BY ELAINE MAGLIARO
Administrators at a private Catholic girl’s school in Northern California found themselves embroiled in a food controversy recently. According to NBC News, students at the Carondelet High School for Girls “wanted to come up with ways to celebrate Black History Month in a lunchtime celebration. But when the Christian school announced a lunch of fried chicken, cornbread and watermelon, students and parents were outraged and offended.”
Subsequently, the school held a school assembly to discuss the “special menu” issue. Nancy Libby, the school’s principal also sent home a letter of apology to parents. In the letter she wrote: “Please know that at no time at Carondelet do we wish to perpetrate racial stereotypes.”
James Taylor, a professor at the University of San Francisco, said that he could understand “why some students and teachers would be offended, even though the lunch may have been well-intentioned.” He added, “Chicken, watermelon, collard greens — these stereotypes of black Southern culture that come from the same place where the N-word comes from.”
Ruth Wilson, who is chair of the African-American Studies Department at San Jose State University, said that the said that the food “wasn’t offensive, per se…” She explained why this particular menu might spark “bad feelings”—“because blackface-era cartoons and plays showed African-Americans eating these foods in ugly caricature depictions.”
Not everyone who heard about the food snafu at Carondelet was offended. Elizabeth Williams of the Contra Costa County Equal Opportunity Commission and a member of the NAACP said, “What is the big deal? Historically and even now, we like our chicken and I’m not going to stop eating my fried chicken, nor my cornbread, nor my watermelon.” She continued, “Let’s move on. Let’s be more progressive. Let’s not be so insulted about something so minute.”
What do you think?
SOURCES
School Apologizes For Serving Fried Chicken, Watermelon At Lunch On Black History Month (TPM)
Controversy Surrounds Lunch Menu at Concord High School (NBC)
School apologizes for Black History Month lunch of watermelon, fried chicken (Washington Post)
Controversial Black History Month Lunch Menu Prompts Concord School To Apologize (CBS)
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Flowers For Socrates 
I find it very hard to believe no one found this idea distasteful at its inception.
I happen to like this type of food…. Change the collard greens to kale with onion, bacon and onions with a side of fried okra and black eyes peas…. I’ll Set the table…..
This has to be ridiculous…. I suppose if they tried to understand why the Jewish keep it kosher it’d be offensive to serve what’s traditionally termed Jewish American food?
That is about five miles from my house. He and his family are a hot mess.
Agree with Prof. James Taylor.
“Students at Highland Park High School dressed as gang members, rap stars, maids and yard workers this month during homecoming week ? a tradition one Dallas civil-rights leader says is racially insensitive.
On senior Thug Day, students wore Afro wigs, fake gold teeth and baggy jeans. On Fiesta Day, which was to honor Hispanic heritage, one student brought a leaf blower to school.
“The scary part of something like this is you have to wonder how long these kids will continue to think this way,” said Bob Lydia, president of the Dallas chapter of the NAACP. “These kids will be leaders of this country one day.” Dallas Morning News. While the lunch event does not compare to what happens at certain Dallas area high schools, it is insensitive at best.
Professor Taylor has it right. How quickly we try to sweep under the rug the stereotypes of Black people that for so long were used against them. Do Black people enjoy this food, absolutely. However, their enjoyment of this food was for so long a stereotype used against them. The stereotype pictured them as “simple” (stupid) folk, who only were interested in food, dancing and sex. This was portrayed via cartoons and other “clownish” portrayals. In the racist rights insistence on portraying a non-existent post-racial America past hurtful stereotypes are to be ignored. The food was not an intentional slight though, I imagine, but merely a lack of understanding of the context by those who ordered it.
Mike…. I guess I’m just not sensitive enough to understand how people would stereotype food usage unless it culturally ethic food…..
You know every body that lives in highland park area of Dallas has lawn people…. Just like in Preston hollow as well as the rich community in Irving….. It’s not socially acceptable to mow your own lawn….. Well…. I suppose I’m not socially acceptable because two weeks ago I mowed my own yard again….. Wish I had a leaf blower that worked….
Mike,
I’m sure you well remember–as do I–the Black film character known as “Stepin Fetchit.”
I have never heard of stepin fetchit. Would you please explain?
Elaine,
I had ever heard of this…. So I googled it…..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepin_Fetchit interesting….
I think (more broadly than Taylor says) that it makes sense to avoid anything that has historically been used to denigrate or stereotype an identifiable group with some trait. Usually a negative trait from the perspective of those outside the group, or sometimes a positive trait put to immoral or nefarious use; or more than offset by implied negative traits; for example the stereotype that Blacks have physical prowess (dancing, jumping, rhythm) is almost always accompanied by the implication they need it to make up for a lack of intelligence; the stereotype that Blacks are better endowed or better at sex comes with the implication of greater promiscuity, the stereotype that Jews are “clever” with money and bargaining comes with the implications they use these skills to cheat others, and that they are selfish and greedy. The stereotype for women is often that the prettier they are the less intelligent they are, or the more sexually attractive they are the dumber they are.
What people find offensive is the denigration. Stereotypes historically used by racists and bigots, even when the topics are positive or neutral, are still mentally correlated with the negative traits that are implicitly suggested.
That should not be that hard for college educated people to understand. Almost any food I can think of that is associated with black people more than others is part of a highly charged negative stereotype.
I can think of one that might qualify, on the grounds that George Washington Carver re-invented it and introduced it to America circa 1880, is Peanut Butter (peanut butter has been invented many times, the earliest known is about 950 BC). I don’t have time to devise a menu, but were I a teacher there I would suggest having kids find popular foods invented by Blacks that are NOT attached to any stereotype, and celebrating THAT history. (e.g. few people see peanut butter as a “black” thing.)
Coughin,
Elaine,
I remember Stepin Fetchit well from the Charlie Chan series as do his successor Mantan Moreland who played Charley Chan’s chauffeur Birmingham Brown. Charlie Chan also was a stereotypical Chinese played by a succession of White Actors and chock full of Asian stereotypes.
These kind of things were typical of Hollywood movies in that they always showed any non-White as being somewhat peculiar and inferior culturally/intellectually.
AY:
I am with you, fried chicken, fried okra, cornbread, collard greens, kale, mustard greens with some good country ham, etc add some mashed potatos and you have some fine food. Watermelon is good too.
Wasnt BBQ invented by blacks?
I guess Polish food is out too? And German food? No sauer kraut, red cabbage or brautworst either.
Mike:
Charlie Chan always solved the case. I didnt know he was a white guy until I was an adult.
I never thought, as a child of 12 or so, that Birmingham was anything but a funny guy.
As far as fried chicken goes, my father turned me onto that when I was 5 or 6 and I have had a life long love affair with that greasy goodness.
Byron,
Could you imagine not celebrating octoberfest without beer……
Mike,
Along with Byron….I did not know that Charlie chan was a white guy either…. I guess we shouldn’t make fun of Barney Fife….. Or Gomer Pyle….. Because that stereotypes the Carolina’s….. I think they do have a few black folks in the Carolina’s as well…..
I’m thinking we might give a little more deference to the sensitivities of a race of people who couldn’t use the same bathrooms as white people until about 50 years ago.
Con,
How about corned beef and cabbage on st patties day….. The Irish were disposable and could not even get employment in Boston…. Hence that’s why a majority of the Irish built the railroads west while the Chinese went from the west to east…. They were disposable….. Oh…. And yes…. They could not use public restrooms…..
Byron says: I guess Polish food is out too? And German food? No sauer kraut, red cabbage or bratwurst either.
I don’t know that those foods are associated with any particular negative stereotype of Poles or Germans; do you? The point is not whether the food is ethnic, the point is whether the food evokes a negative stereotype.
I eat a lot of barbecue, I know a lot of people that do, and I don’t think it is associated particularly strongly with any black stereotype. I do not think you do either, since you have to ask who invented it.
A quick Internet search suggests the closest thing to modern barbecue (slow cooked smoked meats with a spice rub) probably originated with Native Americans and was observed (and sampled) by De Soto in the early 1600s.
Byron says: I guess Polish food is out too? And German food? No sauer kraut, red cabbage or bratwurst either.
==============================================================
if you have to ride in a car with me it is.
Y’know, it doesn’t look like this was done in malice, but still, it was a horribly-thought-out menu. Was there no input from teachers…?
AY,
Oktoberfest is a festival. I wouldn’t compare it to a month set aside in this country to remember the history of Black people in this country.
The Irish have had a lot of political power in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its capital Boston for many, many decades–as they have had in some other large cities in this country. They weren’t brought over here as slaves. They chose to come. Many ethnic groups were discriminated against when they first arrived here. Still, they weren’t lynched and killed and not allowed to vote because of the color of their skin. Their children didn’t have to attend segregated schools.
