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NBC Cafeteria: "In Honor Of Black History Month: Fried Chicken, Collard Greens, etc..

Was the NBC Cafeteria Menu Honoring Black History Month Racist?

  • Yes, it was racist. It was based on stereotypes.

    Votes: 6 17.1%

  • No, it was not racist. It was just a tasty menu.

    Votes: 29 82.9%
  • Total voters
    35
NedNickerson

NedNickerson

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So, what do you think? Was it racist?

A special NBC Black History Month lunch spread -- featuring fried chicken, collard greens and black-eyed peas -- sparked a commissary controversy yesterday, but the African-American chef who planned it doesn't understand the fuss.

"All I wanted to do was make a meal that everyone would enjoy -- and that I eat myself," NBC cook Leslie Calhoun told The Post last night.

Calhoun's proudly planned feast, which she began last year, hit a snag when Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, the drummer for Jimmy Fallon's "Late Night" show band, The Roots, shot a photo of the menu outside the network's Rockefeller Center cafeteria and posted it on Twitter.

leslie_calhoun--300x300.jpg

STEAMED: NBC cook Leslie Calhoun yesterday defends her Black History Month menu, which was removed by apologetic execs after "racism" complaints.
The menu quickly spread across the Internet and sparked a fury.

But Calhoun is confused.

"Questlove, who I serve every day and who enjoys my food, requested the neck bone [cooked in] the black-eyed peas and fried chicken, then got off the line, saying, 'This is racist,' " she said.

"The next thing you know, people were taking pictures of the sign and asking all the other black people in the cafeteria if this was racist. They said that it wasn't."
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More:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/nbc_lost_soul_UM3zLz05eb8QDjm6JsbNwK

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Two hours later:
nbcmenu.jpg


http://gothamist.com/2010/02/04/nbc_cafeteria_celebrates_black_hist.php

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Oops! NBC Offends Black Musician With Fried-Chicken Cafeteria Special 'In Honor of Black History Month'

NBC -- in its News Division, at least -- has been very sensitive to racial matters since Don Imus was dismissed by MSNBC for jokingly using the phrase "nappy-headed hoes" to describe the Rutgers women's basketball team. Apparently, political sensitivity has not extended to the whole network.

Steve Krakauer at Mediaite reports that Questlove, the leader of the band for the late-night Jimmy Fallon show, complained to his more than 1 million followers on Twitter that NBC's cafeteria at 30 Rock in New York offered fried chicken "in honor of Black History Month."
Click to expand...

More:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-gr...cian-fried-chicken-cafeteria-special-honor-bl
 
*Sigh*
It's not offensive to serve soul food during black history month or any other month. Quest should be ashamed of himself...there are much bigger issues at hand hypocritical ass nigga.
 
Cool beans, hey, and collard greens...
 
The Matter Of Splatter said:
^But why did she have to serve up the most stereotypical meal(good meal, but still!) in honor of the month?

Like, are you trying to make people cringe? I'm shocked she left off the watermelon dessert and grape soda.
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Isn't that what we eat during reunions and cook outs with family? I believe we have become so sensitive to the point that we will criticize a black woman cooking soul food for black history month..Really? We would've been salty if she had offered candy yams with brown sugar, BBQ with baked beans, and homemade mac and cheese..Do you think Mexicans would get all bitchy if they offered tortilla soup or etc for Cinco de mayo? Its stupid we have bigger shit to worry about..
 
The Matter Of Splatter said:
^But why did she have to serve up the most stereotypical meal(good meal, but still!) in honor of the month?

Like, are you trying to make people cringe? I'm shocked she left off the watermelon dessert and grape soda.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I get the cringe part...if it's a good meal...why wouldn't it be something to be proud of...that you'd want to share or expose others to. Just because it's a stereotype doesn't automatically make it a bad thing.

Now I've never had collard greens or black eyed peas...but am open to trying foods of other cultures. Given that opportunity...I might have tried it.
 
It is stereotypical, but I don't think anyone should be upset about it. How many places serve corned beef and cabbage on St Patrick's Day?
 
The Matter Of Splatter said:
I'm not criticizing her, her blackness, and/or what she eats.

I'm criticizing her choice to honor black history month with something used so stereotypically. We DO have bigger shit to worry about. But we also have to be aware of the setbacks we place upon ourselves by doing things like this.

