Disclaimer: I am not trolling, I am an autistic person who doesn’t understand so many social nuances. Also I am from New Hampshire (97% white), so I just don’t have any close African-American friends that I am willing to risk asking such a loaded question.
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Irish people are white.
They didn’t start out that way in America, because race is a social construct used by the state to achieve its ends and when a shit ton of Irish people were coming over to the United States to escape the manmade potato famine the terms of their acceptance into American society was that they’d be doing the shittiest work.
American society dealt with this contradiction by adopting the racial pseudoscience that put Irish people below “real whites”.
Whiteness isn’t something innate that can be measured objectively (although pseudoscientific methods claim to be able to do so!), it’s a basic subjective measure of where one stands in the white supremacist power structure.
The white supremacist power structure informs all sorts of stuff like can you get a loan, can you get insurance, do you need to be more afraid of dying to the cops than usual, how loud can you play your music, pretty much every aspect of life in America.
After Catholicism became more widely accepted in the us, and a shit ton of Irish people became cops (so that the white supremacist state could surveil their communities) Irish people were eventually considered white.
Black people in America aren’t white. That might seem like an obvious thing to say, but it’s important to be clear that the process of integration that the Irish immigrant wave went through was never really offered to black Americans.
A person could argue that we are living through that process right now and I think there is a process of integration going on but it’s not making black Americans part of the broader white American group but instead giving black Americans a seat at the table of capital. That’s a significantly different deal.
Anyway, there’s this thing called racism, which is where a society uses the completely made up category of race to discriminate against groups of people to achieve its ends.
Some examples of American racism are slavery, segregation, redlining, the treatment of agricultural workers, the treatment of rail workers, etc.
What’s important is that racism is when a society (or its members) discriminate against some group. There is power in the discrimination and it’s being used against a group.
If a bank decides not to lend to white people it doesn’t hurt white people because there’s literally all the other banks that they can go to and get loans. There is discrimination being used against a group in that example, but it has no power over them because they’ll just go to all the banks that (and I’m quoting directly from a Bank of America sign here) don’t “serve coloreds”.
Okay, so why am I saying this? We’re talking about food!
There’s an old stereotype that black people eat watermelon and fried chicken. There’s a long and storied history to the food stereotypes of black Americans but I’ll spare you the tangent and just say it’s visible in all sorts of Jim crow and segregation era media and arts and crafts stuff.
If you got one of those “antique mall” type places you can probably see some of it there.
During and before Jim Crow and segregation, those stereotypes were deployed to depict black Americans as at best ignorant country bumpkins and at worst subhuman apes.
So to serve the stereotypical food of a racist caricature on a day that is intended to remember the freeing of the last slaves is at best thoughtless reproduction of a racist stereotype and at worst malicious intentional reification of a racist stereotype!
But why isn’t it racist to serve corned beef on saint patricks day? Well for one thing, saint Patrick’s day isn’t seriously celebrated as a remembrance of Irish American culture or the experience of immigrants almost anywhere in the us. It’s one of the big four, a drinking holiday with a dress code.
It’s also not perpetuating harmful stereotype to run a homemade Reuben special on saint Patrick’s day. No one bites into a Rachel and thinks “lol, those dumb micks are only good for driving spikes, drinking and swearing allegiance to Rome” or “if only they could multiply the way they multiply, maybe they wouldn’t be so poor, sad!”
Now that’s not to say it’s racist to prepare or eat fried chicken or watermelon. As a southerner I got strong feelings about both.
But pretty much it boils down to Irish people are white.
E: I fucking made a stupid ass mistake and substituted greenwood for the freeing of the last slaves when describing the context of Juneteenth. My dumbass brain was going “tell em about how greenwood and Parrish street were about giving black Americans a seat at the table of capital, instead of equality under white supremacy” over and over again the whole time I was writing this stream of consciousness ass post and when I couldn’t find a place to shoehorn it in the ol’ brain took over and did it anyway. Thanks to fryhyde for pointing it out!
So not to nitpick here, but Juneteenth isn’t intended to remember the destruction of any neighborhood. Black Wall Steet, Central Park, etc. were all significant things that happened, but not related to Juneteenth. It’s the day that the last slaves in Texas were actually declared free by the Union army on June 19th in Galveston.