I’ll repeat what Tony said: “I don’t know that those foods are associated with any particular negative stereotype of Poles or Germans; do you? The point is not whether the food is ethnic, the point is whether the food evokes a negative stereotype.”
Elaine,
Thank you…. Not all acts that appear insensitive are acts of malice…. That’s the problem with revisionist historians…..
I don’t know if you recall when RWRs agriculture head stated that June 19 should be national watermelon day…. If my understanding it has no signifance up North but in the South it’s when the slaves were notified that they were freed….. So it caused an uproar down south….
A cartoon from back in the day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sls5H4xVHys
Byron,
The 3 Charlie Chan’s were Warner Oland, Sidney Toler and Roland Winters. The series of books the many movies were based on were by author Earl Derr Biggers. He wrote them with good intentions trying to erase the negative Asian stereotype the portrayed as typified by the racist
“Dr. Fu Manchu” series of books. However, Chan although possessing a keen mind was portrayed as somewhat effeminate and very subservient in demeanor. You can see the positive and negative history here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chan . The real point is that the Chan movies, of which I’ve seen most as a child, consistently portrayed its Black characters as laughable stereotypes and these stereotypes were consistent throughout Hollywood movies. The fact that up until recently the horribly racist “Birth of a Nation” was considered one of the greatest motion pictures of all times typifies the fact that many Whites aren’t even aware of the propaganda stereotypes they celebrate. This is true to of the Riefenstiehl documentaries produced glorifying Hitler and NAZI’s. Should we really celebrate the craft of bigoted propaganda?
Where I think you go astray, yet I don’t see you as a bigot, is that you get caught up in false equivalencies. Certain “Jewish” food such as “Latkes” and “Kugel” are closely identified with Jews. Yet Jewish food tastes and cooking styles have never been used in a denigrating fashion towards Jews. However, I well remember mainstream (Disney) cartoons seen in my youth that would portray ridiculous seeming/looking Black people sloppily eating watermelons. There was a racist subtext to those portrayals, even though we know watermelon is popular with everyone.
The sad truth is that beyond the obvious attitudes of slavery and Jim Crow, there were very subtle tropes fed to the American people that portrayed Blacks in negative stereotypical fashion.
The problem with this type of propaganda is that it is mostly so subtle in nature that most Whites, myself included, don’t even notice it, yet the toll the stereotypes take is massive.
Elaine,
With you usual research excellence you came up with that cartoon that perfectly illustrates the racism that was so common on American movie screens in my youth. Watch it and note all the negative stereotypes that run through it. Particularly that it was set in “Lazy Town” and that at the Black people in it are drawn to resemble monkeys. The “lazy” message is there to convey the idea that without a guiding White authority all Blacks would never do anything productive. The drawing of Black people as apes was to drive home the point of Black people being racially inferior to Whites. You couldn’t have illustrated the point you were making in this blog any clearer than with that cartoon, which represented the way Black people were portrayed up to and including the 60’s.
The history white people need to learn
Anyone who wants “white history month” should learn instead about how whiteness has been used to discriminate
MARY-ALICE DANIEL
2/6/14
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/07/the_history_white_people_need_to_learn/
Excerpt:
In conversations about race, I’ve frequently tried and failed to express the idea that whiteness is a social construct. So, here, in plain fact, is what I mean:
The very notion of whiteness is relatively recent in our human history, linked to the rise of European colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade in the 17th century as a way to distinguish the master from the slave. From its inception, “white” was not simply a separate race, but the superior race. “White people,” in opposition to non-whites or “colored” people, have constituted a meaningful social category for only a few hundred years, and the conception of who is included in that category has changed repeatedly. If you went back to even just the beginning of the last century, you’d witness a completely different racial configuration of whites and non-whites. The original white Americans — those from England, certain areas of Western Europe, and the Nordic States — excluded other European immigrants from that category to deny them jobs, social standing, and legal privileges. It’s not widely known in the U.S. that several ethnic groups, such as Germans, Italians, Russians and the Irish, were excluded from whiteness and considered non-white as recently as the early 20th century.
