Alton Brown Image by Getty/Ilya S. Savenok/Stringer

By PJ Grisar November 11, 2020

Last night, Food Network host Alton Brown — a lifelong conservative but a Biden voter this time around — tossed a query out to the internet about the future dress code of America: “Do you think the camp uniforms will be striped, like the ones at Auschwitz or will plaid be in vogue?”

Brown, who later deleted the tweet, was immediately challenged by a number of Twitter users who, rightly, resented his utterly excessive and unnecessary invocation of the Holocaust. When one user said, “Yikes dude. Take it easy.” Brown replied, “F—k you.” He also made a reference to the fact that his value at any future concentration camp might be lesser as he has “no gold filings.” Wow. Way to make it even worse somehow.

Even those who sympathized with Brown’s apparent intimation that, given President Trump’s apparent coup-in-progress, we are now particularly vulnerable to totalitarianism, wasted no time calling the Deacon of Food Science out for his offensive reference. Some screenshotted the tweets. Antisemitism Cow mooed. Some were moved to compare him unfavorably to the self-proclaimed Mayor of Flavortown, Guy Fieri.

Brown has issued a mea culpa, tweeting, “I apologize for the flippant reference I made to the Holocaust in my tweet last night. It was not a reference I made for humorous effect but rather to reflect how deeply frightened I am for our country. It was a very poor use of judgement and in poor taste.”

Got it. I guess.

We’re all worried here, Alton, but that’s no reason to trot out other people’s traumas to make your point.

PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture reporter. He can be reached at Grisar@Forward.com.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount