“Black History Month” Fried Chicken Menu Creates Controversy At Wright State
By V. Saxena, February 23, 2015.
The president of Wright State University was forced to apologize after a “Black History Month” menu was displayed that “featured fried chicken and collard greens,” reports ABC News via the Associated Press:
The menu screens at the Ohio school also offered mashed potatoes and cornbread under photos of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other black leaders. The Dayton Daily News reported that people circulated images of it on social media, calling it offensive and disrespectful. Fried chicken has long been associated with racial stereotyping in the United States.
President David Hopkins sent an email Thursday asserting the university’s commitment to diversity and pledged to prevent a repeat.
“I apologize to anyone hurt by the display,” Hopkins wrote. “To our credit, the menu was quickly removed. But the larger question remains: Why was it done? I will find out. We will take steps to prevent this kind of behavior occurring in the future.”
What’s even more interesting than this supposed faux pas is the diversity in the responses to it. Billy Barabino, a senior and president of the school’s Black Student Union, felt “extremely hurt”by it on the basis that it was a “knock in the face for African (and) African-American individuals who have fought for us to be progressive.”
Likewise, the feminists over at the Jezebel blog slammed white people for making “dipshit racist mistakes” like this over and over again.
And the folks at The Root blog wrote a piece entitled, “News Flash: Fried Chicken and Collard Greens Are Not Black History Month Food.”
But not everybody feels like this. Take for instance ‘Laymen Hpk,’ who wrote the following comment on The Root’s post:
http://downtrend.com/vsaxena/black-history-month-fried-chicken-menu
