# Why is fried chicken racist in the USA? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 6, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915 "2010-01-06T16:37:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/101 "2010-01-08T23:41:34Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Heh, apropos of nothing, I once knew a guy who made a living as a seller of Black-themed memorabilia - Sambo dolls, glasses in the shape of Black women eating watermellons and the like. > > He was Black and so were most of his clientele. Apparently this stuff goes for big bucks these days, because much of it was thrown out when social attitudes changed. Now, people will pay a lot (and the more egregious they are, the better) for these things as conversation pieces. IIRC the trend was touched upon in the Spike Lee film _Bamboozled_ (interesting film, BTW). ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/102 "2010-01-09T00:02:15Z")
> [@pan1](#): > > Fried Chicken is not racist in and of itself. > > Neither is Watermelon. > > But there is a stereotype that says that black people like Fried Chicken and Watermelon. It is thus possible to exploit that stereotype in a racist way. I don’t know about Watermelon but in my experience, the vast majority of black people like fried chicken. I have NEVER been to a black neighborhood that doesn’t have a place where you can get wings and fries. I’m not saying they don’t exist, I’m just sayin’. Jay-Z used to work at the Crown Fried Chicken across from the Marcy Projects. I got my chicken from that one, but I could’ve gone to the Chinese place across the street to get Wings as well. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/103 "2010-01-09T00:11:30Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > 1. Every now and then, I’ll hear a black person point out angrily that the phrase"cotton picking" (as in “get your cotton picking hands off me”) is offensive, because it suggests that black people who worked in cotton fields were dirty and subhuman. And I’m sure that WAS a crude, racist insult at one time. Thing is, anyone my age (48) or younger has probably never heard a real, live person use that phrase. Heck, I only know it because I heard Yosemite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn say it in old cartoons. I don’t think there’s any racial connotation in that phrase at all. You may be under the mistaken impression that only black people picked cotton. Cotton was the most common cash crop in the South for many decades after the Civil War, and white farmers and their families were picking that cotton, too. Both my parents regularly picked cotton as children in (middle class) farm families. If anything, I suppose “cotton-picking hands” might be a class-based insult. (If you were wealthy enough, I suppose you didn’t pick your own cotton.) Oh, and as someone younger than you, I have heard the phrase used by real live people. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/104 "2010-01-09T00:31:06Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Long ago, chicken was an expensive food. The birds were rarely slaughtered because the real cost of a chicken dinner included the loss of future egg production. So it isn’t just that chicken is cheap food today. The underlying issue is that racist stereotypes in the past painted black people as incorrigible petty thieves, and watermelons and chickens were equally stereotyped as the main things stolen, especially in the rural South. This comes up even in recent literature–I came across an example of this in a Charles Bukowski novel, in which he uses the stereotype to indicate that a character has racist tendencies. Gettingh back to nailing down the origin of the stereotype, I think you may be onto something here. It may have started as a “blacks steal chickens and watermelons” stereotype which then morphed into a more generalized “blacks sure do like chicken and watermelons”. As evidence in support of that theory, there is a very old folk song about the supposed propensity of black people to steal watermelons called “[Watermelon Hanging on the Vine](http://toneway.com/songs/watermelon-on-the-vine)” (sometimes “Watermelon Smiling on the Vine” or just “Watermelon on the Vine”). It would not surprise me at all to learn that this might be an old minstrel show song, or that the food stereotypes date from (and were reinforced by) the old [minstrel shows](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show). ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/105 "2010-01-09T00:46:23Z")
> [@Petey](#): > > Woods never had a problem with the joke. It was an outcry by others that caused Zoehler problems. I’m not sure that this is true. IIRC, Woods could have put the whole thing to rest quickly by coming out in support of Zoehler but he didn’t. He let him twist in the wind for quite a while (around a week, I think) before making a statement. ---
**Author:** ![Recliner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a88e57/32.png) [@Recliner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recliner)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/106 "2010-01-09T01:56:14Z")
The bottom line is this. Its a fact that racist imagery was popularly used to advertise fried chicken joints in the past, in the USA. Its become a well-known racist association. Therefore, when someone makes reference to black people and fried chicken, they’re likely perceived as either (a) unaware of this historical situation, or (b) buying into stereotypes. Thus, to do so is taken as a character flaw. It may be a fact that theres nothing inherently racist to it – but, like all racial stereotypes, a careless reference to it is likely to be ill-received. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/107 "2010-01-09T01:57:31Z")
Added info/thoughts on this subject [in this old thread of mine.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=150886) Covers a lot of what’s already been said here, but it might have some other perspectives/links that are interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Recliner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a88e57/32.png) [@Recliner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recliner)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/108 "2010-01-09T01:58:24Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > And I think I must be wrong about the stereotype dating from the Great Migration. In looking for those images, I found several similar ones that pre-date the Great Migration. So there goes my theory. I recall that Huckleberry Finn refers to blacks loving watermelon, so that part of the stereotype is at least as old as 1885. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/109 "2010-01-09T04:30:31Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > I don’t think there’s any racial connotation in that phrase at all. You may be under the mistaken impression that only black people picked cotton. Cotton was the most common cash crop in the South for many decades after the Civil War, and white farmers and their families were picking that cotton, too. Both my parents regularly picked cotton as children in (middle class) farm families. If anything, I suppose “cotton-picking hands” might be a class-based insult. (If you were wealthy enough, I suppose you didn’t pick your own cotton.) > > Oh, and as someone younger than you, I have heard the phrase used by real live people. 🙂 Yeah, I’m 30 and my parents frequently told me to get my cotton picking hands off things. My dad actually had cotton picking hands, though, as he was born a sharecropper in 1931. So there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![Petey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f1d935/32.png) [@Petey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petey)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/110 "2010-01-09T04:51:11Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > I’m not sure that this is true. IIRC, Woods could have put the whole thing to rest quickly by coming out in support of Zoehler but he didn’t. He let him twist in the wind for quite a while (around a week, I think) before making a statement. It’s been a while and I’m just going off a memory. It’s hard to say what Tiger Woods really believed since he keeps his opinions close to the vest as we’ve seen by his recent scandals. I think his PR firm waited to see which way the wind was blowing and then issued a statement about being “disappointed” then “forgave Fuzzy”. My main point is for people who think that the “fried chicken and watermelon” can never be offensive. Obviously it got Zoeller into trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/111 "2010-01-09T06:06:34Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Yeah, I’m 30 and my parents frequently told me to get my cotton picking hands off things. My dad actually had cotton picking hands, though, as he was born a sharecropper in 1931. So there’s that. I’m 27, and have heard it. I also want to say I’ve even used it, but can’t be certain I actually have. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/112 "2010-01-09T06:43:58Z")
Anecdotal Non-Evidence: When I was in college in the mid-70s I lived in a private dorm that held occasional “special dinners.” Surprisingly, a quick perusal of YouTube does not include a sing-a-long version of the song, which involved catfood. Our residents included both jocks and gents who were politically active, but who preferred to live comfortably (thank God for Greyhound or I’d’ve been elsewhere). One Thursday dinner included fried chicken and watermelon. It was sad watching those guys turning down those yummy, but stereotypical, dishes. I assume their kids are free of it, but there really was a time when food was political. ---
**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/113 "2010-01-09T10:25:51Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > (However, by BBQ I mean real NC pig-pickin’ BBQ with vinegar-based sauce, not that rib tomato-based-sauce stuff you get in weird places like Texas.) When did they get real BBQ in NC? Sauce? Good BBQ, like the real stuff you find in Texas, doesn’t need any sauce. And it’s made of cow. ---
**Author:** ![Stoneburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Stoneburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoneburg)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/114 "2010-01-09T11:02:53Z")
> **[Pengeluaran SGP: Data SGP | Togel Singapore | Keluaran SGP Hari Ini](https://vicschoolholidays.com/)** > > Pengeluaran sgp berisi hasil keluaran sgp hari ini sah kedalam data sgp untuk para pemain togel singapore menentukan jackpot toto sgp. Racist, but funny. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/115 "2010-01-09T14:13:35Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > I’m 27, and have heard it. I also want to say I’ve even used it, but can’t be certain I actually have. I have, but I worry about accidentally saying it to the wrong person, since in my mind it has nothing to do with race but people could construe it thus. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/116 "2010-01-09T14:24:56Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > [Pengeluaran SGP: Data SGP Hari Ini | Togel Singapore Pools | Keluaran SGP Resmi](http://pw0nd.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/bravery-500x400.jpg) > > Racist, but funny. I don’t get it… ---
**Author:** ![BrandonR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/117 "2010-01-09T14:59:13Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I don’t get it… The site doesn’t allow direct-linking of images so it directed us to the site’s logo instead. It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened… I’m assuming the original link was for this: [Pengeluaran SGP: Data SGP Hari Ini | Togel Singapore Pools | Keluaran SGP Resmi](http://pw0nd.com/2008/09/04/bravery-2/) ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/118 "2010-01-09T15:05:45Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I only knew that images of fried chicken and watermelon were offensive to blacks because liberal satirists kept using those images! Well, that’s _you_, isn’t it! “Liberal satirists” didn’t invent those images, they just appropriated them into their act. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/119 "2010-01-09T17:46:58Z")
This durn thread has implanted a crummy John Mellencamp tune in my head. _There was fried chicken, collard greens and watermelon (They were Racist) Chitlins, ham hocks and fried chicken (They were Racist) Spotlight on watermelon Let’s don’t forget fried chicken Racist in the U.S.A. Racist in the U.S.A. Hey!_ Thanks a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915/120 "2010-01-10T00:23:48Z")
Fried chicken is racist? Then I’m racist, because I loves me some fried chicken. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-fried-chicken-racist-in-the-usa/523915.md?page=7)