# Kool-Aid as a racial stereotype? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 6, 2015, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605 "2015-12-06T10:06:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/21 "2015-12-06T16:54:43Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > “Fluffy” explains the whole thing [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbppTv4pCGQ&spfreload=10). That. Was hilarious! > [@Acsenray](#): > > It’s like doughnuts. It’s a perfectly ordinary food that anyone might eat and in any other context, it might be innocuous or have a different meaning. But ask a cop about doughnuts and you’re definitely implying something. Exactly. > [@](#): > > Fruity drinks—around here it’s grape soda or anything red-colored—strawberry soda, Hawaiian Punch—definitely a black stereotype. And one of those fairly true stereotypes, in my area. I can’t get a motherfucking Coke Zero (Diet Coke, yes; Coke Zero, no) at most of the places I frequent in Black neighborhoods, but there’s a vast array of fruit flavored pop I never knew existed. Pineapple, yo! They make [pineapple pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush_(beverage)#/media/File:Pineapple_Crush.jpg)! And it’s amazingly delicious! > [@Jackmannii](#): > > Grits is a stereotypical _southern_ food. No race exclusivity there. Geography matters. Round these parts, grits is Black people food. Polenta is White people food. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/22 "2015-12-06T16:58:11Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Some of those foods (catfish, grits) are also Southern things, so it isn’t exclusively black except that they make up a large part of the population. Add chitterlings (“chitlins”), okra, and collared greens, but again some might be associated with white southerners. I’ve owned a copy of Ernest Matthew Mickler’s WHITE TRASH COOKING since it first came out in the 1980s. It was an eye-opener for me. A lot of things I considered “Soul Food” turn out to be the cuisine of the Southeastern Proletariat. Class rather than ethnicity. Poor people’s food, regardless of race. White and black folks in Brooklyn (ME and MOST black folks anyway) like to swap tips and recipes from cultural backgrounds. I talk curries with West Indians, what beans to cook with what rice with Trinidadians and Jamaicans, potato salads and the place of fried bologna on the breakfast table with elderly Great Migration survivors. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/23 "2015-12-06T17:01:26Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Round these parts, grits is Black people food. Polenta is White people food. Go figure. Here, polenta is fancy Yankee food for hipsters, goor-mays, and ethnic Italians. Grits is poor people food. The stoneground grits in my freezer were a gift from a white South Carolina lady truck farmer. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/24 "2015-12-06T17:02:49Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Grits is a stereotypical _southern_ food. No race exclusivity there. > > Next you’ll be telling me that my fondness for okra reveals my Negro heritage. :dubious: As I said before, context matters. Do you think a doughnut has never been eaten by someone who isn’t a cop? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/25 "2015-12-06T17:07:43Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Wilmore mentions that too: actually, the brand was Flavor Aid. Wikipedia says both brands were found there. Can confirm that, in a previous discussion a video was found where Jim Jones himself showed to a reporter before the mass suicide their storage sheds and inside one bin there it was the Kool-Aid next to the Flavor Aid too. It is one of the few curious cases where the ones debunking common ignorance get it usually half wrong. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/26 "2015-12-06T17:21:54Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > In the Northwest, at least on the Great Plains and in the Rockies, it’s Indian Time. I’ve never heard of CP time, but I have heard about slow and lazy black people. I’ve heard the other “Indian Standard Time” here in Chicago (of the South Asian variety). Not heard of “CP Time,” though. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/27 "2015-12-06T17:26:27Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Here, polenta is fancy Yankee food for hipsters, goor-mays, and ethnic Italians. Grits is poor people food. The stoneground grits in my freezer were a gift from a white South Carolina lady truck farmer. Yes and no. Maybe they USED to be poor people food (and I’m not even sure of that), but as a Southerner its my experience that it is no longer poor people food. The folks down here don’t eat it because its cheap. They eat it because they like it. And I’ll through this out. If you have had grits before and you didn’t like it, there is a fair chance it is because you had shitty grits ™, not good grits made properly. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/28 "2015-12-06T17:36:11Z")
EVERYONE eats food they like. Unless they are terribly unlucky people. I’m sure wealthy Southerners eat as much good fried chicken as the poors. The nice thing about grits and fried chicken is that they don’t cost as much as caviar or ribeye. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/29 "2015-12-06T17:52:01Z")
