In 1979-80, my high school had a football game pep rally for our game against the local rival school. Our team was “the Cubs”, their team was “the Rebels”-
their macot being a “Southern colonel” and their flag being… you know.
SO at the rally was a skit, our one black cheerleader was being chased by a KKK-robed “Rebel” until he was beaten down by our Cub mascot.
I am absolutely sure that the skit was her idea. Those were the days!
:dubious: It’s racially insensitive to imply that a standard picnic dinner should be changed, based on the race of the people who will be eating it?
Daniel
I cant recall any one all-time moment, but I did utter a few rather racially insensitive jokes the other day.
It was lunch break time at my waiter job, and we were all sitting around and cracking jokes. The mood was light and jovial. We were eating roast chicken and mashed potatos. We were talking about where we lived, and this one kid said “I’m black because I live in XXXX part of town.” The conversation as a whole was not very racially sensitive, to tell the truth. I then said, “If you were black, you’d be complaining this chicken isn’t fried.” Everyone laughed, but in retrospect it was grossly rude. Later on, two black workers sit together, and everyone starts teasing them because they are not sitting with the big group. “Too cool for us?” people were saying. I tongue-in-cheek retorted, “Well duh, they’re sitting in the back of the restaurant.” Everyone laughed again, but still… :smack: :smack: :smack:
To make matters worse, a person I thought was hispanic but who is actually African American was sitting at the table next to us, and people told me later that he was deeply offended and would likely try and fight me physically because of it. That didn’t happen, but I was still very embarrassed and a little angry at my self for allowing myself to engage in such humor at an inappropriate setting.
I’m not sure where you’re from, but that’s not standard picnic food. It’s standard stereotypical black-people food, and while it’s not insensitive to have some yourself and maybe invite some folk over, it’s massively insensitive to serve it knowing you are having a set of all-black guests. It would be more sensitive, significantly so, to change the menu once you were aware of your faux-pas.
I wouldn’t invite a whole group of Chinese folk over and serve rice, or invite a whole group of Hispanics over and serve beans. I wouldn’t invite a group of white folk over and have crackers.
Sounded like a typical picnic to me. Though we’d probably have macaroni or potato salad too.
Are you kidding? If a mainly black group invited me for a wine-tasting party and they didn’t serve crackers because they thought I’d be offended, I’d laugh my butt off at the idea. Hell, if they didn’t serve me brie and white wine because they thought this was stereotypical white-people food, I’d be pretty irritated at the silliness of it.
If I would normally eat beans at a certain meal, or rice at a certain meal, but I refused to serve them to guests out of a fear they’d think it was stereotypical, that would seem absurd to me.
And where I’m from, fried chicken and corn on the cob and watermelon is a perfectly typical summer meal. (Kool Aid, not so much, I’ll grant–but that may be a difference between me and the sorority). If someone in the sorority came up with this meal because they thought this is what black people liked, then yeah, it was pretty ridiculous of them. But if they were just coming up with a typical menu, then it’d be ridiculous to change it out of fear of offending, IMO.
Incidentally, when I worked for a primarily black, highly politicized nonprofit, you bet we ate a lot of corn bread, fried catfish with hot sauce, and watermelon at our events, catered by a sweet little old black lady who made it in her home kitchen. It was damn fine eating.
Daniel
I have a really hard time telling two of cashiers that I work with apart on the phone. They really do sound alike, but I’m terrified that they think I can’t tell one black person from another. I’m tempted to tell them that people confuse my voice with my other coworker’s, but that sounds like I’m trying to weasel out of something (even though it’s true!).
At our wedding last year we were serving pork as the main course. My family is Anglican, my wife’s is Catholic so no probs… but my mother-in-law left a voicemail a couple of days before the wedding saying “remember we need one non-pork main course as we have a jewish guest coming”.
We didn’t know who it was so scanned the guest list to see if we could pick out a likely name… that didn’t really help, but to be fair not many people would pick “Patricia O’Rouke” out as needing a kosher meal. 
Since when and where?
I’m as white as Whitey McWhiterson. I went to a picnic at my white in-laws’ house in Ohio last weekend. We had fried chicken, corn, and watermellon. We also had rigattoni with meatballs, and not one of us is Italian!
