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.
xantoxis@lemmy.world 5 months ago
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.
magnetosphere@fedia.io 5 months ago
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Ok, everything you just said is true, and a great answer if the question is “Why is chicken and watermellon a bad food to be assosiated with February/Juneteenth?”.
However, the question is “Why is it different from corned beef on St. Patricks day?” And everything you just said is ALSO true about how Americans treated the Irish upon their mass immigration to America during the 1800s. They were mocked for corned beef, potatoes, and alcohol. The Irish were assosiated with those items in Ireland for the same reasons black people were assosiated with chicken, and watermellons. It was cheap, and it fed a poor mans family. The non-poor (whites) mocked them for being poor.
So…you gave a great answer, but not for this exact question. And yes, I know the original question didn’t mention potatoes or alcohol, but it also applies for the same reasons.
I’m not saying what the company did was right, I’m saying those same racist stigmas for the holiday it was compared to is equally wrong.
I think a better answer is “It’s not so different. Both are wrong.”
xantoxis@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I mean, OP replied to my answer and apparently liked it, so I think I got him squared. But here’s a real response:
When the concept of whiteness was invented (yes, invented) it didn’t originally include Irish people, and they did endure abuse and marginalization comparable to what black people have endured and continued to endure. Irish people were worked as near slaves, so they even have a lot of that in common. As you say, I think that if you were Irish in America in the early 19th century, people who already belonged to the White club would have mocked you for your corned beef. We still make fun of Irish people for these things.
But there is a difference. Irish people in modern times got access to whiteness. They were accepted as part of the in-group and no longer marginalized. When this happened, and it took decades to gradually go this direction, the mockery didn’t disappear but, if you were Irish (and, in fact, I am) it would have started to feel less like someone who means you harm and more as friendly teasing, precisely because you have access to the same power as the Germans and the British and so on who already belonged to the club.
Black people don’t have that. Black people are still very much marginalized, still the victims of racism and violence and institutional exclusion. So racism, on top of that, is going to feel a lot more painful.
It’s one thing to be mocked; but to be mocked by someone else who is punching down is much worse.
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 5 months ago
An interesting aside that you probably know: corned beef and cabbage is a distinctly Irish-American tradition. The Irish were economically forced to raise cattle for corned beef for British folks. Despite raising and curing the beef, they could not afford it and subsisted on potatoes. Britain’s wealth and insatiable appetite for corned beef was so immense that those who made it could not afford the price. On the other hand, the reliance on potatoes as well as its outcome is well known.
bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 5 months ago
You just made me so happy to be on Lemmy and not Reddit. Great answer!
Coasting0942@reddthat.com 5 months ago
It’s a real tell that they had no black person high enough in management to raise this concern.
In this day and age, either diversify or sign a contract with a “cultural awareness” agency to run your ideas by first.
insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Who’s the company involved in this? I’m not in the US so I’ve probably missed a lot of context here.
xantoxis@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Spectrum. I think they’re mainly an ISP, cable TV, stuff like that. We don’t have them around here but I understand them to be a fairly big company.
This one doesn’t fall on the whole company, mainly just this one call center, but still, Spectrum corporate should get interested in how this happened.
insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Ah okay. Thank you!
Anticorp@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I am in the US and this is the first I’ve heard of it. I thought it was just a hypothetical question until I started reading the comments.
just_ducky_in_NH@lemmy.world 5 months ago
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!
TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I heard white racists make fun of black people for that a lot when I was younger. But we ate it when I was a kid because we were poor and that was cheap and delicious.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 months ago
looks at username
Well…yeah. You’re going to run into racists in TEXAS!!! Jesus! That’s the same place that seceded from Mexico to defend their ability to have slaves. Then seceded from the usa to defend their ability to have slaves. Then they complain about building a wall to keep Mexicans out.
If Florida didn’t exist, Texas would be the king of racism in America.
TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Texas is racist, Florida is racist, but ain’t neither of them got shit on Alabama and Mississippi. Texas and Florida are just louder.
snooggums@midwest.social 5 months ago
Fried chicken and watermelon is still used to mock black people as well. There were racist memes about Obama eating fried chicken and watermelon.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I was a child of the 90s when I feel this humor was more prevalent. Until now, I always thought of it as a common stereotype, like white guys in khakis, old white women and wine, or country folk and cheap beer. Something that does poke fun of a group, but generally in a light way. Now I know there’s a more significant back story. I figured it was just culturally something that developed in black communities.
can@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
It’s kinda sweet you didn’t know this actually.