Thanks for catching that. I kept trying to figure out how to frame greenwood and Parrish street as similar early attempts to bring black Americans into the fold of capital, one of which saw a violent attack by the white hegemon that was opposed to expansion of capital to black Americans but it just kept not fitting.
I guess my brain just subbed it in cause I was turning it over in my head. Edited.
I feel like this all hinges on the assumption that black people do not proportionally like watermelon and fried chicken more than other groups of people. I’d be interested in some stats on that. A quick search brought up this study which shows that they do https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9884589/
However, now I have to wonder if they eat more chicken than other ethnic groups due to generational poverty and the fact that chicken has been historically the most affordable meat. I didn’t have any success finding the answer to that question.
Regardless, those foods are delicious and I’d be happy if a tradition of eating watermelon and fried chicken for Juneteenth became more popular. What really matters is if any significant amount of people actually feel discriminated against for it or if the social justice warriors are picking this fight on behalf of people that don’t actually care.
Where tl;dr?
It is a nuanced topic that requires explanation of certain history. There is no TL;DR
Irish people are white and therefore cannot experience racism.
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i’m not.
if you want to understand why the history of racism against irish americans after the wave of immigration in response to the manmade famine doesn’t factor into racism irish americans experience today (none, zero, irish americans do not experience racism today), read my top level comment.
the defining factors are that irish americans were integrated into white supremacist power structures and black americans weren’t, that st. patricks day isn’t treated with any reverence in the united states and is instead one of the big four drinking holidays and the negative stereotypes of irish americans from the 1800s don’t survive today in word or in deed.
i chose not to touch on the lingering economic impact of racism against irish americans as opposed to racism against black americans because they’re in two different universes. one was largely dismantled before any of us were born and the other is still systemic and pervasive to this day.
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The ops question is about America. I explicitly made a top level comment about America.
When someone asked for a tldr I did not specify Irish Americans, but that should be clear from the thread, my post and the op.
You’re replying to a comment where I explicitly specified America.
America is not the world but we’re talking about America here.
Watermelon and chicken were two of the ways that black people started supporting themselves after being freed from slavery. They were agricultural products they could raise with very little investment and start building wealth from essentially nothing. Racists, not wanting them to prosper, mocked them for their preference for these things, but it’s important to note that the mockery didn’t stop them from supporting themselves with the foods they were able to produce. To this day black people enjoy these foods, and there’s nothing wrong with them enjoying the foods. If you’re with your black family, and you want to celebrate your own heritage, this isn’t actually a bad way to do it.
However.
When a corporation, particularly a corporation run and staffed by white people, makes a choice to celebrate a significant black cultural date by presenting people with foods that white people used to mock black people, it reads as mockery. (This is especially true in North Carolina, a place where racism is rampant and open.) At best, this is tone deaf; someone along the way should have said “hey, do you think any black people will feel like you’re doing this as a racist attack?” And if any one of them had answered “yes” to that question, they wouldn’t have done it. It made it through the pipeline to being something they actually did because nobody in the decision chain cares about the racist overtones of what they were doing.
If you’re going to do anything to celebrate black history or black culture, failing to ask any black people what they think about it is racism. Cultural sensitivity would have meant getting some input from a few black folks about how they think it should be celebrated–and, had they done that, they would have avoided this mess.
And, just in case anyone was wondering, the VP in charge of this situation is white.
Thank you! TIL Black people were mocked for liking those foods. They are the best, racists are only hurting themselves if they don’t eat it!
Ah, but here’s the real hypocrisy: they absolutely do eat those foods. Southerners of any color love fried chicken and watermelon. That doesn’t stop them from being racist about it. Racism doesn’t have to make sense.
Every time this comes up I gotta say, who the fuck doesn’t like fried chicken and watermelon?! It’s like making fun of someone for liking sunshine and the ability to breathe. Not that I needed another reason to point at racists and call them a bunch of fucked up morons, but goddamn they are bunch of fucked up morons.
