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.
Ignore what everyone on the internet says. They are wrong. Eat what you want. Just make sure everybody participating is comfortable. If you’re not sure then ask them directly and listen to what they say.
The issue isn’t eating what you want.
The issue is that there is a cultural celebration involving food. Rather than try to serve food that fits within that cultural celebration, food was served based on a racial stereotype.
Because one is actual ethnic cuisine, and the other is a stereotype.
Serious question: how do I tell the difference?
You build up knowledge over time by paying attention to how the culture that it is tied to responds, since most racist stuff doesn’t make logical sense.
For an example of it being complicated, the Florida Seminoles college football team is fine because the school has coordinated with the tribe. I don’t know of any other professional or college sports team that does so, and any that don’t are exploiting Native American culture and most likely using racist stereotypes as part of their team ‘spirit’.
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?
The Irish, for example, are no longer systematically persecuted in the USA en masse.
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
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!
Where tl;dr?
Irish people are white and therefore cannot experience racism.
It’s true they were born with immunity. I heard one of those potato eating bastards has a pot o’ gold.
I presume you are being ironic but just in case the Irish have experienced alot of racism LOL.
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.
America is not the world my friend. I mean Irish people in Ireland have been historically repressed and reviled in and by UK and Europe. I dont know how prevelant it continues to be, but there is a deep history.
Humans beings the world over find ways to categorize and class each other on ethnicity in all sorts of ways that is fundamentally working with similar power relations to racism without it being reducible to skin tone.
It is a nuanced topic that requires explanation of certain history. There is no TL;DR
Hey , I totally read all the stuff you just wrote and I totally agree. Can I borrow fifty cents?
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.
No.
Serving a dish which is part of the post slavery white supremacist negative stereotype of black Americans used to reify the Jim Crow and segregationist regimes on the day set aside to mark the freeing of the last slaves would not be more or less racist weather black Americans enjoyed eating it or not.
Are people getting upset over nothing? I don’t know. Are some people not allowed to get upset? I don’t know.
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.
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.
😂
Fried chicken and watermelon is a meal imposed by oppressors, and used to dehumanize a people.
Fried chicken should be served EVERY day.
The history of forcing slaves into limited food choices, and then caricaturing an entire race based on people adapting to those arbitrary forced limits…there are alot of layers of historical racism in play that could make doing this in a way that highlights those foods would probably play into that racism. Chicken and watermelon aren’t “black” foods, they were common staples of Southern slaves that had limited choices.
That said, those stereotypes are stupid, those foods are delicious to people of all races, so if those foods are served as a broader celebration or feast and its just part of the day without any emphasis or indicators of meeting (i.e., chicken and fruit are common foods for celebration so why not have them), I don’t think anyone would care.
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
It’s not a “social nuance”
It’s up to black people how they want to celebrate it.
Why do you suggest fried chicken ?
Because of a thread that is linked to the question.
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.
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.
It became associated with black culture because black people tended to have larger backyard gatherings, which means feeding a lot of people. They are also historically marginalized, and had lower incomes as a result. So not only were they feeding more people when they had parties; They were doing it for cheaper. Watermelon is a cheap and easy way to feed a dozen people, and fried chicken is cheaper than other forms of protein like steaks. Yes, both are delicious, but the stereotype happened because it was both cheap and could be served in large quantities for larger backyard parties.
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.
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.
IDK, the National Museum of African American History serves fried chicken every day, so they don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.
Your point reflects a lot of other points. You are arguing if fried chicken in general is bad, which isn’t what is being discussed.
The point of discussion is if fried chicken is appropriate for a specific holiday.
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.
The way I see it isn’t that stereotypes are inherently awful, it’s that they have various levels of impact. Racism against African Americans is considered more heavily because they have such a long history of oppression that not many other groups have had. Most other groups didn’t meet fierce resistance to obtaining basic rights for as long as they did
Probably a lot of black families actually do have fried chicken, barbeque and cookouts are apparently a big part of the festivities traditionally.
If you find yourself becoming such good friends with a black person that they actually invite you to one of these cookouts, don’t bring fried chicken, or watermelons, or most of the stereotypical “black” foods, they’re considered black people food because the post civil war south fostered an environment of chronic black poverty on purpose that led to black families tending towards raising cheaper animals and growing cheaper crops for their own consumption.
So a white guy cracking watermelon or fried chicken jokes or bringing that kind of stuff to a black celebration comes across less as trying to share in the culture and more as rubbing salt in a, in many ways still open, wound.
As for what you should bring, bro just ask. Just making it known ya want to bring something for folks to enjoy will be good and appreciated, and if they decide they’d like to take you up on that, they’ll either give you a recipe off their list of stuff they’ve decided they want or ask what you think you can handle making and take your word on that if anything you feel confident making sounds good. Who knows, maybe that year will go down as the year that corned beef ya mentioned becomes a staple of the annual cookout!
