We Just Want To Have an Honest Discussion of Race
February 5, 2010
. . . without talking about it at all.
So people can’t even make jokes about racial stereotypes, because that perpetuates same. But the identity politics people will still hold us all responsible for knowing all those old stereotypes that we will have no way of knowing.
The endgame is that no nonblack person will be permitted to allude to race in any fashion whatsoever without being called a racist.
And I used to think this sort of talk by whiteys about having to walk on eggshells was an exaggeration, until a friend of a friend recently called me a racist for not following the degree to which race had been injected into an online discussion about Haiti. (Who thinks of race when it comes to Haiti? If blackness is one of the top ten things you think of with respect to that nation these days, you are sick: the main concerns are issues like How can we speed up the aid? And How can we assist in a wise rebuilding effort? and Which agencies are reaching the areas beyond Port au Prince?) What did I do in response? I sent her an email, cc’ing the person through whom I know her, explaining that it’s uncool to call me such a thing, and that if she ever does it again, I won’t be attending any parties she might frequent, or dealing with her in any way whatsoever. I may not, anyway: another mutual friend informs me that she has “a chip on her shoulder that’s bigger than a cafeteria tray.”
Why do we do that to our young people? Why?
* * *
On the issue of soul food: it does include fried chicken. Like jazz music, it’s a uniquely African-American cultural asset. That doesn’t mean every black American likes soul food, but for any black or any Southerner or any American to disown it seems silly, like denying Bill Cosby’s contributions to American comedy just because you don’t care for his particular routines or something. You don’t have to love him to acknowledge him as a pioneer. And you don’t have to like soul food to perceive its status as a gourmet experience that’s intertwined with one of the most exhilarating stories in the world: the emergence of Southern black Americans from slavery and Jim Crow laws into the modern era, wherein they are full participants in the economy and the body politic. Not that I’m implying we have left racism behind, or achieved perfection. But this country, encouraged and hectored by the English—and by the Almighty—did abolish slavery, enfranchise black men (and, decades later, black women). And it achieved equality under the law.
Not perfect, but not nothing, either. The story is something to be celebrated, not hidden.
AllahP seems to think that the NBC menu would have come off okay if something like ribs had been selected, rather than fried chicken—that it needed a main course that is also tied to black history, yet hasn’t been a punchline for racist jokes in the past.
Maybe. But I happen to like fried chicken a lot more than ribs.
But everyone draws the line in a slightly different place. For instance, the screen shot I saw of the menu doesn’t tell us what dessert was that day—but if it happened to be watermelon, I reserve my right to take back everything I just wrote and go ballistic on the chef. (Not that fruit wouldn’t be the perfect foil for such rich food—but once you’ve selected fried chicken and collard greens, you must select a different melon for the final course. Those are the rules; I just made them up.)
UPDATE: Yes, I know that soul food is a variation of Southern food, and I’d leave it to enthnoculinarists to figure out what might set it aside specifically from general Southern fare (I made up the word “ethnoculinarists”; do you like it?). I don’t think this cuisine can be broken out completely any more than most American black dialects can be isolated from Southern speech patterns.
And, as with most of the best foodstuffs (Indian, Mexican, Italian, rural French), soul food was originally developed as a way of eating economically, but in a way that satisfied the palate and kept the stomach feeling full. (Hence, the richness, which can be toned down if one is eating this on a more-than-occasional basis.)
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February 5th, 2010 at 8:48 am
I’m betting that dessert was fruit cup with a melon option.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:50 am
Cobb: “I once wrote that the true test of one’s own liberation from the mental shackles of black American peasantry could be found in the ability to eat watermelon and fried chicken without shame.”
http://cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2010/02/king-solomons-mines.html
February 5th, 2010 at 9:07 am
On soulfood:
I’d have a lot more sympathy if the folks complaining were Ladies (in the formal sense, not the “nice way of saying female” sense) who objected because “that’s what poor people eat.” Chicken, potatoes, greens– all inexpensive ways to get good food, and probably why there’s such a strong association; similarly, I know the Ladies in my mom’s home town (including my grandmother) would never serve corned beef and cabbage at home, because “that’s what poor people eat.” They’d never complain about places having it on special for St. Pat’s, though– I don’t know if that’s because Ladies Don’t Make A Fuss, or because they knew their parents and grandparents had been poor, and it was a reminder of how far they’d come in the new world.
The quote Cobb offered puts it a lot shorter, though.
February 5th, 2010 at 9:37 am
I live in the south, but am lily white.
You set a plate of fried chicken and greens in front of me, and…I’m a happy camper. If you add in some watermelon, I’m a really happy camper. Go ahead, call me a racist, I dare you.
Foxfier is right: this is the food of the working class. I’m pretty sure blacks and whites ate that fare back in the day. In my father’s neck of the woods, it was turnip greens, turnips and cabbage.
My only real reservations with the NBC menu is that it stated that the collard greens where to be served with turkey. Turkey? turkey?? TURKEY!! Doofus, bacon goes with collard greens, along with a dash of vinegar. And while the white rice and black eyed peas are OK, a more traditional dish would have been red beans and rice, also with bacon or other scrap pork product.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Whe I was spinning disks on the radio, there were only two tunes which could get you fired: Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie (DJs would put it on and and go get drunk) and this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLIkM4wvcC8.
Guess which one got this punk off the air!
February 6th, 2010 at 11:15 am
In the early nineties I was travelling for work in way north Ontario, in an area that was heavily French Canadian. I stopped at a truckstop for something to eat and poutine was on the menu. I’d never actually seen poutine (french fries and cheddar cheese curds, covered and melted in chicken gravy) before, but I’d heard of it as diner food popular in Quebec, at the time rarely seen elsewhere.
I order the poutine, and a diet Coke. Some things being universal, the waitress says “No Coke. Pepsi.”
With foresight, I could have avoided this. “Pepsi” was then a derogatory term, now mostly forgotten, with its source in the fact that in Quebec the relative popularity of Coke and Pepsi elsewhere was reversed in favour of Pepsi. The term carried the implication that working class French Canadians, or at least the men, were chainsmoking retards, every one with an insatiable sweet tooth.
“Poutine and Pepsi” was what an English-speaker would order if he were looking for unpleasantness.
I acquiesce in poutine and Pepsi, without incident. Probably because I tried to order Coke. And it was diet Pepsi. And I was from away and clearly didn’t know any better.
Anyway, there are rules beyond “If collard greens and fried chicken, no watermelon”. There’s also “If poutine, no Pepsi.”
Be forewarned.
February 11th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Don’t much care for greens in any shape or form, being carnivorous by preference. However, fried chicken and watermelon sounds like a damned good meal to me.
Well. Fried Anything is always good. And I have a soft spot for sweet, juicy fruits. But nevertheless.