The fried chicken stereotype (by 1905) is the idea that Black people like chicken, particularly fried chicken, way more than anyone else. It is common in the US and has spread to at least Britain. It seems it had an uglier edge to it in Jim Crow times (1877-1967), but in the 2010s it is still used as a racist joke.
The US National Chicken Council asked 1,019 people in June 2015 if they had eaten chicken in the past two weeks. Of those who said yes, 13% were Black. But Blacks make up 13% of the US. Their love of chicken is completely average for an American.
Chick-fil-A in 2016 was the most popular fast-food restaurant in the Blackest states of the US. But that was also true of such famously White states like Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota.
KFC: China has more Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants than the US. The only Black-majority nation to make the top ten is South Africa – the rest are majority White or Asian.
So there is no truth to it – as with most stereotypes.
But even if Blacks did like chicken more, so what?
A student from Zimbabwe noticed that his innocent love of fried chicken took on a dark meaning when he came to the US for his studies:
“The reality is that America adds a whole dimension to it. Everything has a meaning, albeit a different one for each person. That is why fried chicken stereotypes may be simple observation to some people; but those same stereotypes may have dark, racist connotations for some people. It is all in the context.”
In Jim Crow times eating watermelon and chicken were used to put down Black people. Watermelon and chickens have two things in common: you eat them with your hands and it is easy to picture them them being stolen.
Blacks as thieves was a part of these stereotypes in the early 1900s.
Eating with your hands: Claire Schmidt, a professor at the University of Missouri who studies race and folklore, says of chicken:
“It’s a food you eat with your hands, and therefore it’s dirty. Table manners are a way of determining who is worthy of respect or not.”
It made Blacks seem less civilized. That point was burned into White American culture by “The Birth of a Nation” (1915), the biggest film of its time. In the part of the film during Reconstruction (1865-77), when Blacks get the vote and rise to public office, Schmidt notes that:
“Some of the [Black] legislators are shown drinking. Others had their feet kicked up on their desks. And one of them was very ostentatiously eating fried chicken.
“That image really solidified the way white people thought of black people and fried chicken.”
That picture of Reconstruction was also used to deny Blacks the right to vote.
In the 2010s that background is forgotten, but the need of many Whites to put down Blacks has not not disappeared, so the stereotype lives on even though it is supported by neither fact nor reason.
– Abagond, 2017.
Sources: mainly History on the Net (2012), NPR (2013), eZimbabwe (2014), MTV News (2015), National Chicken Council (2015), Business Insider (2016), Google Images (2017).
See also:
- stereotype
- racist jokes
- Jim Crow
- Reconstruction
- The Birth of a Nation
- Why do Whites demonize Blacks?
668
Slow day on the anti-racist front eh?
LikeLike
White America needs its loyal punching bag, no matter how many logical hoops it has to jump through to reach it.
What of it?
LikeLike
“What of it?” As if any of this is a surprise.
LikeLike
“China has more Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants than the US.”
This reminds me of how Black people are ridiculed for liking hot sauce. Yet the number one selling hot condiment in this country right now is sriracha sauce from Vietnam/Southeast Asia.
A friend of mine has several Vietnamese co-workers who keep bottles of sriracha sauce on their desks. He said they add it to everything from potato chips to salads. No one ever mocks them for their love of hot sauce.
It seems Asians and Asian Americans consume more fried chicken, watermelon and hot sauce than Black people, yet Black people have been mocked for decades for enjoying the same foods.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=3htBnIjrCso)
LikeLike
“In Jim Crow times eating watermelon and chicken were used to put down Black people. Watermelon and chickens have two things in common: you eat them with your hands and it is easy to picture them them being stolen.”
I do not know about chicken, but I believe it is the same reasoning:
In the days, long ago watermelon was only grown and harvested once a year and it was a great treat when it was time to pick the watermelon. It is highly likely that only once a year did the slaves or poor blacks after slavery even see a watermelon.
When I was young they had ice boxes and food did not last very long. When Watermelons were harvested it was eaten almost at once. Trucks use to come up north and sell the melons so I am sure there was not that much left for people on the farms. It had nothing to do with the hands. (It was a cash crop)
Chicken were not as plentiful in those days as today and I do not believe that many slaves had many opportunities to get a piece of chicken for a meal.
When black people traveled on the trains they were unable to eat in the dining car, so they had to carry their meal with them. Fried chicken was the very best means of preparing food for a journey. It did not have to be heated and I am not sure if salami and baloney were available. Canned foods would not have been satisfactory. So, chicken and bread was the probable choice to carry in a satchel or other bag. it is highly likely if you were to go into the poor white area they were carrying some type of easy to carry food also
The stories about “chickin eating blacks” in the Birth of a Nation was part of an attempt to deny the blacks the progress they were making. A lot of the southern hero statues went up about the same period. The president of the US at that time was quite prejudiced.
A political promise made “A chicken is every pot” (Make America Great). Most Americans did not get much chicken in those days.
Abagond you concentrate on all that past bull and seem to forget we have fought against it and there is nothing anyone can do about the past. Even in the southern states we have mayors and police chiefs and all successful people, yet you are constantly bringing up crap that no living person is responsible for.
You were on 1949, what happened it did not bring enough negative juices for you. For your information, many blacks though some of those picture were funny, even as they lived their harsh lives, yet they were sending their children to college while they were doing the belittling jobs open to them. At the beginning of World War II many blacks moved away from the poverty of the south “up north” and became in a matter of years the leading citizens in their communities.
Perhaps you should do a study on the positive improvements of the blacks since the days of Birth of a Nation. I would suggest you go back to 1865 but you could not actually manage the massive improvement and would get blinded by the KKK and the other atrocities.
I do not believe you could find in the history of the world any story that is more amazing then the rise from slavery of the black in the United States.
My gift: In 1862, Mary Jane Patterson earned a B.A. degree in education from Oberlin, becoming the first African American woman to earn a degree from an American college. Other black women had graduated earlier but did not receive the collegiate degree (BA).
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/oberlin-college-1833
First slave owner was a black man. While very few did 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves at some time. We have moved on past that time.
You could balance your site by including some positive stories about our success since some of the African nations continue to have problems getting rid of their Tribal System.
You could suggest some positive methods to overcome the denial of voting in the states that have 33 to 37 percent of the population, yet do not seem to be able to send in representative to the government. How do we get them registered? (Study the US and you will see that blacks are represented everywhere except in the states where most of blacks live)
You could research the states and point out successful blacks who have “made it”. Include them in your 500 words about whatever you choose!
ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation
Under President Woodrow Wilson, it was the first American motion picture to be screen
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/wilson-legacy-racism/417549/
Wilson removed blacks from the federal government. So much black progress since Wilson!
Do you think President Trump is doing the same thing? Have you done any study on this subject?
LikeLike
And it’s cheaper to raise and purchase than beef.
Chickens will eat just about anything and we get the added benefit of the eggs.
Pigs will eat just about anything as well but after selling the parts that are high on the hog all that’s left are the scraps (ribs, feet, ears, innards,…).
I know Black people who won’t eat fried chicken in front of white people but eff that, Popeye’s is good.
And I love watermelon too. (Although I cut it and cube it before eating it with a fork.)
The odd thing is that fresh farm raised chicken and fresh watermelon are really good for ones health.
LikeLike
And, besides that, some nutritionists will tell you that white meat is better for health than red meat… and so on and so forth…
I can’t see myself worrying about synchronizing my preferences with anyone else’s preferences. Be it about food, natural or man-made landscapes, cars, women, etc. For me, what I like is always good, no matter what others think! But maybe under strong social pressures I could be affected… just maybe!
LikeLike
[…] via The fried chicken stereotype — Abagond […]
LikeLike
@Abagond
Those google search suggestions really struck me. I thought, “Is that what people are really searching for?!?” Then I tried it, because I never trust anything on the internet at first glance… anyway, I actually only had to type “Why do bl” to get the same search suggestions as you.
Then, I started clicking on them to see what kind of racist propaganda people would find when they did those searches. To my surprise, the results were mostly informative and against racial stereotypes.
Now, apparently, I should have done this sooner because I learned something. The “Why do Black people say ax” question… internally, I always just thought, “Because there are regional sub-cultures in the U.S. that all have their own slang and/or language variations… so what.” It turns out, the linguistic history of ax dates back centuries!
Ask vs Ax (aks, axe) might be worthy of a post of its own Abagond.
LikeLike
@ Open Minded Observer
Like fried chicken and watermelon, saying “ax” for “ask” is one of those things that whites pin on blacks even though many white people do it, too.
I said “ax” until I went to school, and I remember it was very hard for me to learn to say “ask” instead. I still slip occasionally.
LikeLike
@Solitaire
That’s pretty much how I thought of it. Not that I “pinned it on blacks” as you mentioned, because I hear it just as much from whites. That’s why I had interpreted it as a regional thing. Unfortunately, in the U.S. “regions” also tend to be populated by one race more than others and I think this has probably led to ax being attributed more to one race. However, what I was reading earlier traced it all the way back to old English including early bible translations. Basically, the same way “fisk” evolved into “fish”, “ascian” and “acsian” have evolved into ax and ask. That has left me wondering if regional bible studies gave rise to the popularity of ax..
