Eating Chicken and Being Black is Stereotypical

No really, it is. That's what I was told anyway. By a white girl I work with.

Let me explain...

You see, the girl who told me this - we'll call her Triflin' - is a girl that works in the restaurant if the hotel where I am currently employed. Triflin's a nice enough girl, she's fun, she's loud, she's brassy. She's like Mikalah Gordon in 10 years when she's calmed down just enough to be bearable.

She's also one of those people that will say anything to anyone because she's so above predetermined social limits. She'll call her gay friends "fags", and her black friends "niggas", and her white friends "honkies", and she's just so very politically incorrect because screw the status quo! And while that's so open and liberal, and new to everyone else, it's really just tired and played to me. I mean, have some respect for the struggle. I'm not saying don't ever open your mouth, don't ever push envelopes or whatever, just do it with regard to the additional people in the room. Don't ever call a black person a "nigga" in front of me because it not only makes you look bad, but it makes your black friend look bad too. And even though that's more about my agenda than anything else, it's something I feel should be taken into consideration. I have black friends that will not let me say nigger around them, and I respect that because seriously, everybody has a different tolerance level and if you want to push it, then you do it at a pace that provides constructive results. I hate shock value for the sake of edutainment.

Did that make sense? Ahh, I might try to explain that more in the future, but feel free to draw your own conclusions.

Anyhoo, I was sitting at my desk eating a dinner I got that night. It was chicken, and some Hawaiian Sweet rolls I got at the store. I was chowing down, and Trifling came to the back office to sign in her keys because she was about to go home from her shift. We had a little bit of small talk and she asked me what I was eating.

I showed her, and then she opened her big stupid mouth and said,

"Chicken and biscuits? Isn't that a bit stereotypical? I expected more of you." Wha-?! What the-?! What just -?! Okay y'all, it's very rare that I get livid, but I was LIVID!, I mean, what the crap? What the piece of hot, buttered, steaming crap was that!? She was disappointed in me? For frickin eating chicken!?

Perhaps I should clarify. Would you go up to a Chinese person eating rice and say, "Isn't that a little stereotypical"? Would you go up to an Indian eating curry and say, "I expected more from you."? You wouldn't right? (God, please say no, and if you don't understand why, ask someone, but make sure they like you because they will laugh). So what makes it okay to go up to black people and say, "Oh my GOD! That is so like a black person to want to eat chicken!"

But chicken isn't a black food, Sticky Keys! Well, my eagle eyed readers, you are only partly correct. You see, the whole Soul food genre is one that was built on the backs of slaves. Many times blacks were given the leftovers, or the less choice ingredients, and we found a way to make due with what we had. The whole concept of chicken wings is one that was built on slave recipes so culturally, Soul food is very important.

Of course, there is a difference between Soul food, and food that black people frequent. If I had been eating watermelon and drinking a 40 I could understand Triflin's response, I still would have told her to go f*** herself, but I would have at least walked into that comment.

Anyhow, I just shook my head at her and said, "If you don't get out of here!", and she left. There was a ton I wanted to say to her, but I just didn't have the time or the energy. I wasn't eating chicken to be "black", I was eating it because I was hungry, and it was cheap and readily available. And while I wouldn't be completely adverse to the art of eating chicken becoming an act of racial pride, it's just not what I had in mind at that moment.

Rest assured Triflin', that the next time I eat chicken, I will do so in a dashiki with a pride pick in my newly blown out Afro. I will have We Shall Overcome playing on a boom box beside me and my fingers shall be adorned rings that spell out BLACK and LOVE. I will wear badges proclaiming that Black is Beautiful, and that I am indeed, Black and Proud. I will do this all with a drumstick in one hand, and a bottle of Louisiana Red in the other.

I hope this time, you won't be disappointed.