East Bay high school nixes plan to honor black history with fried chicken, watermelon

[BlueCheese]

9. Okay, let me ask an honest question, because I'm not sure I understand.

On the face of it, serving Southern soul food, which was invented in the black community and has since spread throughout the country, would seem to be a very reasonable part of celebrating Black History Month. I would be much like serving Chinese food for Chinese New Year, or Irish food for St. Patrick's Day. Or having a jazz concert or something else recognizing the contributions that African Americans have made to our culture.

Is the problem that fried chicken is a little too obvious and not particularly thoughtful? (The first picture on Wikipedia for soul food has fried chicken, for example.)

This reminds me of a long ago thread when the NBC commissary served fried chicken in February. There was a minor brouhaha over it, until it was discovered that the chef and menu planner was an African American woman who was rather perplexed about the whole issue.