To some extent, blacks are similar to first or second generation immigrants, in that segregation kept them culturally isolated until a generation or two ago. So I don’t think its particularly surprising that they still maintain some cultural uniqueness.
I also agree with the previous poster that a lot of the stereotypes are true of poor people in the US in general, and simply associated with blacks due to their high poverty rates.
Watermelons are pretty common around the world:
The foods listed in the OP and others that are stereotypically described as foods that black often eat are really just foods common in the American south. I live in a majority black neighborhood in DC and there is a soul food restaraunt around the corner, the food is collard greens, fried chicken, sweet ice tea, etc. It is exactly the same food that my white grandmother made every day in Virginia when I was a kid.
After WWII, there was a large migration of blacks from the south to northern cities and as certainly almost always the case, they brought their cuisine with them when they relocated.
Yeah, but while I knew from American movies that people from “the South” (the US’s South, not Andalusia) like stuff battered and deep-fried (wait, we do that in Andalusia too… ok, the batter is different), I hadn’t heard or absorbed any of the rest. So I’m curious whether someone from Canada or Australia has heard those topics about African-Americans through media, and as distinct ones from those about Southern folk or Appalachians or what have you.
Yeah, white Southerners dig fried chicken and watermelon, but not grape soda (at least not as much as black people do.)
Nobody’s going to bring up malt liquor?
I think it has something to do with the fact that white people of an earlier generation liked to view black people as something “other”, something alien and strange, and in particular something inferior. Therefore, it was useful to find ways to make fun of these particular human beings. Stereotypes are such a way. Therefore, it became useful to associate black people with a certain behavior, even if that behavior was equally typical of poor Southern people, regardless of race.
But what do I know?
Someone earlier mentioned grape drink as possibly being a “poverty food”. In inner city supermarkets and those close to predominantly black neighborhoods, at least in places where I lived, inexpensive fruit-flavored drinks took up a lot of shelf space, and filled endcaps around the first of the month. One brand that was popular in my hometown was “L’il Hug” - you could buy a case of 24 for two or three dollars. Gallon jugs of fruit-flavored drink were also cheap; maybe a dollar or so.
My uneducated guess for the popularity of “purple drank” - it’s a poor man’s soft drink. If multi-generational middle-income blacks crave “purple” just as much, the explanation is probably much different than just cost.
I remember lil’ Hugs! They used to come in individual plastic containers shaped like a barrel with a foil top. It’s pretty much just Kool-Aid.
I recall hearing something on public radio that said that the popularity of watermelon and fried chicken also had to do with the fact that it could be packed into a vehicle for long trips in an era when black people weren’t always sure that they would be able to find accommodations that would serve them.
Moved thread to IMHO.
I think it’s because we’re looking at the question wrong. Don’t *most *people like fried chicken and watermelon, and are at least OK with grape soda?
I’m as white as the queen of England, but based on stereotypes, I’m an old black man (besides fried chicken cravings and a particular fondness for grape soda, I like blow hair and old blues. Oh, and biscuits and gravy. And barbecue. And turnip greens).
Because ethnic groups often have distinct cultural practices. I don’t understand what’s so unusual about that.
Indian-Americans are disproportionately likely to enjoy spicy curry-based foods. Whitebread folk eat turkey on Thanksgiving. It’s unlikely a Jewish household in the USA will be putting away a lot of bacon. Italians enjoy Italian food. Japanese enjoy Japanese food.
In Canada, Pepsi is more popular in Quebec than Coke; it is the reverse in the rest of Canada. In New Brunswick, McDonald’s serves a lobster sandwich (yes, it is actually called a McLobster); in Ontario nobody would touch such a thing. Different people like different foods.
Black people shouldn’t have to apologize for having culturally different dietary preferences.
But they also shouldn’t automatically be expected to enjoy these things simply because of the color of their skin.
I’m black and I don’t care for watermelon. 
The problem with your post is that you’re making the wrong grouping, I think. It’s not so much that watermelon, fried chicken, and grape Kool-Aid are popular among black Americans as it is that they are popular among working-class and poor Southerners.
Jumping in the conversation to confirm that watermelon and fried chicken are Southern people food, not Black people food. As the for the grape drink, that’s Poor people food (along with chicken and watermelon in the South).
Black folk continue to eat such cuisine for the same reason Italians eat pasta: it’s what they grew up with and it’s a way to identify with their culture. Plenty of Blacks wear FUBU and listen to hip hop, but it isn’t genetic -it’s simply a way to associate with a click.
You’ll find that many Southern Blacks are rejecting the traditional stereotypes and embracing the more wholesome ones: Shrimp and grits, collard greens, pig’s feet. The last three are even showing up in upscale NYC restaurants. Other Blacks are ignoring (or don’t have any) Southern roots and either look back to their ancestry or else reject racial stereotypes and try to find another type of click to join.
That being said, I used to live in Harlem and fried chicken was so popular that all the Chinese take out places served it. A lot of the Mexican places do to, so there were probably 2-3 places on EACH BLOCK to get fried chicken if you didn’t want to cook it yourself. As for watermelon and grape drink, not so much. I think my neighborhood was 67% Black with the last census. It was also one of the poorer neighborhoods, which suggests that food cost could also be a factor.
It should also be noted that chicken is the number one “species” consumed by Americans (http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/Chicken_from_Farm_To_Table/index.asp). Of all the stereotypes this is the weakest, since chicken is prevalent in all types of cuisine.
As far as malt liquor, I’m gonna have to attribute that one to Billy Dee Williams.
I just have to put this here… (NSFW)
Exactly, when I was a kid, lil’ Hugs, Mountain Dew, Grape Nehi, and Orange Crush were all very common drinks. What some people here are calling black food was just food when I was a kid.
I don’t know when I first heard of the stereotype of African-Americans liking fried chicken and watermelon, but I was probably already an adult. So it’s not something that permeates our culture. (And most black people here aren’t African-American, although there are African-American communities present in some Canadian cities, Montreal for example.) Grape soft drinks, well, I’d heard mentions of it before but I think it’s only in this thread that I’ve finally seen confirmation that it’s supposed to be a black stereotype in the US.
I also haven’t heard these culinary stereotypes being told about Southerners in general.
Well guess what: I don’t drink Pepsi. 
(Okay, I drink it rarely. But I also drink Coke rarely. And it’s true that it’s more popular than Coke in Quebec; Pepsi’s slogan in Quebec is even “ici, c’est Pepsi” (“here, it’s Pepsi”).)
You win the thread. Awesome!
… and Jews love lox and bagels. And Scots like haggis. It’s not “stereotypes” or racism. It’s just ethnic food preferences.