Why not serve fried chicken on Juneteenth? How is it different from serving corned beef on St. Patrick’s day?
Disclaimer: I am not trolling, I am an autistic person who doesn’t understand so many social nuances. Also I am from New Hampshire (97% white), so I just don’t have any close African-American friends that I am willing to risk asking such a loaded question.
Watermelon and chicken were two of the ways that black people started supporting themselves after being freed from slavery. They were agricultural products they could raise with very little investment and start building wealth from essentially nothing. Racists, not wanting them to prosper, mocked them for their preference for these things, but it's important to note that the mockery didn't stop them from supporting themselves with the foods they were able to produce. To this day black people enjoy these foods, and there's nothing wrong with them enjoying the foods. If you're with your black family, and you want to celebrate your own heritage, this isn't actually a bad way to do it.
However.
When a corporation, particularly a corporation run and staffed by white people, makes a choice to celebrate a significant black cultural date by presenting people with foods that white people used to mock black people, it reads as mockery. (This is especially true in North Carolina, a place where racism is rampant and open.) At best, this is tone deaf; someone along the way should have said "hey, do you think any black people will feel like you're doing this as a racist attack?" And if any one of them had answered "yes" to that question, they wouldn't have done it. It made it through the pipeline to being something they actually did because nobody in the decision chain cares about the racist overtones of what they were doing.
If you're going to do anything to celebrate black history or black culture, failing to ask any black people what they think about it is racism. Cultural sensitivity would have meant getting some input from a few black folks about how they think it should be celebrated--and, had they done that, they would have avoided this mess.
And, just in case anyone was wondering, the VP in charge of this situation is white.
Thank you! TIL Black people were mocked for liking those foods. They are the best, racists are only hurting themselves if they don’t eat it!
It's kinda sweet you didn't know this actually.
If I recall correctly, some states even had laws against black people raising animals like cows (and maybe pigs too?), so chickens were their only option.
Ok, everything you just said is true, and a great answer if the question is "Why is chicken and watermellon a bad food to be assosiated with February/Juneteenth?".
However, the question is "Why is it different from corned beef on St. Patricks day?" And everything you just said is ALSO true about how Americans treated the Irish upon their mass immigration to America during the 1800s. They were mocked for corned beef, potatoes, and alcohol. The Irish were assosiated with those items in Ireland for the same reasons black people were assosiated with chicken, and watermellons. It was cheap, and it fed a poor mans family. The non-poor (whites) mocked them for being poor.
So......you gave a great answer, but not for this exact question. And yes, I know the original question didn't mention potatoes or alcohol, but it also applies for the same reasons.
I'm not saying what the company did was right, I'm saying those same racist stigmas for the holiday it was compared to is equally wrong.
I think a better answer is "It's not so different. Both are wrong."
I mean, OP replied to my answer and apparently liked it, so I think I got him squared. But here's a real response:
When the concept of whiteness was invented (yes, invented) it didn't originally include Irish people, and they did endure abuse and marginalization comparable to what black people have endured and continued to endure. Irish people were worked as near slaves, so they even have a lot of that in common. As you say, I think that if you were Irish in America in the early 19th century, people who already belonged to the White club would have mocked you for your corned beef. We still make fun of Irish people for these things.
But there is a difference. Irish people in modern times got access to whiteness. They were accepted as part of the in-group and no longer marginalized. When this happened, and it took decades to gradually go this direction, the mockery didn't disappear but, if you were Irish (and, in fact, I am) it would have started to feel less like someone who means you harm, and more as friendly teasing, precisely because you have access to the same power as the Germans and the British and so on who already belonged to the club.
Black people don't have that. Black people are still very much marginalized, still the victims of racism and violence and institutional exclusion. So piling the food-based racism on top of that, is going to feel a lot more painful.
It's one thing to be mocked; but to be mocked by someone else who is punching down is much worse.
It’s a real tell that they had no black person high enough in management to raise this concern.
In this day and age, either diversify or sign a contract with a “cultural awareness” agency to run your ideas by first.
You just made me so happy to be on Lemmy and not Reddit. Great answer!
Who's the company involved in this? I'm not in the US so I've probably missed a lot of context here.
I am in the US and this is the first I've heard of it. I thought it was just a hypothetical question until I started reading the comments.
Fried chicken has historically been used to mock black culture, not celebrate it
I don't understand that, though...
Fried chicken is fuckin delicious.
Everyone ate it too. The mockery was because
If you hate someone, anything they do can be something you use to express your hate, even if you do it to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_Chicken_Inn Black people and chicken was like leprechauns and breakfast cereal for a while.
Might be more life to serving just potatoes on St Pats from that perspective.
Why?
wikipedia has fairly fleshed out histories:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_chicken_stereotype
Probably a lot of black families actually do have fried chicken, barbeque and cookouts are apparently a big part of the festivities traditionally.
If you find yourself becoming such good friends with a black person that they actually invite you to one of these cookouts, don't bring fried chicken, or watermelons, or most of the stereotypical "black" foods, they're considered black people food because the post civil war south fostered an environment of chronic black poverty on purpose that led to black families tending towards raising cheaper animals and growing cheaper crops for their own consumption.
So a white guy cracking watermelon or fried chicken jokes or bringing that kind of stuff to a black celebration comes across less as trying to share in the culture and more as rubbing salt in a, in many ways still open, wound.
As for what you should bring, bro just ask. Just making it known ya want to bring something for folks to enjoy will be good and appreciated, and if they decide they'd like to take you up on that, they'll either give you a recipe off their list of stuff they've decided they want or ask what you think you can handle making and take your word on that if anything you feel confident making sounds good. Who knows, maybe that year will go down as the year that corned beef ya mentioned becomes a staple of the annual cookout!
What if they ask him to bring watermelon and chicken to the cookout? ;-)
Make sure you can go wide eyed enough that they start laughing if they were just razzing you
I'd argue it depends on who is serving it and what their intentions are. I don't think it's necessarily bad. I went to a local Juneteenth celebration and the food stands were serving some fried chicken, collard greens, jollof rice, etc.
Totally agree about intention. Food is not inherently racist it's all about intent.
Both tburkhol and I posted about Coon Chicken Inn -- a place for white people BY white people with a denigrating caricature of a black man as their logo (on their delivery vehicles, menu, and even entrances).
spujb links to the chicken stereotype.
It is one thing for a group of people to choose what food to serve themselves, and something else when an oppressed group is mocked, denied rights, and then illustrated as liking foods that EVERYONE likes as if those foods are somehow a hilarious thing for them to eat. Side note: Sooo many places serve fried chicken that the only reason it is racist is associations like Coon Chicken Inn (and the racism leading to its creation). Lots of BBQ places in particular serve collards as well as Caribbean spots. Jollof is specifically African (not American). If I see Jollof or Fufu on the menu, I'm hoping for cassava leaves instead of collards, but I understand it isn't as available in the U.S.
This question reminds me of when that school in NY got in trouble for serving "stereotype food" for black history month.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/06/us/aramark-black-history-month-menu-school-reaj/index.html
I have the same confusion as you do, OP. It appears to be a liked dish by all accounts across many races, upbringings, or religions. Unless you have dietary restrictions like Vegan or something.
I'm assuming this is one of the things that racists ruined. Like yeah people like fried chicken, but racist made it a "bad thing." It's kind of like now, you got to look out for the number 88, vikings, the okay sign, the gadsden flag, or punisher flag. It's not that mentioning fried chicken is necessary bad, but people are on edge because Nazi's are back. 1 of the dog whistles might be a coincidence, but you start collecting them and I start side eyeing my co-workers more.
Those damn dog whistles need to end, so we can all enjoy fried chicken and watermelon on Juneteenth.
This is not targeted at you nor OP.
The answer for both you and OP is tied to your last sentence
so we can all enjoy fried chicken and watermelon on Juneteenth.
Why fried chicken and watermelon and why on Juneteenth? Do you eat fried chicken and watermelon as part of your normal rotation? (Hopefully, 'yes' because both are delicious and everyone should be afforded the opportunity to indulge)
The issue is that very evidently in both OP's case and the one you linked that someone was given the prompts "food for celebration" and "celebration of African Americans", generated "African American party foods", and churned out a menu reinforcing racist stereotypes. The inquiry is "hey, where is your head at?"
I mean I get that. I just don't personally see it as that. I do eat fried chicken and watermelon (and other soul food like greens, sweet potatoes, etc). I don't eat them as much as I want because the places around me don't make good soul food anymore. The quality is down in my opinion.
I mentioned the day because all holiday celebrations include food. I also mentioned in my opinion, that everyone loves that type of food. I just didn't think of it as "black food" but I know it is stereotypically a trope. I think this understanding of other people's racist tropes and my love of celebrating with loved ones and good food is where I (and assuming OP) is coming from.
Is the main issue the intent? If you eat corned beef for St Paddy's or carne asada for Cinco de Mayo is that an issue? If we ask black people what we should eat for Black History Month or Juneteenth and they agreed that soul food is good then is it okay? Should we just stick to burgers and dogs like it's the 4th of July?
I feel we can never really have these conversations (IRL) because people assume what the other person means when they are trying to understand the reason behind it.
All that to say, we have to be extra vigilant because racists are everywhere pushing their agenda, so I understand that this trope could be insulting to some. I've also met black people that don't give it a second thought because the food is good and they were hungry.
Don't forget red hats, no more red hats without automatic suspicion... If they have white block text, amplify suspicion by 10,000
There's nothing wrong with fried chicken. There's nothing wrong with watermelon.
But if you're trying to think of menu options for an event associated with black history and you just shrug and think "I dunno, black people like fried chicken and watermelon, so lets do that" you're being so lazy you'd be better off doing nothing at all. I literally typed "black history food" into a search and got many pages with lists of options. So by serving fried chicken and watermelon it's a statement "I don't give a fuck about black people but since I'm obligated to serve some kind of food option I'm just going to stick with lazy stereotypes."
It wold be preferable to do nothing and be honest about not caring than it is to offer a stereotype and then cry crocodile tears because people aren't recognizing the token effort that was made.
Sorry to repost my reply from another thread, I hate to spam up the post but I feel like every American should know about the Minstrel Show
It wasn’t just a form of comedy, it was an entire entertainment industry all on its own, like movie theaters or concerts today. It eventually got replaced by/morphed into Vaudeville (still with blackface/black clowns) which was then replaced by cinema.
For a good 50-100 years, a major form of entertainment (not just in the South btw) was pretty much just: “haha black people are such stupid clowns! Look, that one thinks he’s fancy! That one’s a no-good drunk! Oh look, that one’s trying to give a speech!” It was pretty formulaic with standard props, just like you’d expect to see at a clown show. So fried chicken and watermelon were standard props like “tiny car full of clowns”, oversized shoes, a flower pot for a hat, a flower that squirts water, etc. For that reason they carry a very unpleasant legacy that reminds people of an insult to injury that still hasn’t been made right, in my opinion.
The format was pretty similar to the show Hee-Haw actually, kind of a fun variety show, just wildly racist and it’s obviously pretty fucked up to pick on literal slaves. Real bitch move there.
So people who know something about history are pretty salty about that and forms of the Minstrel Show were still happening here and there recently enough that people alive today remember seeing them.
Irish people caught some shit, but not like that. I’m not sure if Irish-American racism like that happened recently enough that living people remember it, or that it was ever to the extent that it formed an entire entertainment industry.
I suppose I'm in a similar situation with ppl in Vermont you don't really get to socialize with people and the few people you come across are never black. Infact I recall actually learning about fried chicken and watermelon being racist from the backlash from the school you just mentioned.
Others have given you solid answers on why the chicken and watermelon thing was really stupid so I'll try to answer from the Irish perspective on the second part of your question:
You can serve me corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's day as long as you're not being a dick about it. I'd probably consider it a nice effort actually if I happened to be abroad on the day.
My dad used to love corned beef, cabbage and potatoes with parsley sauce. It's a grand meal but not my thing.
If you were a unionist who served it to me in a leprechaun outfit I'd be inclined to tell you where to go though.
Edit: I hope this answers your question. It's a good question and the answer is nuanced so if I can offer you more perspective let me know, I'd be happy to help.
Historically fried chicken and watermelon are stereotypical foods associated with black Americans as part of minstrel shows, which were usually performed in blackface, and other racist portrayals of black people. Watermelon in particular was turned into a negative racial stereotype because growing watermelon was one way that emancipated slaves could be financially independent.
Fried chicken has been associated with enslaved black people since before the Civil War, because chickens were the only livestock they were allowed to keep. Well into the 20th century there were also white-owned restaurants and brands that drew on these stereotypical images over the protests of black people.
At best it is very ignorant of the history of racism in the US to have a fried chicken and watermelon special on Juneteenth, because the thought process is just black people holiday = fried chicken and watermelon. At worst it’s just signaling to other racists, which is definitely not an unviable business strategy in some parts of the US.
stereotypical foods associated with black Americans
It was a money thing. Poor people ate chicken, rich people ate beef or pork. It didn't just start with slaves, the frying method is literally Scottish in origin, which is why hillbillies were doing it too.
The insulting part was in ministrel shows, it was portrayed as "a taste of the highlife".
That they were excited for something hillbillies considered normal food. And most people looked down on hillbillies.
There's nothing wrong with fried chicken and watermelon. It's that for a serious event, they're having fried chicken and watermelon.
Like, imagine you have a big event, and that's what there is. Regardless of how much you like it, there's gonna be a pause.
That being said, I'm white, and fried chicken was literally the main course at every family event including weddings growing up. But that's because my family is all hillbillies. That's just what we do. We sure as shit didn't have someone cook it for us that didn't know how, it's one thing when the recipe is 200 years old and the same that your family has always been eating.
Not to mention the most important part of a chicken fry is everyone getting together. My family bitched and fought all the time. But if chicken was being fried it was like an elite military operation.
So getting a plate of bland fried chicken and unsalted watermelon just strips every good part of the tradition away, while reminding you that you could be celebrating.
And leaves the racist connotation.
THANK YOU for your input! My dad was born and raised in Missouri, and I was taught at an early age how to make “real” fried chicken, which is amazing. I couldn’t understand why it would be denigrated, but your reply explains it so well. And TIL watermelon should be salted!
Fried chicken should be served EVERY day.
Irish people are white.
They didn’t start out that way in America, because race is a social construct used by the state to achieve its ends and when a shit ton of Irish people were coming over to the United States to escape the manmade potato famine the terms of their acceptance into American society was that they’d be doing the shittiest work.
American society dealt with this contradiction by adopting the racial pseudoscience that put Irish people below “real whites”.
Whiteness isn’t something innate that can be measured objectively (although pseudoscientific methods claim to be able to do so!), it’s a basic subjective measure of where one stands in the white supremacist power structure.
The white supremacist power structure informs all sorts of stuff like can you get a loan, can you get insurance, do you need to be more afraid of dying to the cops than usual, how loud can you play your music, pretty much every aspect of life in America.
After Catholicism became more widely accepted in the us, and a shit ton of Irish people became cops (so that the white supremacist state could surveil their communities) Irish people were eventually considered white.
Black people in America aren’t white. That might seem like an obvious thing to say, but it’s important to be clear that the process of integration that the Irish immigrant wave went through was never really offered to black Americans.
A person could argue that we are living through that process right now and I think there is a process of integration going on but it’s not making black Americans part of the broader white American group but instead giving black Americans a seat at the table of capital. That’s a significantly different deal.
Anyway, there’s this thing called racism, which is where a society uses the completely made up category of race to discriminate against groups of people to achieve its ends.
Some examples of American racism are slavery, segregation, redlining, the treatment of agricultural workers, the treatment of rail workers, etc.
