Here's Why Your Fried Chicken and Watermelon Lunch Is Racist

[ScreamingMeemie]

86. After reading so many of the responses in this thread (well, "I" like watermelon, too),

I'm irritated, shocked, and gobsmacked.

I was born, white as snow, in 1970 in Milwaukee, WI. I grew up knowing about fried chicken and watermelon as a racial stereotype--and not a positive one.

My son just walked into the living room. He is 15 and has lived in Texas for 5 years now. He knows (I just asked him) that fried chicken and watermelon is a racial stereotype. I don't buy it...for those who would like "people from the South" to be excluded because they like it too, or for those who somehow never heard of it. Did you grow up without books? Without televisions?

For those who would say it's "manufactured outrage," you, I have no words for.

In reading this thread, I come away with the feeling that it's okay to go back to racist stereotyping when so many of us have "never heard of them."

A side note:

Round head was a term often used by my father's family against Norwegians back in 1920s Milwaukee... I still think of it that way. But, because I'm sure a lot of people have never heard of it before, does that somehow make it okay to use it again?

OY.