Anyway, I just found it interesting that this particular colloquialism is actually not a colloquialism at all, but instead it is equally as correct as what has been accepted by many of us as “good English”. Both ask and ax have evolved from the same roots. One is not a mispronunciation, or slang replacement of the other.
LikeLike
@Abagond
Sorry for the derailment into off-topic land…. It was the google search image in your post that took me on that tangent.
Back on-topic: I’m totally having fried chicken for dinner. Not out of protest or anything, just because it’s delicious and I’m in charge of dinner tonight.
LikeLike
@ Open-Minded Observer
I didn’t mean you specifically when I said whites pin it on blacks! I was speaking in general terms.
I’ve always thought of “ax” (aks) as a regional thing, too. I figured it was a mangling unique to the U.S. southern dialect, since it was one of the pronunciations that I picked up from my white southern parents that drove my white midwestern teachers to distraction.
But I just got back here from reading some of the same articles you’ve mentioned, and that pronunciation is apparently still found in parts of England as well. And as you said, it is present in both Old English and Middle English (both of which I have studied, including Chaucer, yet somehow I didn’t connect the dots).
So what I always thought of as a southern U.S. mangling is actually a very old pronunciation that used to be correct. This isn’t the first time I’ve discovered that to be the case with things I was ridiculed for saying by Yankees. Thanks for directing me to those websites!
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Open-Minded Observer
“Unfortunately, in the U.S. “regions” also tend to be populated by one race more than others and I think this has probably led to ax being attributed more to one race.”
My theory has always been this: Most African Americans in the Midwest are descended from families who moved up from the South. White people where I grew up therefore associated “ax” with black people, not knowing that many white southerners say the same thing and that most likely black people got that pronunciation from us in the first place.
Kind of like how fried chicken can be traced back to traditional Scottish cooking….
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have lied for years about liking fried chicken because I didn’t want to fit into any stereotype whites had for me. Truth is I do like it, (but I don’t eat it often because of how greasy it is) but I never understood how liking a certain food could be “bad” As for me I am not a fan of steak, but a lot of white folks I know seem to love the stuff. Should we make fun of them for it? Doesn’t seem likely. Anyway, good post Abagond. When this hit my inbox I was like “he finally addressed the chicken stereotype!” Peace out.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You left out the “joke” that golfer Fuzzy Zoeller made in 1997 after Tiger Woods won his first Masters. Traditionally at the Masters, the previous year’s winner selects the next year’s dinner menu. He said, “Tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it. Or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve.” In addition, there were comments made by golfer Sergio Garcia in 2013. In regards to a reporter asking him if he would host Tiger for The British Open. He responded, that he would. “We will have him ’round every night. We will serve fried chicken”
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s crazy to use foods most people enjoy to demean blacks or any group of people. Obviously, those who feel the need have serious self esteem issues if they must tear others down to feel better about themselves. Sad.
.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@philomage Screw what some ignorant whites think. I blove me some fried chicken and watermelon, too. And? That’s my attitude. I refusw to edit myself either for what they might think or for their benefit in any way. DONE. Unapologetically myself and unapologetically black, too whether I fit the stereotype or not.
LikeLiked by 3 people
That’s a better way to live for sure. I guess for me it was more about going against whatever white society had me pegged for. Rap? I love rap music, especially the political sort but I phased it out in my teens because I bought into the lie that it was a “bad influence”. I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and at 24 I realized that just wasn’t what or how I wanted to live my life. Good for you for never conforming!
LikeLike
Omg i was hiding my phone’s screen every time someone walked near to me as i was reading this article.
LikeLike
Watermelon is disgusting to me the seeds and the juice and just the sloppiness of eating it is gross to me. So there’s that.
LikeLike
Watermelon is disgusting to me always has been. Seeing people spit out seeds and the juice is nasty to me and it stinks.
LikeLike
I am not so brainwashed by white supremacy that I am ashamed to eat chicken in front of whites in fact I am sure during slavery and Jim Crow whites especially the poor ones were making a feast of watermelon and chicken. It’s amazing the lengths white supremacist went to oppress black people and how they continue this day and time.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The word “ax” or “axe” for the modern “ask” is right there in Chaucer, sticking out like a sorre thumbe**. Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” is no doubt the most widely read work in Middle English in the world today.