Came here to say that. Barring a few contrarians, EVERYONE likes both watermelon and fried chicken. I know vegetarians who will admit that fried chicken tastes fantastic, even if they no longer eat it.
I also wanted to link to some info about the “Coon Chicken Inn” chain – founded by a white guy, of course.
- http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/coon_chicken.htm
- https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/links/essays/chicken.htm
He has blue eyes, confirming a depiction of a white man in black face, as opposed to a racist caricature of black people. 😠
It’s like making fun of someone for liking sunshine
At the risk of completely derailing the conversation, I’ve met a lot of people in the PNW who don’t like warm weather or sunshine. When summer rolls around they start complaining about it being too sunny and want the grey skies back. Frickin weirdos!
PNW weirdo here. I like things to be green and alive, I like my skin unburned, and I like being able to poke around tide pools on a lonely beach. Clouds and rain help all of that.
It’s currently sunny and about 77°F, which is about as warm as I want it unless I’m going swimming. Late summer when it approaches 100° is miserable, but for now the bright weather is fine and good for the plants.
Fried chicken and watermelon is still used to mock black people as well. There were racist memes about Obama eating fried chicken and watermelon.
If I recall correctly, some states even had laws against black people raising animals like cows (and maybe pigs too?), so chickens were their only option.
“How is eating fried chicken and watermelon wrong? Man, if you don’t like fried chicken and watermelon, something is wrong with you!”
Fried chicken has historically been used to mock black culture, not celebrate it
I don’t understand that, though…
Fried chicken is fuckin delicious.
That’s part of the cruelty. Almost everybody loves fried chicken. But growing up in the deep south, they were mocked for it in nasty ways I witnessed (but don’t feel comfortable describing).
I think part of the disconnect is that you don’t see that same mockery in the north.
Yes absolutely. I went to high school in the north from 02-06 and took an elective class that was African American history for the first half of the school year and Vietnam War history the second half. My teacher for both was a black woman and the first day of class she asked the class what some stereotypes they have heard of black people were, and of course people mentioned all of them. Whe fried chicken was mentioned she said, and I quote, “No we actually don’t like fried chicken, WE LOVE IT!”. So yeah I mean in the north there’s a lot less hate behind it and it’s more seen as just a “funny observation”. And not to take away from any true hate or racism but the idea of liking fried chicken being a bad thing is so ridiculous to me because fried chicke is fucking amazing.
This really does nail it. In the north, we do have the stereotype that black people like fried chicken. However, that is seen as neutral or positive. Fried chicken is delicious and black people tend to make great fried chicken. What’s not to like?
Yeah I don’t think anyone I’m friends with or close to that is white views it as a negative stereotype at all up here in NY. However if you drive out to small towns in NY there still uneducated racists flying confederate flags on their front porch, unfortunately.
Fried chicken should be served EVERY day.
This question reminds me of when that school in NY got in trouble for serving “stereotype food” for black history month.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/06/us/aramark-black-history-month-menu-school-reaj/index.html
I have the same confusion as you do, OP. It appears to be a liked dish by all accounts across many races, upbringings, or religions. Unless you have dietary restrictions like Vegan or something.
I’m assuming this is one of the things that racists ruined. Like yeah people like fried chicken, but racist made it a “bad thing.” It’s kind of like now, you got to look out for the number 88, vikings, the okay sign, the gadsden flag, or punisher flag. It’s not that mentioning fried chicken is necessary bad, but people are on edge because Nazi’s are back. 1 of the dog whistles might be a coincidence, but you start collecting them and I start side eyeing my co-workers more.
Those damn dog whistles need to end, so we can all enjoy fried chicken and watermelon on Juneteenth.
This is not targeted at you nor OP.
The answer for both you and OP is tied to your last sentence
so we can all enjoy fried chicken and watermelon on Juneteenth.
Why fried chicken and watermelon and why on Juneteenth? Do you eat fried chicken and watermelon as part of your normal rotation? (Hopefully, ‘yes’ because both are delicious and everyone should be afforded the opportunity to indulge)
The issue is that very evidently in both OP’s case and the one you linked that someone was given the prompts “food for celebration” and “celebration of African Americans”, generated “African American party foods”, and churned out a menu reinforcing racist stereotypes. The inquiry is “hey, where is your head at?”
