this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024

272 points (89.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35780 readers

993 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)

Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.

Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.

Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.

Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.

Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.

Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.

Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

272

Why not serve fried chicken on Juneteenth? How is it different from serving corned beef on St. Patrick’s day? (old.lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

162 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

(page 2) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

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.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (5 replies)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Corned beef is Irish?

News to me. I thought it was just pastrami.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Corned beef seems to have originated in Ireland and Scotland, but was commonly used throughout the British Empire for the past 400 years. I assume the cooking and salting process makes it last much longer without going bad, which would make sense for long voyages.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's Irish American, I doubt it has anything to do with Ireland.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Nah, it has some irish origins, just not only Irish

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Yeah you know except the whole part where it was brought to the US by the Irish potatoes famine refugees. But yeah nothing to do with ireland just the thousands of Irish people from Ireland that fled the famine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

There's about the same number of foods that are actually from Europe, as there are foods that immigrants made theirs once they got here.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

It isn't racist to eat chicken and waffles on Juneteenth. It would be like eating ham on Thanksgiving. You can do it and you can do it with friends if everyone is on board for that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I suppose I'm in a similar situation with ppl in Vermont you don't really get to socialize with people and the few people you come across are never black. Infact I recall actually learning about fried chicken and watermelon being racist from the backlash from the school you just mentioned.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

Don't forget red hats, no more red hats without automatic suspicion... If they have white block text, amplify suspicion by 10,000

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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?"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments