Is serving and or eating fried chicken racist? It’s a straight forward question. Either it is or it isn’t.
The day that you serve and/or eat fried chicken shouldn’t matter at all. If serving and eating fried chicken (or watermelon) is racist, then it’s always racist.
Apparently this is not true at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in NY, where the manager of the campus dining services had to issue an apology the day after MLK Day, where he dared to serve — you guessed it, souther grub (to include fried chicken).
Bob Lonsberry has a fantastic column on the story — read the entire thing, he makes some salient points about the idiocy behind the political correctness gone awry at RIT:
Somebody out looking for a reason to be offended found one. Somebody who had spent too much time in multicultural class just knew that fried chicken was code for anti-black racism. In the chip-on-your-shoulder world of today’s civil rights crusaders, the RIT menu was a slap in the face of Martin Luther King and of black people everywhere.
It’s amazing there wasn’t a sit in or a march or a Sharpton visit.
[snip]
That’s what’s wrong with America.
We’ve had too much sensitivity training. We’ve trained people to look for offense where none was meant. We’ve trained people that it doesn’t matter what is intended, it only matters what is perceived. If you decide to be offended, you’re right and whoever you accuse is wrong. They must apologize and you must be unquestioned.
Bob notes that the man responsible for the menu AND all the extra time and effort to plan and cook this meal? Herman Parson. Is Herman a racist? I don’t know. But he is a black man. So I doubt he was trying to offend anybody. He was simply trying to offer a great meal to honor the day. And yet he was made to apologize. For serving fried chicken.
When I was stationed at Ft. Riley, Kansas — home of the Big Red One (1st Infantry Division) — once a month the post celebrated “Big Red One Day”.
Because it was the Army, where we speak in acronyms, the once a month “holiday” was shortened to “BRO Day”. Pronounced “Bro”, rather than “B-R-O”.
On Bro Day — usually a Thursday, if I remember correctly — we got off work at noon so that we could spend the day with our families. Additionally, the dining facilities served a special lunch. Our dining facility always went with southern food: fried chicken, collard greens, cornbread, ham hocks, black eyed peas, macaroni and cheese, fried cat fish, fried okra, red beans and rice, dirty rice, candied yams, and BBQ ribs.
The line started forming well before lunch was served, and people came from all over post to eat at our dining facility (701st MSB) up on the hill. It was by far the most popular day at this DFAC.
As it turns out, the Army has more Soldiers from the south than it does from the North, Midwest, West Coast or East Coast. And most of us grew up eating these “comfort” foods most of our lives.
Of course it never occurred to me that serving fried chicken on Bro day had any racial connotation at all. There certainly weren’t any protests outside the facility calling for increased racial sensitivity.
You know why? Because eating fried chicken isn’t racist. “Everybody eats fried chicken. It’s inexpensive and good”.
Remember the hate crimes law. We haven’t even begun to see what is going to happen in this country.
Left by Dianne on February 13th, 2008 at 11:41 am