Now on to fried chicken. On a positive note, I once saw it explained that the black working class in the old South found chicken on the bone a very convenient lunch food, easy to carry around and easy to eat with a minimum or even absence of utensils. Well, probably true, but as a person of non-color (though not of the blue-eyed or pasty-white type, I concede) it immediately occurred to me that Southern whites no doubt often had discovered the same convenience but were just not in this folk meme being credited for it. I wonder just how much of this goes on, American folkways and folk foibles being attributed to either black or white which are in fact practiced by all, and whose origins are unknown. Frankly, I am sure fowl on the bone is about as old as fire, much to the rue of those avian martyrs to our progress I would say.
**According to my sources, the modern “sore thumb” in Middle English is “sore thumb”. “Sorre thumbe” is admitted fake Middle English.
LikeLike
After reading another article and this post, especially after looking at the images, I got the feeling that white people really dislike black people; and, more importantly, white people have no respect for black people.
Google mini satans
LikeLiked by 1 person
Personally, I prefer curried chicken.
LikeLike
I remember when Denny’s was called Sambo’s. This is the 1980’s.
LikeLike
Kentucky Fried Chicken is extremely popular in Vietnam. One of the most popular fast food restaurant chains.
LikeLike
My comment wouldn’t post. I receive an error. Abagond, is it perhaps in moderation?
(Not that it as groundbreaking & important; I am just wondering if there is a problem with the form).
LikeLike
@ Mira
Nothing at my end.
LikeLike
Abagond,
Thank you for replying. I thought so. Oh, well. Again, it was not really important.
I said something along the lines that I didn’t know (much) about this stereotype… Probably because fried chicken is seen as “an American thing” where I’m from, as in, whole America regardless of race. Plus, it seems that chicken wings are very popular at (white) sports bars, aren’t they? At least in Canada – not sure about the U.S.
I guess this might be an example of a neutral thing (particular food that many people across many cultures like) that is coded to belong to a particular group and it is seen in a negative way – not because the thing itself is negative but because the group itself is seen in a negative light by the most powerful. I might be wrong because I don’t know how fried chicken is seen in the U.S. outside racist imagery (IS there any view of fried chicken outside of that?)
LikeLike
[…] and pernicious, stereotypes concerned fried rooster, that staple of the American South. By way of postcards and advertisements, movies and commercials, interviews and memes, Black Individuals have been (and […]
LikeLike
This actually goes to show how people can choose to be offended by anything at all and blame others for being racist. This is a result of being brainwashed by whoever rubs you the right way. Put emotions aside and seek truth. Please.
LikeLike
[…] and pernicious, stereotypes involved fried chicken, that staple of the American South. Through postcards and ads, films and commercials, interviews and memes, Black Americans were (and continue to be) […]
LikeLike
Before industrial chicken processing plants (mass slaughterhouses) became common in the USA after World War 2, chicken was considered a high end food.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, President FD Roosevelt made an effort to lift the morale of the nation with the promise of “a chicken in every pot.”
Chicken was associated with prosperity because preparing chicken for eating was a tedious and labor intensive process.
A chicken had to be gutted (very messy). It’s feathers had to be plucked (time consuming) and tiny hairs on the skin had to singed off (tedious) before the bird was cooked.
There was a time when only the wealthy could eat chicken whenever they desired. For most Americans, chicken was a special occasion food reserved for Sunday dinner or holidays.
Fried chicken was considered even more of a delicacy because of the cost of cooking oil. In many Southern and Midwestern households, chicken was fried in a mixture of liquified pork lard and bacon fat for flavor.
Neither ingredient was cheap in large quantities.
Mockery about Black people eating fried chicken was rooted in White supremacist fears in the late 1800s and early 1900s that (nominally free) Black people had the potential to prosper.
By the 1880s, in some localities, Black people already owned land and were successful farmers and small business people.
It was feared Black people would become so prosperous they could enjoy the expensive delicacy of fried chicken any time they wished.
That fear was expressed through extensive visual and verbal mockery. That mockery grew into cultural stereotypes that float around to this day.
That’s a lot of effort to put down a group of people who are often labelled “lazy” and “stupid”.
If you dig down far enough into negative sterotypes about Black people, White supremacist fears and anxieties, plus economic competition are often at the root of the poisonous tree whose fruit falls on our heads every day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just to add a little to Afrofem’s comment about fried chicken once being high-end food (and as someone who was gathering eggs from the chicken house before I was school-age), chickens are valuable for more than their meat. Every hen that gets butchered is one that no longer provides eggs for the breakfast table or to sell/barter.
Fried chicken requires a pullet (a hen no more than a year old) to be at its best, with tender meat. In which case you’re eating a potential egg-laying hen and giving up years of possible pro]fits. Old hens have tough meat, and so when they no longer were good egg-producers, they would usually be stewed rather than fried.
LikeLike