Members of these groups sometimes sued the state in order to be legally recognized as white, so they could access a variety of rights available only to whites — specifically American citizenship, which was then limited, by the U.S. Naturalization Law of 1790, to “free white persons” of “good character.” Attorney John Tehranian writes in the Yale Law Journal that petitioners could present a case based not on skin color, but on “religious practices, culture, education, intermarriage and [their] community’s role,” to try to secure their admission to this elite social group and its accompanying advantages.
More than color, it was class that defined race. For whiteness to maintain its superiority, membership had to be strictly controlled. The “gift” of whiteness was bestowed on those who could afford it, or when it was politically expedient. In his book “How the Irish Became White,” Noel Ignatiev argues that Irish immigrants were incorporated into whiteness in order to suppress the economic competitiveness of free black workers and undermine efforts to unite low-wage black and Irish Americans into an economic bloc bent on unionizing labor. The aspiration to whiteness was exploited to politically and socially divide groups that had more similarities than differences. It was an apple dangled in front of working-class immigrant groups, often as a reward for subjugating other groups.
A lack of awareness of these facts has lent credence to the erroneous belief that whiteness is inherent and has always existed, either as an actual biological difference or as a cohesive social grouping. Some still claim it is natural for whites to gravitate to their own and that humans are tribal and predisposed to congregate with their kind. It’s easy, simple and natural: White people have always been white people. Thinking about racial identity is for those other people.
Those who identify as white should start thinking about their inheritance of this identity and understand its implications. When what counts as your “own kind” changes so frequently and is so susceptible to contemporaneous political schemes, it becomes impossible to argue an innate explanation for white exclusion. Whiteness was never about skin color or a natural inclination to stand with one’s own; it was designed to racialize power and conveniently dehumanize outsiders and the enslaved. It has always been a calculated game with very real economic motivations and benefits.
This revelation should not function as an excuse for those in groups recently accepted as white to claim to understand racism, to absolve themselves of white privilege or to deny that their forefathers, while not considered white, were still, in the hierarchy created by whites, responsible in turn for oppressing those “lower” on the racial scale. During the Civil War, Irish immigrants were responsible for some of the most violent attacks against freedmen in the North, such as the wave of lynchings during the 1863 Draft Riots, in which “the majority of participants were Irish,” according to Eric Foner’s book “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877” and various other sources. According to historian Dominic Pacyga, Polish Americans groups in Chicago and Detroit “worked to prevent the integration of blacks into their communities by implementing rigid housing segregation” out of a fear that black people would “leap over them into a higher social status position.”
Mike/Ay:
Catholics used to be called “mackeral snappers” for eating fish on Friday and Polish people at least in Chicago were discriminated against. In college I had a girl friend who asked me if I was Polish, I had blond hair and blue eyes and was pretty big, I asked her why, she said her Irish father didnt like Polish people because in Chicago they were all, in her words, “poor white trash.” I lost interest in her that night.
All races look down on other races or tribes of the same race. It is the human condition for some reason. My best guess is that it has to do with some sort of left over survival mechanism in pursuit of limited resources.
Once people understand that resources are not finite [in some sense they are but there is an entire solar system just waiting to be mined] and that we all do better if we cooperate with each other, I think it goes a long way toward ending racism. My idea of cooperation is through voluntary trade in a loosely regulated market.
With that being said, maybe a better way of doing that lunch would have been to ask black Americans in the community to provide favorite family recipes to be cooked at the school.
Man, people just don’t get it … shallow, shallow thinking out there in Carondelet High School for Girls.
If one wants to put friend chicken on the menu as a celebration of Black History then it sure as hell must be explained with the showing of Birth of a Nation, a White Culture contribution and the source of the stereotype. Not aware of the impact of Birth of a Nation upon the culture of America back in 1915 and continuing up through this very day? Ignorant idiots once again proving that White Privilege runs amok and is still very much a part of Black History in America.
“Catholics used to be called “mackeral snappers” for eating fish on Friday and Polish people at least in Chicago were discriminated against.”
Byron,
Read Elaine’s 12:45pm comment to put your comment into context. You skirt around the fact that these divisions are used in the service of power and money. Yes there has always been a tension in America between immigrant ethnicities, but only Blacks and Native Americans had slavery and genocide to deal with. Plus the law was always stacked against them and is even today though less blatantly.
Byron,
If I recall the Romans took the Gauls as slaves and each roman solider had its own slave…
Why the resistance to the idea that white privilege exists and that this lunch is an example of it? What does slavery in roman times, corned beef and cabbage, and alleged irish dislike of polish people have to to with it? Nothing.