I’ll chime in (pile on?) and add that I, also, grew up thinking of cold fried chicken as pretty much the standard picnic food. I grew up in Maryland and am not black.
Cold fried chicken?
Unless you have some clever method of cooking the fried chicken at the picnic, yes…
Fried chicken is supposed to be the quintessential Southern black food, but really it’s just Southern food. Soul food, but my white as a cloud grandmother made the absolute A-1 best fried chicken in the universe. I don’t recall collard greens, but we did eat copper pennies (aka carrots cooked in butter and brown sugar) and black eyed peas and beans cooked with bacon and…
…pardon me, I’m drooling on my keyboard. Anyway, I’ve lived all over the States. Most places I’ve lived have understood fried chicken to be one of the Traditional Picnic Foods, right alongside potato salad and chicken salad and sandwiches.
I don’t tend to serve food to one race in particular, as I’ve had friends in all of them. I think it’s a bit silly to examine the races of your guests and orchestrate your dinners appropriately. I have a friend of mixed German and Irish descent – must I avoid cabbage and potatoes for fear of offense? Apparently I cannot make a rice dish for Chinese people, but does that include my very not Chinese jambalaya? I certainly can’t serve the jambalaya to my Cajun friends, no matter how much they might ask for it. And what if you don’t know someone’s heritage? Must you ask them before you can cook for them?
I’d just ask the people coming if blah food sounded good, I think. I do that anyway to prevent food allergy problems and other dietary worries. I would not make jambalaya if I was having my very kosher Jewish friends over…
My most racially insensitive moment? Probably when my friend told me she was Jewish and that’s why some of our classmates didn’t like her. I had read about the Jews in the Holocaust and such and thought they sounded like fine upstanding people.
“I don’t see why they don’t like you. It’s not like you aren’t Christian!”
“…actually…”
In my defense, I was about eleven.
It’s not that much of a defense. :o I know better now though!
So’s you don’t feel too alone here, I just wanted to chime in that I understand your trepidation!
Boats and friends and noodle salad. Good times, noodle salad.
Ohh, and fresh tomato and cucumber salad! I grew up at first with just a garden and then in farm country so that kind of stuff was common, but always welcome as picnic food. Now I’m getting hungry!
As a newlywed, a new large grocery store had just been built down the street, and my husband and I were walking around in it, admiring all the groceries. They had a section of bulk foods, including a large variety of nuts.
Me: looking in the bins: “ooooh Honey look, niggertoes! I love those!!”
Him You mean the brazil nuts???
Me: Huh? thats what they’re called?? :smack:
Did I mention my husband was black?
My husband’s grandfather calls them that, too. Yeouch.
You should have went to the peanut bin and said “Ooooh look, honkeylips! These look good!”
My wife pointed me to this thread to get my reaction (seeing as how I’m among the black folks). My immediate reaction was, “You have GOT to be f’in kidding me.”
It’s not just that there’s an item on the list that might be associated with black folks; it’s that the entire menu was one giant black stereotype. So yes, it does seem like someone said, “Oh dear, we’re having black people over – does anyone know what they eat?” and went from there. However, as others have pointed out, this menu also qualifies as standard picnic fare (yes, I’ve had my share of cold fried chicken before, and it can be damn tasty), and I think it’s more than possible that the whole thing was just an unfortunate coincidence.
Had I attended, I probably would have asked someone how such a menu got chosen, but I certainly wouldn’t have gone ballistic on anyone. Benefit of the doubt and all that. Plus, all of that stuff sounds yummy.
Sorry for taking so long to reply…
Sure, it could be standard picnic fare, EXCEPT, that this was supposed to be a “formal” dinner. It wasn’t a picnic. It wasn’t a cookout. It was a formal dinner, as in, everyone gets dressed up, we set out the nice china, and we have it in our dining room. The typical menu was usually something like pot roast, or lasagna, or the like. This was an aberration. Does that change things?
Left Hand of Dorkness, you sound just like a few of my sorority sisters, in that they had no clue that it could possibly be offensive. However, just because you don’t see a problem here doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. I don’t doubt that at least a few of those guys had the same reaction as Asmovian, and I would prefer that guests in my house not have to wonder if I’m purposefully trying to offend them.