Posted on 02/19/2012 7:45:45 AM PST by DogByte6RER
Commentary: You’re Going to Celebrate BHM With Fried Chicken, Really?
Is Black History Month turning into a stereotypical holiday?
I love Black History Month because it serves as a time to acknowledge the contributions of little-known Black inventors, learn the struggles of Black ancestors and celebrate the victories of how far Black people have come as a whole.
Companies, schools, churches and organizations across the country organize events to pay tribute, but is there an appropriate way to honor Black History Month?
After recent reports in the news, I’m thinking the answer to that question may be "yes." In a recent Gawker article, a tipster told the blog that the Ft. Bragg Army base was celebrating Black History Month with a “Black History Heritage Meal.” This wouldn’t sound bad if it was a presentation about slave cooks, how they had to make ends meet and a sampling of the types of food they had to eat were given, or recipes from famous African-American chefs.
Instead, it was a celebration of stereotypical foods with a menu consisting of fried chicken, pig feet, ham hocks, collard greens and any other food you’d expect to see being eaten at a minstrel show.
Now while this report may or may not be true, it isn’t the only report of “ignorant” ways Black History Month is being celebrated. The New York Times Café has marked the month with a spread including watermelon slices and cornbread, and a previous newspaper ad for the Family Dollar stores suggested to “celebrate Black History Month” by relaxing your hair, as it pictured photos of Luster’s Pink Relaxer, Dark & Lovely, Motions and Ultra Sheen relaxer kits on sale.
Stories like these make me wonder if we’ve forgotten why Black History Month, or any other cultural history day or month, was created. Featuring watermelons as a means to celebrate BHM is like praising Chipotle during Hispanic Heritage Month or giving out free tampons during Women’s History Month. You just don’t do it.
While chicken and relaxers may be products African-Americans have bought, they don’t define Black people as a whole and the contributions they have made to society.
I think it’s time to be a bit more creative.
It’s potato salad (enlarged the screen for verification). That said - and after reading your post, now I’m hungry ... yumm!!!
Agreed, I have been eating southern food for a while,66 years,they can kiss mine when they are through with you.
A dollar a day is not much but even that will help.
Stop and think about it and you will discover that there is no better investment!!
BTTT!
Isn’t Fried Rice an Asian food???
What about Baked Mac & Cheese? That’s a “black” food? It’s PASTA for gosh sakes!
And the cabbage??? I ONLY make that on St. Patrick’s Day! That’s an IRISH food! (Or Russian, or Polish)
Pigs’ Feet? My father-in-law would like to introduce you to his fave split pea and ham hock soup (and he grew up nowhere NEAR the South)!
I think people REALLY need to stop freaking out over things like this. Fried Chicken is an AMERICAN food - not black food, or white food - just GOOD food!
Sometimes people are their own worst enemies when they constantly look for little things and then pretend they can read the minds’ of the person who put it together - and it’s ALWAYS the worst possible scenario when it comes to these issues...
I’m actually surprised that there is nothing with peanuts on the menu at all - George Washington Carver is still a well-known “African-American” inventor is he not???
BTW: In regards to “Black History Month” in general - I am white and grew up in a very “white” suburb and I learned about these people in school in the 70s and 80s - WITHOUT “black history month”. It just amazes me that people think we have no clue about the contributions blacks have made to our society as a whole. Here’s an idea - to TRULY get rid of racism why not honor these people as PEOPLE and not as “BLACK” people?
I’m seeing this more now like something that Frederick Douglass warned about - those who WANT to keep their victim status. As long as people make assumptions like the author of this article we will be stuck in the past on this issue of “racism”. As for my generation - we could have been done with this a LONG time ago if the older generations would stop trying to convince everyone that things are as bad as they were...
Ping (Thought you might be interested)
What! No water mellon????
They've got watermelon for sale during Black History Month! Is nothing sacred?
What people forget is that a black scholar started the idea of "Negro History Week" and chose the period in February which included Lincoln's birthday and Frederick Douglass' supposed birthday. That later got expended to a month--but no white people were involved in selecting February.
Of course there is also January which has become Martin Luther King, Jr., Month, so it's more like 59 or 60 days (minus the first few days of January which are devoted to football games).
Frederick Douglass complained that he didn't know his own birthday because he was born a slave and his mother died when he was young. I think he decided to pick a day to celebrate--and took a day half-way between Lincoln's birthday and Washington's birthday.
Black people have been convinced by white liberal elites that eating chicken and collards is shameful. Liberal elites are nuts - and I'll stuff 'em hoppin' john down their throats if they ever cross my threshold...
I like all that stuff. I must have been born a poor black child.
Story of Anthony Johnson and John Casor in AMERICAN HERITAGE magazine Volume 44 Issue #1 along with a lot of history of the conditions surrounding events in those days; if you haden’t already seen it.
Seems Johnson was the first man (in Virginia) to hold servants who were LEGALLY slaves for life.
I’m sure your daughter’s teacher will be “impressed.”
Eyes
My daddy was a sharecropper in the 30’s.
We like all that food, growing up with it.
Food is food.
Fried Chicken was ALWAYS served for Sunday Lunch after Mass in my household. The only exception was the year that St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Sunday, and my Mom made Corned Beef and Cabbage that week. We NEVER complained, and it’s something I miss having as I have to stay away from it being a “regular” part of my diet (cholesterol, and “healthier options”-type weight loss is my lot in life now, LOL).
Oh, and I was raised in the suburbs of Chicago - my Mom grew up on a farm in Central Illinois. I will admit that in my neck of the woods the foods mentioned WERE associated with “Black Culture”, but only because those foods were brought by and found in the city of Chicago within the black communities (those blacks who fled/moved from the South in decades prior).
However, it’s only the collard greens and black-eyed-peas that “stuck out” as “different” in my geographic region - we ALL ate everything else regularly depending upon our ethnic backgrounds (my Mom never served Ham Hocks/Pigs Feet, but my husband’s Dad LOVES them made all kinds of ways! LOL).
What this author is calling “stereotypical” is an actual Food “Genre” - it’s called “Soul Food” because it DID honor the black ancestors and their trials and tribulations by those living and raised in the “North”.
Like I said in my previous post on this thread - sometimes people are their own worst enemies. I’m so sick of the topic of “racism” being brought up constantly - people need to stop trying to be mind readers.
I LOVE “RED” Kool-Aid - even if it did make me look like a clown with an exaggerated smile when I drank it - nearly everyday growing up!
I never knew what flavor it was until I got married and had to buy the packets the first time - just never thought to look at the packets as my Mom only bought one kind! LOL Little did I realize how many flavors there were (it’s insane now though...). Even as I’m typing this now I can’t remember the exact flavor - just that the packet is blue and it’s some kind of fruit punch flavor! LOL
Kwanzaa is nothing more than a holiday designed to celebrate and “justify” Black Liberation Theology, and the resultant political movements here and in Africa. There is NOTHING truly “historical” that hasn’t been corrupted by those who created it with a specific political agenda that they themselves developed to begin with.
thank you very much for that info, I’ll check it out later when I have time with my daughter.
Again much appreciated thank you.
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