What’s important is that racism is when a society (or its members) discriminate against some group. There is power in the discrimination and it’s being used against a group.
If a bank decides not to lend to white people it doesn’t hurt white people because there’s literally all the other banks that they can go to and get loans. There is discrimination being used against a group in that example, but it has no power over them because they’ll just go to all the banks that (and I’m quoting directly from a Bank of America sign here) don’t “serve coloreds”.
Okay, so why am I saying this? We’re talking about food!
There’s an old stereotype that black people eat watermelon and fried chicken. There’s a long and storied history to the food stereotypes of black Americans but I’ll spare you the tangent and just say it’s visible in all sorts of Jim crow and segregation era media and arts and crafts stuff.
If you got one of those “antique mall” type places you can probably see some of it there.
During and before Jim Crow and segregation, those stereotypes were deployed to depict black Americans as at best ignorant country bumpkins and at worst subhuman apes.
So to serve the stereotypical food of a racist caricature on a day that is intended to remember the freeing of the last slaves is at best thoughtless reproduction of a racist stereotype and at worst malicious intentional reification of a racist stereotype!
But why isn’t it racist to serve corned beef on saint patricks day? Well for one thing, saint Patrick’s day isn’t seriously celebrated as a remembrance of Irish American culture or the experience of immigrants almost anywhere in the us. It’s one of the big four, a drinking holiday with a dress code.
It’s also not perpetuating harmful stereotype to run a homemade Reuben special on saint Patrick’s day. No one bites into a Rachel and thinks “lol, those dumb micks are only good for driving spikes, drinking and swearing allegiance to Rome” or “if only they could multiply the way they multiply, maybe they wouldn’t be so poor, sad!”
Now that’s not to say it’s racist to prepare or eat fried chicken or watermelon. As a southerner I got strong feelings about both.
But pretty much it boils down to Irish people are white.
E: I fucking made a stupid ass mistake and substituted greenwood for the freeing of the last slaves when describing the context of Juneteenth. My dumbass brain was going “tell em about how greenwood and Parrish street were about giving black Americans a seat at the table of capital, instead of equality under white supremacy” over and over again the whole time I was writing this stream of consciousness ass post and when I couldn’t find a place to shoehorn it in the ol’ brain took over and did it anyway. Thanks to fryhyde for pointing it out!
So not to nitpick here, but Juneteenth isn't intended to remember the destruction of any neighborhood. Black Wall Steet, Central Park, etc. were all significant things that happened, but not related to Juneteenth. It's the day that the last slaves in Texas were actually declared free by the Union army on June 19th in Galveston.
Thanks for catching that. I kept trying to figure out how to frame greenwood and Parrish street as similar early attempts to bring black Americans into the fold of capital, one of which saw a violent attack by the white hegemon that was opposed to expansion of capital to black Americans but it just kept not fitting.
I guess my brain just subbed it in cause I was turning it over in my head. Edited.
I feel like this all hinges on the assumption that black people do not proportionally like watermelon and fried chicken more than other groups of people. I'd be interested in some stats on that. A quick search brought up this study which shows that they do https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9884589/
However, now I have to wonder if they eat more chicken than other ethnic groups due to generational poverty and the fact that chicken has been historically the most affordable meat. I didn't have any success finding the answer to that question.
Regardless, those foods are delicious and I'd be happy if a tradition of eating watermelon and fried chicken for Juneteenth became more popular. What really matters is if any significant amount of people actually feel discriminated against for it or if the social justice warriors are picking this fight on behalf of people that don't actually care.
No.
Serving a dish which is part of the post slavery white supremacist negative stereotype of black Americans used to reify the Jim Crow and segregationist regimes on the day set aside to mark the freeing of the last slaves would not be more or less racist weather black Americans enjoyed eating it or not.
Are people getting upset over nothing? I don’t know. Are some people not allowed to get upset? I don’t know.
Hey , I totally read all the stuff you just wrote and I totally agree. Can I borrow fifty cents?
