Black History month

[snopes]

Comment: Viral photo depicting Black History month sale on cool-aid

[NobodyAtAll]

At least it wasn't a sale on the Oreos.

[Lainie]

Kool-Aid's pretty funny, though.

[ganzfeld]

I went to K-12 at around 80%+ Black schools in the US but I'll be damned if I've ever heard anything about Kool-Aid. Could someone fill in the blanks for me? I looked at the picture and: Uh-huh... Waiting for the punchline here.

[Lainie]

Urban dictionary entry for Kool-Aid.

I wouldn't have thought anything of it myself until a few months ago, when my brother recounted a conversation with a black co-worker who was surprised and amused to see my brother, a white man, drinking Kool-Aid.

[ganzfeld]

Thanks Lanie. To me Kool-Aid is just Kool-Aid.

[chillas]

Wow. Yeah, I'm usually pretty aware of those sorts of things, but I'd never heard that one before.

[Avril]

That's the thing about stereotypical "black" food--it's often, in my experience, not as pervasive a stereotype as many people assume.

I drank off-brand Kool-Aid growing up, because we couldn't afford the real thing. I think we drank Flav-r-aid.

[Mateus]

Since the tag says "proud sponsor of Black History Month", rather than "Black History Month Sale" or the like, and if the store is anything like my local ones, then I would wager that pretty much every item in the store has a shelf tag like this, and the photographer simply picked the one with the associated stereotype.

[musicgeek]

Originally Posted by Mateus

Since the tag says "proud sponsor of Black History Month", rather than "Black History Month Sale" or the like, and if the store is anything like my local ones, then I would wager that pretty much every item in the store has a shelf tag like this, and the photographer simply picked the one with the associated stereotype.

Exactly. This doesn't come close to the "Martin Luther King, Jr. Day special" on fried chicken/watermelon.

[erwins]

Originally Posted by Mateus

Since the tag says "proud sponsor of Black History Month", rather than "Black History Month Sale" or the like, and if the store is anything like my local ones, then I would wager that pretty much every item in the store has a shelf tag like this, and the photographer simply picked the one with the associated stereotype.

I don't know. It's possible I guess, but I doubt that they replaced every shelf tag in the store with special black history month ones. It seems like an awful lot of labor for some pretty minor advertising.

I could believe that every sale tag has that on it, since they have to have someone place each of those anyway. And, as you say, someone just picked out one that fit a stereotype and took the picture.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by erwins

It seems like an awful lot of labor for some pretty minor advertising.

Depending on how many employers you(g) have at your disposal and the size of the store I can see this being done in a nite or two - expecially for a set of signage that could last a whole month. Heck, you can get a few people to do it alongside the overnight stockers. I used to put up sale signs - it's not too difficult to do it quickly if you plan it out and do it for a whole day.

[Cervus]

Oddly enough, despite growing up in the South and being exposed to both blatant and subtle racism, I'd never come across the Kool-Aid stereotype until a few years ago, on this forum. Fried chicken, watermelon, chitlins, catfish, grits, fried okra, collard greens, cornbread, mac and cheese....I've heard all of these stereotyped as "black food" or soul food, but they're all just traditional Southern foods in the USA.

[Lainie]

The stereotypes must have developed in the north, I think. Most of those foods are rarely eaten by white non-Southerners. Growing up in Ohio, and knowing mostly white families, the only items on that list I was familiar with were mac and cheese, fried chicken, cornbread and watermelon. The only reason I knew about cornbrread was that my dad was from Kentucy.

[Not_Done_Living]

Originally Posted by Cervus

Oddly enough, despite growing up in the South and being exposed to both blatant and subtle racism, I'd never come across the Kool-Aid stereotype until a few years ago, on this forum. Fried chicken, watermelon, chitlins, catfish, grits, fried okra, collard greens, cornbread, mac and cheese....I've heard all of these stereotyped as "black food" or soul food, but they're all just traditional Southern foods in the USA.

Originally Posted by Lainie

The stereotypes must have developed in the north, I think. Most of those foods are rarely eaten by white non-Southerners. Growing up in Ohio, and knowing mostly white families, the only items on that list I was familiar with were mac and cheese, fried chicken, cornbread and watermelon. The only reason I knew about cornbrread was that my dad was from Kentucy.

I am Canadian -- and with the exception of Okra and chitlins -- eerything else on that list was on my dinner table grouwing up ... and I also had to suffer through the off brand Flavr-aid (it had a tucan on the package and it enver dissolved correctly) -- yo know how embarrassing it is as a child when you can't even afford pennies a glass?

[Lainie]

I probably phrased that too broadly. Basically, I think the stereotypes of "black food" likely developed in areas where white people were unlikely to eat those foods.

[BrianB]

Originally Posted by Cervus

I'd never come across the Kool-Aid stereotype until a few years ago, on this forum.

I must have missed the earlier threads because prior to this thread I had never heard of Kool-Aid as stereotypical African-American food. For me, the stereotype is that only really young kids (say 10 and under) like it. My original assumption was that the OP was in reference to the association of Kool-Aid with Jonestown, which had many African-American members. (Before anyone else points it out, most sources say it was a similar product called Flavor-Aid and not Kool-Aid.)
Brian

[A Turtle Named Mack]

Originally Posted by Lainie

I probably phrased that too broadly. Basically, I think the stereotypes of "black food" likely developed in areas where white people were unlikely to eat those foods.

That is one of the oddest things to me about the reactions of people to supposedly racist references to 'black foods.' By and large, they are not 'black foods' - they are Southern foods. As NotDoneLiving noted, he ate all those foods except okra and chitlins as a white Canadian, and as a white southerner, I had the okra as well. I also had grits (but not hominy - that stuff is gross!), sausage gravy, stewed pinto beans (with and without fatback), Kool-Aid and government cheese. Now certainly the watermelon images in the old pickaninny artwork supports the stereotype claim for it. But it seems like most of the claims of stereotyping are from people looking for grounds for offense.

[Hero_Mike]

In Canada, and its 3% black population, there was no stereotype about Kool-Aid, Freshie (a cheaper knock-off), or anything like that. Is there supposed to be something about "Kool-Aid Man" sounding stereotypically black, because I don't see it.

[Chloe]

Just because those foods didn't begin as racially stereotyped foods doesn't mean they don't function that way now. You can hardly claim that a cartoon of President Obama eating a watermelon is only racist to those "looking for grounds for offense."