As another poster said,this would have been better without the Watermelon. And Please, DON'T include Kool Aid of ANY kind into the meal either,Especially GRAPE kool-aid.
There's other soul food options available.
Greens + (Fatback,Jowls,Neck bones,or Bacon)
BAKED Mac N Cheese
Dirty Rice
Chitterlings (Please,don't torture the kids with that nasty ass slave food)
Chicken and Waffles
As another poster said,this would have been better without the Watermelon. And Please, DON'T include Kool Aid of ANY kind into the meal either,Especially GRAPE kool-aid.
There's other soul food options available.
Greens + (Fatback,Jowls,Neck bones,or Bacon)
BAKED Mac N Cheese
Dirty Rice
Chitterlings (Please,don't torture the kids with that nasty ass slave food)
Chicken and Waffles
And so on.
So you're saying they can cook any type of soul food EXCEPT fried chicken and watermelon.
And doesn't your list above also perpetuate stereotypes?
I've always wondered where that stereotype comes from. Like, why fried chicken and watermelon, of all foods?
Fried chicken is a Southern thing, so I don't know why that's only associated with Blacks, but the watermelon stereotype is rooted in slavery days because it's what was grown cheap and the slaves were often allowed to eat.
Fried chicken is a Southern thing, so I don't know why that's only associated with Blacks, but the watermelon stereotype is rooted in slavery days because it's what was grown cheap and the slaves were often allowed to eat.
Yeah, that's what I suspected was the case. I'm guessing that the fried chicken stereotype arose for a similar reason, since it's a staple dish of the American south and chickens have always been a pretty cheap source of meat.
So you're saying they can cook any type of soul food EXCEPT fried chicken and watermelon.
And doesn't your list above also perpetuate stereotypes?
It wouldn't have really made the news,and we wouldn't be talking about it if they just cooked a regular plate of soul food instead of going for the MOST stereotypical things,Watermelon and Cornbread. Unless you are Pat Robertson, You don't see many white/nonblack people connected Dirty Rice or Mac N Cheese,(Greens and Chitterlings are another story) to black people as opposed to the three choices you see mentioned in this article.
I've always wondered where that stereotype comes from. Like, why fried chicken and watermelon, of all foods?
Quote:
it started with Birth of a Nation, the 1915 film on the founding of Ku Klux Klan. In one scene:
[A] group of actors portraying shiftless black elected officials acting rowdy and crudely in a legislative hall. (The message to the audience: These are the dangers of letting blacks vote.) Some of the legislators are shown drinking. Others had their feet kicked up on their desks. And one of them was very ostentatiously eating fried chicken.
"That image really solidified the way white people thought of black people and fried chicken," Schmidt said.
Quote:
Why is watermelon racist?
Same deal. From Theodore Johnson writing for The Huffington Post:
Just as the undesirable leftovers of farm animals, such as pig intestines and feet, are linked to the slave diet, watermelon is the food most associated with the 19th and 20th century depictions of blacks as lazy simpletons.
Quote:
You know the song the ice cream man plays (not "Pop Goes the Weasel")? Well, the original version, from 1916, is titled "****** Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!" And again, you might say to yourself "Well, what does that have to do with post-racial America?" Well...
Quote:
Exhibit B — This racist message board:
******s are attracted to bright colors and large amounts of sugar, not unlike their cousins who swing from trees.
******s get obsessed by trivial pleasures like watermelon, fried chicken and bling because it stimulates a vesitigal [sic] part of their primitive jungle brains
Quote:
Exhibit C — This owner's manual, via a White Power website:
Experienced ****** owners sometimes push watermelon slices through the bars of the ****** cage at the end of the day as a treat, but only if all ******s have worked well and nothing has been stolen that day.
******s are attracted to bright colors and large amounts of sugar, not unlike their cousins who swing from trees.
******s get obsessed by trivial pleasures like watermelon, fried chicken and bling because it stimulates a vesitigal [sic] part of their primitive jungle brains
What I find interesting about that quote is that it synthesizes old stereotypes (fried chicken and watermelon) with new ones (bling). It reminds me of this video that Nas released not too long ago:
I want you to take a look at the way the men in the video are dressed and compare it to the way they speak. The way they talk is reminiscent of archaic black stereotypes (note the exaggerated southern accents and the usage of words like 'massa' and 'shuck 'n jive'), but they're decked out in du-rags, gold chains and grills. Which makes you think... has the way we perceive African-American culture really changed all that much since the days of minstrel shows and Jim Crow laws? Why are we still conditioned to see black men, even the ones who are several times richer than we are, as common thugs and criminals? How did we come to associate gold chains and expensive jewelry with the people we see as the dregs of society?
I hate how people confuse Southern comfort foods for "black" food