About a century ago, blackface was a form of comedy where white people would make their faces black and put on comedic shows. They would take some elements of black culture, like mimicking accents or saying they love fried chicken and watermelon, and make fun of black people for being idiots.
Giving out fried chicken to an event like this feels like you don't really care about the event. Instead, it is a token gesture at best where the decision makers thought "well, black people like fried chicken, so give them that."
Watermelon and other red food is served on Juneteenth. But, if watermelon is the only red food there, they likely didn't pick it because of cultural sensitivity to the holiday.
I agree with everything you said but I’d also like to point out that it wasn’t just a form of comedy, it was an entire entertainment industry all on its own, like movie theaters or concerts today. It was called the Minstrel Show
It eventually got replaced by/morphed into Vaudeville which was then replaced by cinema.
For a good 50-100 years, a major form of entertainment (not just in the South btw) was pretty much just: “haha black people are such stupid clowns! Look, that one thinks he’s fancy! That one’s a no-good drunk! Oh look, that one’s trying to give a speech!” It was pretty formulaic with standard props, just like you’d expect to see at a clown show. So fried chicken and watermelon were standard props like “tiny car full of clowns”, oversized shoes, a flower pot for a hat, a flower that squirts water, etc. For that reason they carry a very unpleasant legacy that reminds people of an insult to injury that still hasn’t been made right, in my opinion.
The format was pretty similar to the show Hee-Haw actually, kind of a fun variety show, just wildly racist and it’s obviously pretty fucked up to pick on literal slaves. Real bitch move there.
So people who know something about history are pretty salty about that and forms of the Minstrel Show were still happening here and there recently enough that people alive today remember seeing them.
Irish people caught some shit, but not like that. I’m not sure if Irish-American racism like that happened recently enough that living people remember it, or that it was ever to the extent that it formed an entire entertainment industry.
IDK, the National Museum of African American History serves fried chicken every day, so they don't think there's anything wrong with it.
Interestingly, if you look at the menu for Juneteenth, it doesn't include fried chicken. The only chicken is a dry rub chicken that wouldn't be fried. So your evidence confirms they believe fried chicken is in fact not appropriate for Junteenth. That's a good reference point if we all accept that the national museum of African American history is an authority on such matters.
They would take some elements of black culture, like (…) saying they love fried chicken and watermelon
How did this become a stereotype? Doesn’t everyone love fried chicken and watermelon regardless of skin color? They are both delicious.
How did this become a stereotype?
It became associated with black people as the food was relatively cheap and therefore commonly eaten by black people. Then it became integrated to comedic shows of people doing blackface as a way to deride black people.
Doesn’t everyone love fried chicken and watermelon regardless of skin color? They are both delicious.
Everyone loves fried chicken and watermelon. The problem isn't the food, but cultural stigma attached to it in certain cases.
It became associated with black culture because black people tended to have larger backyard gatherings, which means feeding a lot of people. They are also historically marginalized, and had lower incomes as a result. So not only were they feeding more people when they had parties; They were doing it for cheaper. Watermelon is a cheap and easy way to feed a dozen people, and fried chicken is cheaper than other forms of protein like steaks. Yes, both are delicious, but the stereotype happened because it was both cheap and could be served in large quantities for larger backyard parties.
The history of forcing slaves into limited food choices, and then caricaturing an entire race based on people adapting to those arbitrary forced limits....there are alot of layers of historical racism in play that could make doing this in a way that highlights those foods would probably play into that racism. Chicken and watermelon aren't "black" foods, they were common staples of Southern slaves that had limited choices.
That said, those stereotypes are stupid, those foods are delicious to people of all races, so if those foods are served as a broader celebration or feast and its just part of the day without any emphasis or indicators of meeting (i.e., chicken and fruit are common foods for celebration so why not have them), I don't think anyone would care.
I think it's not really a holiday for sharing culture. I don't know, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Adopting black traditions is a touchy topic in the US. Some encourage it, and others decry it as appropriation. Considering that its a holiday commemorating the end of owning black people, I can see how 'appropriating' a tradition on that day might be found distasteful.
