never tasted haggis, but says he doesn’t like it, that’s a completely different flaw. (And I’m actually drawing a blank on what to call it. I just know that I don’t like people who say they don’t like something they’ve never tried.) For some years back in the ballpark 70s / 80s, the Guinness brewery company ran a series of ads for their eponymous stout themed: > Guinness: I’ve never tried it and I don’t like it! They were trying to break into the US market in a big way and make Guinness a mainstream product. At a time when Budweiser, Schlitz, and Pabst were most Americans’ idea of “beer” whereas Guinness was a rare specialty product found only at hard-core genuine English/Irish expat hangouts. In each episode, the character would loudly protest how they didn’t like Guinness, despite admittedly never having tried it. Their friend would inveigle them to have a sip which they’d take tentatively & dubiously. The ecstatic epiphany would immediately follow. “I’ve tried Guiness and I love it!” The campaign worked and in the US Guinness Stout became pretty much a mainstream product found in grocery stores and every ersatz “pub” in the land. Bottom line: I call what @BigT’s talking about the “Guinness effect”, but I don’t think anyone but me uses that phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2020, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/msg-and-racism/927200/42 "2020-12-16T17:33:25Z")
Yeah, there used to be a sort of meme (before anything was called a meme) about British people distrusting or expressing distaste for ‘foreign muck’ (which might be any kind of foreign food or drink) as ‘only fit for [insert racist term here]’ It’s hard to tell whether this was just blanket xenophobia, or whether that blanket was a closely stitched patchwork of many different pieces of specific racism. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2020, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/msg-and-racism/927200/43 "2020-12-16T19:37:02Z")
Yes, it’s like Mitford sisters’ father’s little saying: Abroad is beastly and all foreigners are fiends. Correction: Abroad is absolutely bloody… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2020, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/msg-and-racism/927200/44 "2020-12-17T02:54:40Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > If an English guy doesn’t like his Scottish grandparents’ haggis because it’s foreign, and he considers toad-in-the-hole superior because it’s English “that’s going to fall to racism”? Horseshit. That just isn’t what racism means. What if he refuses to eat haggis because you can’t trust Scottish people not to put weird chemicals in their food that make you sick? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2020, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/msg-and-racism/927200/45 "2020-12-17T05:56:50Z")
Scotch is not a weird chemical. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2020, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/msg-and-racism/927200/46 "2020-12-17T10:47:26Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Language evolves, sometimes in ways that don’t really make technical sense. Or _de_volves, in the hypothetical Princhester creates - it’s not so long ago that “The Anglo-Saxon Race” and “the Gaelic Race” would have been current terms. And racism would be perfectly _apropos_ . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/msg-and-racism/927200.md?page=2)