Pokimane hits back after cooking video sparks “frustrating” debate over her race

Pokimane told off critics after her cooking video, where she made a Korean-Moroccan fusion dish, ended up sparking a debate about her race.

Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys is a Moroccan-Canadian Twitch streamer. She emigrated from the North African country to Canada when she was four years old and speaks Arabic, French and English.

The topic of Pokimane’s race has come up among viewers from time to time, particularly when she unveiled her naturally curly hair in 2022 after years of wearing it straight on camera.

However, her race was once again brought into the spotlight after she uploaded a collaborative video with ChefBoylee on November 21, where the two put a Korean spin on tagine, a traditional Moroccan stew, to create a fusion dish featuring both of their cultures.

Aside from the comments lamenting that she’d “ruined” the tagine with cheese, Pokimane called out several remarks that seemed to accuse her of race-baiting, such as one that read: “Guys, don’t be fooled, she’s not Asian.”

“Some of the comments I’m getting are making me want to rip my hair out,” she admitted in a video on her Instagram stories. “…It’s just so frustrating. You guys know that over the years I have gotten a myriad of comments of people thinking that I’m Asian, which I don’t think is a bad thing.

“I don’t feel the need to go out of my way to correct people on my ethnicity or where I’m from, but I also feel like I try very hard to ‘put on’ Morocco because I’m very proud of being from Morocco. So to have people pretend like I’m pretending to not be Moroccan? Like, that’s the whole point of the video!”

Pokimane concluded her thoughts in a third video, where she explained she was fatigued by the sheer amount of remarks “invalidating” her experiences as a Moroccan person.

“I get so tired of the kind of energy that people come at me with, or at others, when it comes to our ethnicity, or where we’re from, or our lived experience. I just don’t get it,” she said.

This is far from the first time Pokimane’s race has come up as a hot topic on social media. In fact, German-Filipino streamer Valkyrae said she was baffled by viewers saying the two look alike, exclaiming, “Poki’s not even Asian, she’s Moroccan. I don’t see it.”