Take that as you will, i'm going to work.
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So what can a cook who is trying to celebrate black history month fix without it being considered a stereotype? If you go into a soul food restaurant whats on the menu? This isn't a set back, that is the food of our culture. She had no malice intentions, Quest is being a bitch. I swear we seem to be the only culture that wants acceptance then gets upset about it once we gain it.
 
Mmmm I don't know. What other black people foods are there? I don't really associate any foods with black people. The cook is black so she probably knows what food is black people food. If you are offended don't eat it.

Anyway isn't the whole black history month offensive? It seems silly to me. There aren't enough months in the year for everyone's history to have its own month. Can't people who 'celebrate' history do it all year round like they do for non-black people's history. People don't even celebrate history. They just write depressing books and wikipedia articles about it and torture school children with it.

Edit: also why are we talking about this now? Black people history month isn't until october!!
 
I read a thing earlier by Questlove saying he was not complaining. He tweeted it and others started in, but it was not his intention for this to happen. If that is true he shouldn’t be blamed. It was the PC police of the country.

I have read a couple stories now saying he complained first, but I also read a couple saying he never complained. Does anyone have a twitter account know the truth?
 
Because they are used in similar contexts, people confuse stereotype with prejudice and bigotry, but they are not the same.

From my Mac's dictionary, Stereotype is: "a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing"

Note that there is nothing inherently negative about it. Sure, it's oversimplified, and while it may be generally true, it's not certainly true of every individual. It's usually at least somewhat based in fact. Gay men do generally like sports less than straight guys. Black Americans in the South who are descendants of former slaves do often eat similar foods to that described in the menu above. Italian-Americans do generally like pasta & tomato sauce.

It's a generalization because it's sometimes not true; an oversimplification that doesn't take individual preferences or history or other reasons into account. Not all black Americans are from former slaves (some came more recently, after slavery was over). Some gay men like sports more than some straight men. Most Italian Americans came from poorer southern Italy, where pasta & sauce is common.

No, stereotypes in themselves aren't necessarily bad.

The problem comes when you apply stereotypes to groups of people and then you use bigotry and prejudice to deny those people rights or jobs or whatever.

Bigotry is believing you're better than someone because of a stereotype. Prejudice is when you judge every person from a particular group as if they had all stereotypical attributes, regardless of what the person in front of you does.

It's a bad idea to not hire a gay sportscaster "because gay men hate sports". Not all of them do.

It's a bad idea to serve only chicken & watermelon to anyone with dark skin "because blacks love them". Not everyone who is black is from that tradition, or likes those things.

It's bigotry and prejudice that are bad, not stereotypes.

Nobody at NBC said blacks had to eat the chicken, or couldn't eat anything but the Black History Month special.

Nobody at NBC said anyone who ate the special had to sit in a special blacks-only area.

Nobody at NBC showed a menu that said the n-word or had a caricature of a poor black person on it.

We as a society have become too politically-correct.
 
I'd be disappointed. That first menu sounds so much better! Jalapeno cornbread got my mouth watering!
 
This shouldn't even be offensive AT ALL; It's traditional soul food.

Would people be outraged if they served sushi at an event celebrating Japanese culture?

Would people be outraged if they served chicken parmigiana at an Italian-American History day?

I highly doubt it.

America is a mishmash of many different cultures and foods. I thought we got over that and learned to respect that during the civil rights movements of the 20th century?
 
would it be racist also if on cinco de mayo we serve tacos and burritos?

This is ridiculous. and that menu looked tasty, the "before" menu.
 
kevbo said:
It is stereotypical, but I don't think anyone should be upset about it. How many places serve corned beef and cabbage on St Patrick's Day?
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Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner here! All these idiots who complained should just take a chill pill!
 
Just another dumb reason for stupid people to get their panties in a knot. Black people generally do like this type of food, it's just a fact. I'm not saying it's the only type of food they like. But as long as many do like it, it's perfectly ok for it to be on the menu. Where I work, there are often things on the menu that I do not like, but I don't complain or blame other people. Heck, I like some soul food myself, and I'm just a white trash honkey.
 
In terms of fried chicken...

Well, it's borderline offensive only because of the history of the dish.

A piece of fried chicken (or "yardbird" as it was known in the 1800's) was almost always included in the "box lunch" that was given to black plantation workers to eat at noon out in the fields.

Fried chicken wasn't popular with white people until the 1950's, and not REALLY popular until Colonel Sanders started the whole KFC thing...

So, I suppose one could argue that associating fried chicken with black history month is really trying celebrate slavery, but I don't think most people even realize that connection.
 
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