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.
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.
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.