Bryon,
You’re up…. There’s so much to say….. But I won’t except this…… hy·poc·ri·sy
hiˈpäkrisē/
noun
noun: hypocrisy; plural noun: hypocrisies
1.
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.
synonyms: dissimulation, false virtue, cant, posturing, affectation, speciousness, empty talk, insincerity, falseness, deceit, dishonesty, mendacity, pretense, duplicity; More
antonyms: sincerity
Origin
“With that being said, maybe a better way of doing that lunch would have been to ask black Americans in the community to provide favorite family recipes to be cooked at the school.” (Byron)
What a shock to the system when the recipes for coq au vin, lasagna, cheese cake, or Minnie’s chocolate pie coming pouring in.
AY,
How am I being a hypocrite?
Blouise,
Don’t get fresh or I’ll throw a potato and onion pierogi at you!
😉
Tonight, we’re eating “ethnic” foods (Polish and German)–homemade sauerkraut and potato pancakes with weisswurstt. We’ll wash dinner down with some fine Belgian ale.
Elaine,
I think you put your money where your belief is….. You do not appear to be a hypocrite…..
Elaine,
Thanks for the suggestion … not the one involving flying pierogis but the potato pancake one … that will be Tuesday’s dinner!
“What a shock to the system when the recipes for coq au vin, lasagna, cheese cake, or Minnie’s chocolate pie coming pouring in.” [Blouise]
It would end that fried chicken stereotype wouldnt it? You may even see some chicken tika and lamb vindaloo.
Smom:
I am just saying that one Irish father from Chicago did not like Polish people.
I dont think white privilege exists. I think what you mean is green privilege, those who have the gold make the rules, etc. An Italian restraunt owner I know wont hire white kids because he says they dont work as hard as Hispanics.
Another non-native born American I know thinks most white people are lazy.
All latkes are potato pancakes, but not all potato pancakes are latkes.
Mike,
I make potato pancakes (placki) the way my mother taught me–with grated raw potatoes and onion, eggs, salt and pepper, and a little flour. I like them thin and crisp and crunchy on the outside. I served them tonight with sour cream and homemade apple sauce. Sometimes for New Year’s Eve, I serve them with creme fraiche and caviar. My husband LOVES potato pancakes.
Elaine,
If you get a chance please post your mother’s recipe which sounds a lot like Tex’s mom’s recipe and the one I use.
Mike,
You too please if you have your favorite latkes recipe. Tex’s mom used to swear that her mother’s family was Jewish and probably converted to Catholicism during one of the pogroms. She bases the suspicion on the cooking though also wondered if it might also be that they immigrated to this country from a Jewish area of Poland.
Blouise,
You know how those family recipes are–some of this…a little of that.
This is the approximate recipe:
– 4 or 5 potatoes (depending on size)–the Maine potato/all-purpose type–grated (not shredded)
– 1 or 2 onions (depending on size)–grated
– unbleached flour–probably a couple of tablespoons or more…depending on how wet the potatoes are. I don’t drain my grated potato and onion mixture.
– 2 extra-large eggs
– kosher salt (to taste)
– freshly grated black pepper (to taste)
– vegetable oil
I don’t like my pancakes too big or thick. I like them thin…and crispy on the outside. I spoon the batter into a heated cast iron skillet coated generously with oil. I find I have to continue adding more while frying up the entire batch of pancakes.
Elaine,
Thanks
Your recipe is very similar to the one I use which was passed on to me by Tex’s mom … I prefer leeks to onions. I use a cast iron griddle which my mother passed on to me … smooth as enamel and once heated holds the heat evenly through several batches
Irish potato pancakes are much different. They are thick and only crispy on the outside.
SwM,
Here in the Cleveland area we have dozens of Irish Taverns, bars, and restaurants and most all of them serve a version of the “boxty”. Sometimes they are served as an appetizer with a cheese or sour cream dipping sauce, some are stuffed with meat or fish as a dinner entree or served as an accompaniment to breakfast. Everybody seems to have their own recipe but I have never met a boxty I didn’t like. 😉
lost a reply to SwM … please save from the filter Kraken
Wow the filter Kraken ate my reply to SwM then it ate my appeal for help I’m going to try again
Test.
Blouise,
Try again.
luck of the irish
Thanks Mike … I’m trying again