Racial food stereotypes

Great Debates
1

This article on Slate.com tried to explain how and why racial food stereotypes are offensive, using the common example of black people and fried chicken. It made me think about a question I’ve always wondered, which is why any association with food stereotypes, especially among blacks, are usually seen as offensive.

As a Chinese person, I have no problem with people saying I probably love chow mein, egg rolls, and rice. I’ve also never met a hispanic person who was offended if I suggested tacos and burritos for lunch.

But bring up the fact that black people like fried chicken or watermelons, and you’ll have a riot.

In the article, the attempted explanation was that the history of fried chicken goes back to the slave days, that its a food that is associated with oppression and the lower class. I can understand the desire not associate a race with such characteristics, but I disagree with the premise that fried chicken or watermelons have that connotation. I didn’t even know about fried chicken and slavery. I’m willing to bet a high percentage of KFC eaters don’t either. While fried fatty foods are usually associated with the poor and slovenly and obese, we don’t get such a racial gutpunch from burgers, french fries, hot dogs, potato chips, or any other unhealthy junk food.

I do agree with the article on one issue, and that is one may attempt to slander a black person with such easy characterizations, and that our black president, being of a magnitude more important, classy, and respected than the typical person on the street, probably is sometimes targeted with such stereotypes with the intent of putting him down. But the article goes on to say that Bill Clinton wasn’t seen as slovenly because of his McDonalds habit, it may have added to his charm. Is it because he’s white? Or because burgers don’t have as much negatives as fried chicken?

Let’s face it, in America, we’ve taken a lot of ethic cuisine and made it popular, to the point where perhaps the lower class, oppressive connotations of foods that originated with poor people hundreds of years ago is now seen as just another tasty dish. I like Chinese stinky tofu, and that was allegedly created because the poor couldn’t afford fresh food and ate crap that spoiled. I don’t have a problem with that. I would have a problem if someone tried to say that Chinese people stink because they eat it, but not if simply we were associated with eating a particular food itself.

So I guess my belief is that its really weird that people think its insulting to associate black people with fried chicken. I don’t see a problem with it, and slavery is the furthest thing from my mind when the 2 things are brought together. What’s wrong with saying that someone, even a race of people, likes to eat a certain delicious type of food? Even if they’re wrong, what’s the harm? I wouldn’t say it about Obama because we know he’s a really healthy and fit person, but to a random black guy that I don’t know, I will probably continue to think he likes fried chicken. I don’t see how that’s bad at all

2

Racial food stereotypes are offensive because ***all ***racial stereotypes are offensive.

3

I grew up with a ton of pork, variety of vegetables, cabbage, sometimes all thrown into a pot as my dinner. I can tell people that and they can guess my heritage, it is a non racist thing.

Now onto the fried chicken and whatnot, it isn’t heritage it is something that people have made rude statements about the chicken/watermelon thing so it is offensive IMO.

4

The offensive part is not saying that someone likes fried chicken but that someone seems to be the kind of person who likes fried chicken. Fried chicken and watermelon were foods enjoyed by poor and oppressed black people. Saying that someone would like those foods is taken by some to insinuate that they are like those poor and oppressed people. Black americans have a culture that prizes respect very highly, because of this they are especially alert for racial slights.
All ethnic groups have stereotypical foods, but only black people are taught to associate that stereotypical foods with insults. Since charges of rascism are so serious white people have gone along with the perception of the insult in order to build a wall around rascism like rabbis do with the Torah.

5

I think there is a difference between acknowledging the correlation between food preferences and ethnicity and defining a person by ethnicity and extending that definition to food preferences.

To acknowledge that Asians tend to eat more rice than Italians is rational and not racist. To assume that anyone who is Asian must necessarily prefer egg foo young to spaghetti, is racist.

It also depends on how it is used. If your going to a cinco de mayo celebration I wouldn’t consider it racist to bring refried beans. But to use the term “beaner” to describe a Latino is definitely racist.

6

I shall regurgitate my original post from 01/06/2010 in a thread titled “Why is fried chicken racist in the USA?” from right here on the SDMB.

A passage from Three Years in Arkansaw: Beats All Books You Ever Saw by Marion Hughes published in 1904 where the coroner is examining a large black woman discovered in her bed dead for cause of death (pgs. 85-86):

Keep in mind that this is supposed to be a humorous little anecdote.

It’s not necessarily “harmful” to say that one group likes fried chicken but when it’s become part of a racial stereotype it certainly can be.

7

Yea, the liking fried chicken and watermelon thing was part of a sort of turn-of-the-century trope of blacks as stupid, jolly, obsequious, impoverished field hands. So its not simply liking fried chicken thats offensive, its that its become a symbol of the image of a particular pop-culture image of blacks.

Sort of like Jews with big noses, there isn’t really anything terrible about having a big nose (and certainly some Jews have big noses), but its a symbol of a particular unflattering image of Jewish people that used to be popular: hook-nosed, conniving and greedy.

8

But its harmless!

I can understand why saying “Asians have slanted eyes” is offensive, even if some of us do. Its an insult because you’re telling us we’re ugly. Same goes with offensive words like kike or chink. The words themselves are meaningless, but we attribute meaning to it because they were created to be offensive so we take it as such

But a delicious golden brown piece of junk food that most of the country loves? What’s wrong with that? Having already pleaded ignorance about the slave origins, and probably most of the country is ignorant on that point as well, I don’t see why saying that blacks like watermelons or fried chicken can be construed as a bad thing. At the worst, a black guy who doesn’t like it gets annoyed that you brought it up as a choice for lunch, that’s it

9

You know who likes Fried Chicken and Watermelon? Chinese People. Seriously. KFC is huge in China. Coca-Cola makes watermelon soda for the Chinese market (Yum!).
I never understood the stereotype. Fried Chicken and Watermelon are delicious. Of course black people like them! They aren’t stupid.