That said I personally think the concept or cultural appropriation is nonsense. You do not own your culture. That is for everyone. What you own is your own experiences. Those are yours and no one else's.
I think that is especially true in the United States where sharing cultures is so central to the nation's identity. I think it really comes down to intent. As long as you aren't doing something in a mocking or condescending way, I don't think any reasonable person would be offended.
I know this is a little different due to the power dynamic (America being a powerful country) but people around the world love wearing random American stuff like baseball jerseys or whatever. Saw a lot of it in Europe. Probably theres no profound reason behind it, they just like the style. I think it's cool, I'm not mad that they don't really know who the Texas Rangers are or whatever.
I'm a white man from Ukraine migrated to America in 1989.
I love fried chicken, I live in the south of America the deep South and man oh man do we have good fried chicken!
Fried chicken is a universally loved dish and is only stereotyped by the most ignorant of people!
Not only should fried chicken be served for Juneteenth it should be served on every holiday as well!
I gotta say, I genuinely love this issue.
Like I'm a left leaning generic progressive white guy with a degree that includes a Sociology minor. This shit is so fascinating to me.
I don't know many black people, personally. Maybe 10 humans I know (like... Might send a social media message to because we are casual acquaintances) are black. I live in a rural area. Two are vegan, but the rest do indeed love fried chicken. We joke, I'veasked. I mean fuck, So do I. What meat eater doesn't? It's such a bizarre stereotype from the start. I believe I've heard it has to do with slaves being given the wings and appendages of chicken? But I don't know the veracity of that. Seems plausible?
Anyways, this.
Dated a lovely black woman back in my late 20s, she took me to meet her family like a month in, they were all super sweet. Dinner was fried chicken, hominy, mustard and collard greens, slaw and Mac n cheese, her grandmas fried chicken made me forget I ever cared about my grandmas fried chicken. Who the fuck doesn’t love fried chicken? Okay sure, vegans, but other than that?
And seriously I get the whole stereotype being a deep seated bunch of white people fuckery, but like, fuck that, let’s eat.
My guess is that if they had got a local Soul Food place to cater a whole spread, and the fried chicken and watermelon was part of the rest of the stuff you just mentioned, it would have gone over better. (I bet Charlotte has a bunch of places that would have done that for them). Maybe they could even have done some research and provided the context I am just learning now, in this thread.
But I think this was planned by committee, and that committee planned it all in a half hour so they could break for lunch earlier. So they got a bunch of buckets of chicken (I hope they weren't from KFC), and someone went to Publix and bought a bunch of watermelon to cut up, and they called it all good. And that committee had nobody on it that pointed out how bad this would look without better planning. (In other words, no black folks....)
This is my favorite bit on that subject:
The Irish, for example, are no longer systematically persecuted in the USA en masse.
You’re asking the difference between culture and race. Irish isn’t a race. Therefore it’s not racist to say Irish people eat corned beef.
Fried chicken however is not culturally eaten by black people and that doesn’t even begin to touch on the nuances of slavery that are involved in the origins of soul food.
Long story short you can’t apply stereotypes to races. That is by definition racist.
Irish isn’t a race
Well, not any more, anyways.
Wait, What's this about corned beef? I am Irish (as in actually from Ireland) and I have no idea what that has to do with St Patrick's day?
Irish-Americans found an affinity for corned beef as they finally had access to meat and especially beef. They initially lived in and near Jewish neighborhoods, so, it became popular to boil up corned beef, cabbage, and root vegetables.
I believe Americans serve it on Paddy's day and / or is seen as a stereotypically Irish meal over there. I do recall being asked over there if I ate it regularly.
As I said in another comment there my oul boy did actually really like it as a meal but I think it's more a misunderstanding though it does have some weird historical roots.
Tbh. I've been craving chicken and waffles for months. I was like hell yeah hopefully there's a event or some shit that might have some for sale...
Well no... only one place had it on the menu and it was a gentrified restraunt that was charging 25 bucks for chicken strips and a waffle for 28 bucks.
I was disappointed to say yhe least.