I mean I get that. I just don’t personally see it as that. I do eat fried chicken and watermelon (and other soul food like greens, sweet potatoes, etc). I don’t eat them as much as I want because the places around me don’t make good soul food anymore. The quality is down in my opinion.
I mentioned the day because all holiday celebrations include food. I also mentioned in my opinion, that everyone loves that type of food. I just didn’t think of it as “black food” but I know it is stereotypically a trope. I think this understanding of other people’s racist tropes and my love of celebrating with loved ones and good food is where I (and assuming OP) is coming from.
Is the main issue the intent? If you eat corned beef for St Paddy’s or carne asada for Cinco de Mayo is that an issue? If we ask black people what we should eat for Black History Month or Juneteenth and they agreed that soul food is good then is it okay? Should we just stick to burgers and dogs like it’s the 4th of July?
I feel we can never really have these conversations (IRL) because people assume what the other person means when they are trying to understand the reason behind it.
All that to say, we have to be extra vigilant because racists are everywhere pushing their agenda, so I understand that this trope could be insulting to some. I’ve also met black people that don’t give it a second thought because the food is good and they were hungry.
Juneteenth is coalescing around a menu of barbeque and red colored foods. Fried chicken could be served, but it likely wouldn’t be the main entree.
It would be like a non-American serving Americans burgers and fries for Thanksgiving. Sure, Americans are known to like burgers, but that isn’t the holiday is about.
I know this whole celebration of Juneteenth is new, so the foods will take some time to become official. BBQ and red food is just as good as any other made up meal, in my opinion.
I wish we focused more on black (or at least local) owned businesses for Juneteenth. Of course, holidays get commercialized like crazy, so I’m sure some businesses will pander too much and make a fool of themselves.
On a side note, I heard Japan celebrates Christmas with KFC. Apparently that’s the idea that got sold to Japan for how Americans celebrate Christmas. I wouldn’t be surprised if some countries think Americans eat burgers and fries for Thanksgiving.
https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/things-to-do/whats-the-deal-with-kfc-and-christmas-in-japan
just as good as any other made up meal, in my opinion.
You may not see a significance in a holiday meal, but others do. There is a reason why most civilizations include traditional foods to holidays.
I just meant what the food was didn’t matter. It was having a good to come together around and share in the togetherness.
There’s nothing wrong with fried chicken. There’s nothing wrong with watermelon.
But if you’re trying to think of menu options for an event associated with black history and you just shrug and think “I dunno, black people like fried chicken and watermelon, so lets do that” you’re being so lazy you’d be better off doing nothing at all. I literally typed “black history food” into a search and got many pages with lists of options. So by serving fried chicken and watermelon it’s a statement “I don’t give a fuck about black people but since I’m obligated to serve some kind of food option I’m just going to stick with lazy stereotypes.”
It wold be preferable to do nothing and be honest about not caring than it is to offer a stereotype and then cry crocodile tears because people aren’t recognizing the token effort that was made.
About a century ago, blackface was a form of comedy where white people would make their faces black and put on comedic shows. They would take some elements of black culture, like mimicking accents or saying they love fried chicken and watermelon, and make fun of black people for being idiots.
Giving out fried chicken to an event like this feels like you don’t really care about the event. Instead, it is a token gesture at best where the decision makers thought “well, black people like fried chicken, so give them that.”
Watermelon and other red food is served on Juneteenth. But, if watermelon is the only red food there, they likely didn’t pick it because of cultural sensitivity to the holiday.
IDK, the National Museum of African American History serves fried chicken every day, so they don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.
Interestingly, if you look at the menu for Juneteenth, it doesn’t include fried chicken. The only chicken is a dry rub chicken that wouldn’t be fried. So your evidence confirms they believe fried chicken is in fact not appropriate for Junteenth. That’s a good reference point if we all accept that the national museum of African American history is an authority on such matters.
I agree with everything you said but I’d also like to point out that it wasn’t just a form of comedy, it was an entire entertainment industry all on its own, like movie theaters or concerts today. It was called the Minstrel Show
It eventually got replaced by/morphed into Vaudeville which was then replaced by cinema.