No. Poor people eat the stuff they can afford (and often not even enough of that). If you still like the cheap crap and you can afford better, then its not poor people food. Obviously, this is an aggregate statistics kind of definition/problem. IME in the south, I’d say Kool-Aide is probably as much a poor people beverage as it is a black folks beverage. Throw in the fact more black people are poor and there you go. However, for the most part, once a poor white or black or whatever southerner gets to choose between Kool-Aide and a decent cola or actual fruit juice because price isn’t an issue, they will ditch the Aide most of the time. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/30 "2015-12-06T19:12:11Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > The stoneground grits in my freezer were a gift from a white South Carolina lady truck farmer. Ah, that reminds of my youth. Playing hide and seek in the wind blown fields of lady trucks just before harvest time. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/31 "2015-12-06T19:16:20Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I’ve heard the other “Indian Standard Time” here in Chicago (of the South Asian variety). Not heard of “CP Time,” though. I’m an upright, always-ten-minutes-early white guy married to an Indian woman who embodies the IST stereotype. When we had one car, I had to stop ride sharing with her and start taking the bus, because the concept of getting to work on time was just a mystery to her. Anyway, I had not heard the Kool-Aid stereotype before either. I grew up around a fair number of racists, but that stereotype slipped past my notice. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/32 "2015-12-06T19:40:58Z")
Is it offensive to mention lox and bagels and gefilte fish as Jewish food? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/33 "2015-12-06T19:51:59Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Is it offensive to mention lox and bagels and gefilte fish as Jewish food? Who said that? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/34 "2015-12-06T20:49:46Z")
It would certainly be a WTF moment if a TV chef who just happens to be Jewish was asked if she’s serving lox and bagels for Thanksgiving. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/35 "2015-12-06T21:10:33Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Eggs? I think the OP means eggs only when paired with grits. Because deviled eggs and quiche are the WASPiest foods that ever WASPed. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Can confirm that, in a previous discussion a video was found where Jim Jones himself showed to a reporter before the mass suicide their storage sheds and inside one bin there it was the Kool-Aid next to the Flavor Aid too. > > It is one of the few curious cases where the ones debunking common ignorance get it usually half wrong. Whew! That’s a lot better than saying… “Can confirm that… _ **I was there!** _” ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/36 "2015-12-06T21:13:22Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Who said that? I think it was that snappy dressed guy good at public speaking sporting a bar mustache. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/37 "2015-12-06T21:14:43Z")
> [@Not\_Carlson](#): > > _The fug!?_ > You’re blowing my mind! > That has to be some kind of crime against nature. > The gods would not allow it. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. A version of Jello salad was served at every church potluck, luncheon and Army wives group function through my entire youth and young adulthood. It has its charms. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/38 "2015-12-06T21:22:24Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > And one of those fairly true stereotypes, in my area. I can’t get a motherfucking Coke Zero (Diet Coke, yes; Coke Zero, no) at most of the places I frequent in Black neighborhoods, but there’s a vast array of fruit flavored pop I never knew existed. Pineapple, yo! They make [pineapple pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush_(beverage)#/media/File:Pineapple_Crush.jpg)! And it’s amazingly delicious! Fruity soda is a Hispanic thing. As your cite notes, Crush is sold extensively through out Latin America. IIRC I usually see a variety of fruit soda in the LA/Mexican aisle of my grocery store. The stereotypical black drink I am aware of is anything Grape flavored. Maybe it’s morphed from Grape Kool-Aid to Kool-Aid in general, though I am dubious. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/39 "2015-12-06T21:27:44Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Yes, Kool-Aide is a stereotypical drink of black people. For those of us who are non-Americans, _why_ is Kool-Aid considered a racial stereotype? I"m just not getting it? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605/40 "2015-12-06T21:28:26Z")
As far as Grape flavored, I’d say it is not so much that black/poor people like grape kool aide as it is that of all the kool aide flavors, grape is probably the most tolerable of the flavors, if you get what I mean. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kool-aid-as-a-racial-stereotype/739605.md?page=3)