When we first launched Thug Kitchen in 2012, we wanted our name to signal our brand’s grit in the otherwise polished and elitist food scene. Over the years, as our critics pointed out the racist connotations of two white people using the word “thug,” we tried to contextualize it by talking about our backgrounds and our beliefs.
We realize, however, that whatever our original intention, our use of it reflected our privilege and ignored the reality that the word is assigned to black people in an attempt to dehumanize them. That’s f*cked up and not at all what we want to stand for. We apologize. We recognize we need to do better.
Our endgame is to widen the table in our country’s conversation around food and add more chairs. We want our body of work to reflect inclusivity and empathy. In that spirit, we will change the name of our company and website; discontinue the use of Thug Kitchen as the title of all our previous cookbooks; and closely re-evaluate the content of each book. These changes are underway but will take a little while longer while we finish the work. We’re serious about being advocates for change and that starts with us.