For a good 50-100 years, a major form of entertainment (not just in the South btw) was pretty much just: “haha black people are such stupid clowns! Look, that one thinks he’s fancy! That one’s a no-good drunk! Oh look, that one’s trying to give a speech!” It was pretty formulaic with standard props, just like you’d expect to see at a clown show. So fried chicken and watermelon were standard props like “tiny car full of clowns”, oversized shoes, a flower pot for a hat, a flower that squirts water, etc. For that reason they carry a very unpleasant legacy that reminds people of an insult to injury that still hasn’t been made right, in my opinion.
The format was pretty similar to the show Hee-Haw actually, kind of a fun variety show, just wildly racist and it’s obviously pretty fucked up to pick on literal slaves. Real bitch move there.
So people who know something about history are pretty salty about that and forms of the Minstrel Show were still happening here and there recently enough that people alive today remember seeing them.
Irish people caught some shit, but not like that. I’m not sure if Irish-American racism like that happened recently enough that living people remember it, or that it was ever to the extent that it formed an entire entertainment industry.
They would take some elements of black culture, like (…) saying they love fried chicken and watermelon
How did this become a stereotype? Doesn’t everyone love fried chicken and watermelon regardless of skin color? They are both delicious.
How did this become a stereotype?
It became associated with black people as the food was relatively cheap and therefore commonly eaten by black people. Then it became integrated to comedic shows of people doing blackface as a way to deride black people.
Doesn’t everyone love fried chicken and watermelon regardless of skin color? They are both delicious.
Everyone loves fried chicken and watermelon. The problem isn’t the food, but cultural stigma attached to it in certain cases.
It would provide an excuse for someone to raise hell and make others happy.
Wait, What’s this about corned beef? I am Irish (as in actually from Ireland) and I have no idea what that has to do with St Patrick’s day?
Others have given you solid answers on why the chicken and watermelon thing was really stupid so I’ll try to answer from the Irish perspective on the second part of your question:
You can serve me corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s day as long as you’re not being a dick about it. I’d probably consider it a nice effort actually if I happened to be abroad on the day.
My dad used to love corned beef, cabbage and potatoes with parsley sauce. It’s a grand meal but not my thing.
If you were a unionist who served it to me in a leprechaun outfit I’d be inclined to tell you where to go though.
Edit: I hope this answers your question. It’s a good question and the answer is nuanced so if I can offer you more perspective let me know, I’d be happy to help.
Note: Unionist is not refering to labor unions.
😂
Tbh. I’ve been craving chicken and waffles for months. I was like hell yeah hopefully there’s a event or some shit that might have some for sale…
Well no… only one place had it on the menu and it was a gentrified restraunt that was charging 25 bucks for chicken strips and a waffle for 28 bucks.
I was disappointed to say yhe least.
Is it not common just to make something when you want it?
Maybe I’m too Canadian to understand but do you usually go out for meals?
Fried chicken is difficult to make at home due to the cookware and temperatures involved. It’s also a LOT of cooking oil, so it doesn’t really make sense unless you’re frying a LOT of chicken.
Millennial Americans will cook, if it isnt too complicated.
GenZ Americans won’t cook unless it is putting something in the microwave.
Who asked you?
The same person that asked you to respond with this nonsense.
You’re asking the difference between culture and race. Irish isn’t a race. Therefore it’s not racist to say Irish people eat corned beef.
Fried chicken however is not culturally eaten by black people and that doesn’t even begin to touch on the nuances of slavery that are involved in the origins of soul food.
Long story short you can’t apply stereotypes to races. That is by definition racist.
Irish isn’t a race
Well, not any more, anyways.
If I tell people I’m autistic can I just say whatever comes into my head without consequences and then turn it against them if they do?
Yes you can, in fact many people just say they are autistic.
Ultimate life hack UNLOCKED
That’s not the comparison you need to use here. The comparison should be Irish car bombs. And the answer is there’s not a difference that’s super, will not racist but jingoist maybe, too.
Or Black and Tans aka half and halfs
