I've been refining my take after reading some interpretation and explanations and this is final take:
Not every book will or should be for a white audience. It should cater to whoever they want. But the tweet also also seems to assume that every non white person has sufficient knowledge of their own culture to understand everything being written. Of course maybe that kind of person is not the intended audience which is also fine, but it's a bit alienating to be told that you're not entitled to learn about your own culture just because some random :lmayo: might benefit from a free translation
And no, this is not written by some mad white guy who doesn't understand what shawarma means. It's coming from an Asian immigrant who's far removed from his culture with little resources in English to learn about it.
within the context of fiction, yeah it doesn't matter at all. there's an entire genre of literature with authors using fake words and random symbols and stuff in their writing, stuff doesn't have to be translated there. the only thing I found funny was the implication that nonwhite people are somehow more entitled to footnotes than white people are.