This may be a circumstance in which I underestimated the effect of my Autism, if you are correct. The garnish stuff is a good point, that is basically universally done.
It is possible that, in addition to the cultural context of my raising, I just in general prefer more homogeneity in my food aesthetically in addition to generally preferring to eat the same few things all the time. Wouldn’t be super surprising, now that I think about it.
I would imagine this sort of effect is entirely cultural and based upon what sort of foods an individuals culture/subculture considers valuable.
I don’t really see any reason why any of the dishes you describe would be intrinsically more aesthetically appealing than Italian food other than ones cultural/subcultural standards for what good food ‘should’ look like. It is not as if any of these dishes, Italian or not, are somehow closer to some platonic ideal of Human Food. If such a platonic ideal did exist it’d surely be the cuisine of an African hunter-gatherer from a very, very long time ago - which probably didn’t look like gumbo or xiaochao stir fry.
I grew up in a context where Italian-American food was prized as the best and according to my brain that stuff ‘looks’ good in a way that the dishes you describe do not. It’s all just cultural programming at the end of the day, with individual variation, naturally.
Yeah, I’ve noticed among white queers for example that this has caused a lot of rapid radicalization/fear and despair.
It was obvious to me that I’d be directly in danger eventually, but this shit hit me particularly hard because it meant that I am now, personally, am actively in mortal danger on like 1.5 different fronts right now, and I’ve seen that effect a lot amongst my peers.
It probably helps further in this case that this seems to have a major queerbashing element - I am convinced that a large part of why Renee Good was murdered was because she was visibly lesbian in front of the ICE goons.
It’s no longer just horrible but not something that directly endangers a lot of people personally - this is now an imminent threat for a LOT of people in a way it wasn’t, or at least didn’t feel like, before.