Wildania Brito

The Fried Chicken Tales: Is It Because I Am Black?

Around the world, everyone has heard about the stereotype that black people love fried chicken, love watermelon, and Koolaid. The stereotype is known but many don’t know where it comes from, at least I didn’t. I started to investigate where does the fried chicken stereotype come from and what I found out was astonishing. In this essay, you will see how my argument plays out using various sources. For example, Church’s Fried Chicken and the Klan (Turner 1987), Which Came First: Fried Chicken or the Racist Trope (Beachum 2019), Making Fried Chicken and Watermelon Racist (John 2014), and more. The dark past of the upcoming fried chicken stereotype has not been a new thing, these customs have been going on since slavery times. The only animal slaves were allowed to raise and sell in captivity or freedom were chickens and they took maximum advantage of this, this is where the stereotype of the black community loving fried chicken comes from. 

It should be known by now that African Americans have contributed countless strategies, lifestyles, and material things for the entire world, especially the United States. Even though the way the Americans received all of these will never be justified, it happened and we cannot change our past. Data were collected from former slave cabins in Mississippi and these data showed that African Americans also contributed so much more than thought before. Data on butchering, secondary processing, cooking, and even actions they would take to dispose of the unused meats. The data collected demonstrates how the African Americans diffused strategies native to their birthplace, they brought it here to America even if they were brought against their will they had to make the best of it. 

It is amazing how people are still using this conventional image of the black community to justify their racism. Slavery was abolished 154 years ago, however, African Americans are still suffering from this racial prejudice and injustice not only in the United States but in the entire world. The black community has been subjected to this stereotype and racial profiling of liking fried chicken and watermelon not only here in the United States but in other European nations as well. The British government has been accused of racism after directly sending opposing messages to individuals who eat fried chicken. British government officials including politician David Lammy have been pushing this idea that black people are in love with fried chicken. Mr. Lammy has already been accused of calling black people ‘piccaninnies with watermelon smiles’.  There have also been many crimes in the UK these following weeks involving the use of knives as the assault weapon. The UK government has started campaigning to put an end to these crimes, reports show that minority groups including the black community are more likely to become both victims or offenders during these attacks. The knife free campaign has been making boxes full of fried chicken with real-life stories from victims who suffered these offenses. Many have concluded that this is a huge racist move from the UK government.   

   As time has passed we see how many media sources have been used to spread the racism towards African Americans in the form of comedy. The racists think is funny but to the rest of the unprivileged audience, it is utterly disrespectful. We see an old show like blackface and you get a repelling feeling seeing how this”character” plays out. In 1916 there was this catchy song that white people were just so attached to, the song today goes, “… and Pop goes the Weasel.” The name of that song in 1916 was called ” Nigger Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha!Ha!,” can you see the connection here? One of the scenes in the movie ‘The Birth of a Nation’ there was a group of black elected officials being loud, disrespectful by drinking on the job, placing their feet on desks, and of course, blatantly eating fried chicken.  This movie was a success seen by millions of people, sadly this was a solidified image of how white people saw the black community, as savages and fried chicken lovers. 

   Of course, we can not leave out the horrific doings of the Ku Klux Klan and their terrifying actions towards the African Americans. There was a rumor/myth circulating the fried chicken delivered to the black churches in the 1980s which accused Ku Klux Klan of some thought out plan. The rumor was that there was this Fried Chicken Corporation owned by members of the Ku Klux Klan, the same corporation that delivered the fried chicken to the black churches every week. Allegedly the members of this terrorist organization were contaminating the chicken in order to sterilize the black men in these communities. This rumor has also added to the racial profiling of black people and their “love” for fried chicken because even though this might just be an urban it still contributes to the misconception of the blacks loving fried chicken, so much that the Ku Klux Klan might have used it as a way to limit the offsprings of the black community. 

Various media sources have tried and look into the history of the stereotypical love for fried chicken from the black community. There is a special on Netflix called, Ugly Deliciousness and one of the episodes specializes in Fried Chicken. Specifically, methods of cooking, methods of spicing it up, places famous for fried chicken, and most of all the history of fried chicken and it’s the relationship to the African American community. Historians interviewed during the film hit various points to answer the question of how the stereotype became such a strong one throughout the years. As stated in the thesis, this stereotype has been going on since slavery times and it is not going anywhere. The southern part of the United States is the place that it was all born, the part of the country that became famous for owning slaves but also for the delicious preparing of the fried chicken and its different flavors. One of the spiciest fried chicken in the world is cooked in chicken spots in the state of Alabama, oddly enough one of the states that had most Slaves during the slavery era.

Lastly, there are many accounts in which they mention the relevance of black independent women and the relationship to chicken the bird and the cooking method of frying chicken. Slaves were not allowed to raise any animals in the plantations except for chickens. Slaves especially women used these opportunities to raise and then later on sell chickens for profit. Some eventually paid to get their freedom others just used this to make money if they were already free. There are many documents and images that show slaves caring for chickens and black women eventually selling them in the towns. The chicken was also an important part of the black church, the chicken has been called “The Gospel Bird” because of its importance to the black church in communities. Since people would spend all day in churches and would not be able to make it home to supper the church would often sell or offer chicken dishes. This included fried chicken, jerk chicken, barbecue chicken accompanied by collard greens or mashed potatoes. Chicken became a symbol for the hard-working black women hustling for themselves and families, hence the name of the ‘Gospel Bird’.  

In conclusion, the stereotype of black people loving fried chicken has been going on for ages and will not change. The black community should not be embarrassed about this stereotype even though it is hurtful and disrespectful to assume that because someone is African American they must love fried chicken or must know everything there is to know about the ‘Gospel Bird’. In this essay, we studied various sources that just proved the point of where the stereotype comes from and why it is still a prominent part of our history. We saw how this popular misconception towards black people is not only an Amerian thing but it has been viral in other nations and we have seen how media works in the past have been used to portray the black community as savages and fried chicken lovers. We have also experienced how the Ku Klux Klan might have used the wrongful information that all black men eat fried chicken to contaminate chicken and eventually sterilize them, but most importantly we saw a clear connection with slavery, black women, and their involvement with the bird.