Is it not common just to make something when you want it?
Maybe I'm too Canadian to understand but do you usually go out for meals?
It isn't racist to eat chicken and waffles on Juneteenth. It would be like eating ham on Thanksgiving. You can do it and you can do it with friends if everyone is on board for that.
The way I see it isn't that stereotypes are inherently awful, it's that they have various levels of impact. Racism against African Americans is considered more heavily because they have such a long history of oppression that not many other groups have had. Most other groups didn't meet fierce resistance to obtaining basic rights for as long as they did
Because one is actual ethnic cuisine, and the other is a stereotype.
Serious question: how do I tell the difference?
ask :)
You build up knowledge over time by paying attention to how the culture that it is tied to responds, since most racist stuff doesn't make logical sense.
For an example of it being complicated, the Florida Seminoles college football team is fine because the school has coordinated with the tribe. I don't know of any other professional or college sports team that does so, and any that don't are exploiting Native American culture and most likely using racist stereotypes as part of their team 'spirit'.
It's the same way neurotypicals learn the preferences of a neurodivergent person.
Many times we make mistakes. And many times we have to be told flat out or pick up cues.
I'm a white Christian man in Texas. I know I'm privileged and that that privilege often comes with ignorance, so I used to be really nervous about offending people inadvertently.
But I eventually learned to just ask if I wasn't sure.
It did help that one of my best friends in college was a black lesbian who transitioned Jr year. I joked with him that he was my token "X" friend.
Fried chicken is an ethnic food though.
Scottish/Irish brought the method over, and when slaves made it, they used African flavoring techniques. Which also caught on with hillbillies.
That led to hillbillies and slaves being the ones that popularized it.
And they were the two most looked down on ethnic groups in America for a long time. Especially because they were eating it because it was cheap. The lard and frying was to increase the calorie count, because there wasn't much to go around. Same with the heat, it made you eat the (relatively cheap, but still expensive) part slowly.
The big difference is authentic fried chicken, and instead being handed a watered down version of it.
Like, if for Cinco de Mayo they got Taco Bell...
I love that you recognize the original hillbilly usage :)
Good point!
"How is eating fried chicken and watermelon wrong? Man, if you don't like fried chicken and watermelon, something is wrong with you!"
It would provide an excuse for someone to raise hell and make others happy.
That's not the comparison you need to use here. The comparison should be Irish car bombs. And the answer is there's not a difference that's super, will not racist but jingoist maybe, too.
Or Black and Tans aka half and halfs
If I tell people I'm autistic can I just say whatever comes into my head without consequences and then turn it against them if they do?
Yes you can, in fact many people just say they are autistic.
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Corned beef is Irish?
News to me. I thought it was just pastrami.
Corned beef seems to have originated in Ireland and Scotland, but was commonly used throughout the British Empire for the past 400 years. I assume the cooking and salting process makes it last much longer without going bad, which would make sense for long voyages.
A traditional corned beef has potassium sulfate (saltpeter) which often had red dye in it, lending the meat a pink color. So it was also about making bad meat look better.
It's Irish American, I doubt it has anything to do with Ireland.
Fried chicken and watermelon is a meal imposed by oppressors, and used to dehumanize a people.
not sure why you are getting downvoted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_chicken_stereotype https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype
such stereotypes absolutely exist to dehumanize. the other comment about red foods and juneteenth, while not factually false, fully misses the point of OPs question to an embarrassing degree.
edit: i guess to nitpick rather than “a meal imposed by oppressors” you should have said “two foods associated with stereotypes imposed by oppressors.” just to be fair.
Can you work in a reference to manufactured consent?
Um, but actual Irish-Americans love eating corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's day. It's racist to celebrate your heritage? Or just to try things from other people's cultures?
Nah, go bugger lol. One side of my family is mostly from potato famine Irish, and we all love some corned beef. It's definitely on the menu for holidays
It’s not a “social nuance”
It’s up to black people how they want to celebrate it.
Why do you suggest fried chicken ?
Because of a thread that is linked to the question.