10

Perhaps because I’m from Canada and I like both KFC and watermelon that I’ve never taken the claims that these foods are racial stereotypes for black people seriously. Somehow though I have acquired the notion that catching and eating big ugly channel catfish is southern rural black culture. Must have read it somewhere.

11

You know who likes fried chicken and watermelon?

Everybody.

12

Again, its that its a signifier for a wider stereotype of blacks that is unflattering, independent from the actual eating of fried chicken…

Or put another way, what do you think the person who made this picture is trying to communicate? That Obama really likes watermelons? Obviously not, its meant to connect Obama to the stereotype of a poor, stupid, jolly southern field-negro.

13

Let’s put it this way. I grew up in the South, and later lived there as an adult. Fried chicken was a universal meal. I didn’t know anyone, rich, poor or someone in the middle, who didn’t have fried chicken at least once a week. For that matter, it was pretty darn popular in the Midwest, as well.

Watermelon? Who didn’t enjoy a fresh slice of watermelon on a hot summer day?

Yet, despite their near-universal popularity among Southerners, fried chicken and watermelon keep being associated with poor blacks.

YogSosoth insists it’s a harmless stereotype. I’m willing to bet that Bill Clinton, Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Haley Barbour and Jimmy Carter, among others, have eaten as much fried chicken and watermelon as anyone, but somehow they don’t get associated with it.

14

From wikipedia:

15

Yeah, that’s why I can’t figure it out. Yes, it’s an offensive stereotype, but it doesn’t make any sense. The stereotype that Mexicans eat tortillas and beans makes sense, because that’s what they eat. The stereotype that Chinese people eat rice makes sense, because they actually eat a lot of rice. But if everyone in America is gobbling up chicken and watermelon, why would we make up a stereotype those Negroes like chicken and watermelon more than white people? It’s just weird.

16

Hell, when Popeye’s Chicken in Rochester, NY ran out of chicken during a special promotion the news reported on it. Just read the comments from some of the people who watched the video.

There are a lot of racial stereotypes that I didn’t really understand growing up. Fried chicken and blacks in the United States was one of them.

17

Several factors:
Fried chicken is more of a Southern thing. If you go to South Carolina or Georgia, you will find KFC, Church’s Popeye’s and Bojangle’s all over the place. There are probably others as well, but those jumped out at me. Tyson is headquartered in Arkansas, and it is hard to fly in an airplane south of the M-D line without being able to spot a chicken farm at any given time.

In my town KFC and Church’s struggle with a few stores, but those are enough to saturate what market there is. Popeye’s opened a few stores in Albuquerque, and were gone within a couple of years. One is now a burger joint, and another is a pretty good pizza and pasta place. There is a local outfit, Golden Pride Chicken that has a few stores and does well, but they probably sell more ribs, burritos, and enchiladas as they do chicken.

It just so happens that many southerners are black. Many southern families have moved northward. The white ones lost their accents within a generation and you can’t tell without being told that their families have Southern roots, and just by looking you couldn’t tell the first generation even. The black ones retain their pigmentation for many generations, even with racial mixing. So when you just look at who is buying chicken blacks probably are over represented.

The next thing is that chicken is pretty cheap. Black’s earn, on average, less than white folks. The clientel at KFC is going to skew toward the lower income end of the spectrum, so Blacks are going to be over represented again.

Lastly, fried chicken isn’t the healthiest of foods. Historically blacks and poor people have had less concern with healthy eating and/or worried about obesity…“soul food” is often pretty fatty. Given that many Blacks are also poor, you would expect them to be over represented in chicken consumption.

Now my lilly white dieting ass is craving fried chicken. Serves me right.

18

Read the post immediately above yours. Coon Chicken Inn, anyone?

19

My students don’t live in the South and they all talk about friend chicken and green beans and watermelon as favorite/often eaten foods. All of the boys in my room the other day were fighting each other to tell me the ‘best’ way to make chicken.

The Latino kids call themselves Beaners and joke about eating beans.

If my black students - who have never even been south of Colorado Springs - can talk about their affection for fried chicken, be it mom’s or Popeye’s, why is it bad to associate the food with them? And why the hell is it negative? I don’t get insulted when someone pairs me with gefilte fish, which is THE poor man’s fish. It’s a ghetto meal. And yet we still eat that nasty shit out of…cultural habit, I guess. There are upper class families who eat it often for Shabbos and they’ve never been to Poland or places where it originated. So stop with the ‘it’s a culturally <geographical area> tradition, so it’s wrong to say’ stuff. Fried chicken is ALWAYS a favorite lunch meal the metro area and it is often served in urban areas for community/outreach/special events.

20

It make sense if blacks all over the country seem to like fried chicken more than everyone else.

I just about fell out of my chair! First generation immigrants love Mickey D’s and sushi as much as the next person. Their parents may cook beans and tortillas, and yes, they love those foods too (especially because it’s cheap), but is a third generation Chicano likely to be eating beans every night? So “Beaner” is OK but “blacks love fried chicken” isn’t?! And have you noticed the love of Mexican food has skyrocketed since the 70s? No one cares if you love tacos! Everyone loves tacos!

Again…rural v. urban…and doesn’t Japan consume more rice, actually?

Did you just say ‘Negroes’?!