Poor Fried Chicken Takes Another Hit (NBC Cafeteria Controversy)

Oh no here we go again. See NBC Cafeteria Celebrates Black History Month With Fried Chicken Special (Update)

Now I realize what is going on in the background here. There have been jokes and pictures of African Americans with Exaggerated features eating fried chicken that were not very nice.

However I suspect other ethnic groups in the past have had similar portals.

It is not to racist to say or to acknowledge that African Americans like fried chicken. Fried chicken was a southern food that was and is loved by white and black southerners alike. Blacks took that shared love ,as well as the rest of what is on the that menu (see pic at the link), with them all across this country during the great migration.

There are reasons why you see a good many chicken places in black neighborhoods. There is a reason why fried chicken is a staple at soul food restaurants. There is a reason why when I turn on the public television station I see black cooks talking about to cook fried chicken(thought the latest trend is how to do it a healthy way).

Now I suppose it's true that southern whites don't eat fried chicken and other soul foods in the same amounts as they used too. This is partly because those Scot Irish Southerners over the decades married Cajuns, married Italians, married more Irish folks, married Hispanic folks, married midwestern Yankees that came to work in the oil patch, married Asian folks and thus the daily menu has got a tad more diverse over the decades. While the black population where we see lower rates of marriage outside race have not had this food diversity forced on them by various other ethnic aunts and Grandmothers . However it is still a big southern staple.

Can we say blacks nationwide might on the average share a love of food from their southern origins? Is hot water corn bread now racist? What about fried okra? Is it ok to have smothered chicken on the menu or is chicken just something we should avoid altogether when we are talking about African Americans? If I have some black friends over do I need to take the black eye peas off the menu? If I invite African American friends over to a barbecue do I need to hide the watermelons and replace it with cantaloupes (which I don't really like).


I understand there is again a background some not flattering "humor" dealing with blacks and fried Chicken but I have to think it is silly to now make a reference to a food always racist. A food that it appears a great number of African Americans love.