Call it cutlery supremacy. Call it basic table manners. The fact remains that Zohran Mamdani does not know how to use a knife and fork. Or rather, he selectively forgets that ability. 

An interview by ‘Uncivilized Media’ from 2023 captures Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, tucking into a rice-packed tinfoil bowl. Sans cutlery. (RELATED: Critical Piece Of Socialist Rising Star’s Platform Exposed As Total Bogus)

“This is how we defeat the occupation,” Zohran tells the camera as he prepares to eat. “Style.”

Earlier, Mamdani eagerly orders “biryani and some eggplant” at a (presumably) South Asian eatery. 

Zohran is clearly way more comfortable eating with a knife and fork which shows that his video eating rice with his hands was a performance art piece for white leftists who love that kind of thing pic.twitter.com/tkIFyjTDCm

— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) June 30, 2025

“When you’re a South Asian Muslim growing up in New York City, there aren’t too many places you can feel at home,” Mamdani confesses. “And this is one of those avenues where, for me, and for so many others, you can be yourself,” he says, in reference to the restaurant. 

I can believe that a “South Asian Muslim growing up in New York City” in the 2000s might feel out of place. Particularly after moving there at the age of seven from Uganda. But what right does Mamdani have to feel at home in NYC? 

There is an entire subcontinent in which Mamdani can easily procure South Asian cuisine, and eat it in his preferred manner, no less. It’s known as South Asia. 

An American tourist would rightly feel out of place in Rourkela, India, where Mamdani’s mother was born. Were the American tourist to lament the lack of hamburgers in Bombay, or subtly indict his host country for that lack, I would give him the same advice I’d give anyone who shares Mamdani’s complaints: “Leave. Go home.” 

Civilized people in America don’t eat like this.

If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World. https://t.co/TYQkcr0nFE

— Congressman Brandon Gill (@RepBrandonGill) June 30, 2025

As Republican Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas wrote on X: “Civilized people in America don’t eat like this. If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World.”

But I don’t actually believe Mamdani’s contention that he feels most himself when shoveling rice into his mouth with his fingers. This is the same man who ate a burrito with a fork and knife on the NYC subway.

Mamdani’s performance in this video appeals to his two major voting blocs: South Asians and white (and reasonably assimilated) liberals. The former is supposed to find Mamdani’s routine “relatable.” The latter is supposed to overcome their disgust response and praise Mamdani’s fearless commitment to flouting Western norms. Think: Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York speaking Spanish in Congress without initially providing a translation. (RELATED: Aging Democrats Are Bleeding Voters — Their Replacements Smell Blood In The Water)

bon appétit from the q train pic.twitter.com/TQXtjkiLnh

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) March 8, 2025

Mamdani is nothing if not a performer. Before politics, he attempted a rap career, taking on the moniker “Young Cardamom.” His real skill is in accents, though, of which he possesses an impressive and often changing variety. He even writes to his wife in an odd, zoomer patois. 

More than any claimed identity, Mamdani is a theater kid. In that sense, he’s assimilated perfectly into a certain globalist strain. Just not into any culture that could be considered truly “American.” Nor South Asian, for that matter.