Black history month dinner

[nemo137]

So, my mates and I go to dinner tonight in the dorms, and it's a special theme dinner (Uni dining services does this sometimes). Only, it's black history month dinner. So, first, the tables are decorated with black, green, and red balloons and tablecloths (i.e. butcher paper). Then, we go to the food line, and it's BBQ-style chicken, fried catfish, macaroni and cheese, mustard greens (which tasted like ass, and I usually like mustard greens), hushpuppies and cornbread. So, we're looking at the food line and wondering if it's a joke, like if they were intentionally trying to be stereotypical (my friend E "man, I'm white and I'm vaguely offended. It just seems ignorant."). Then, we get out to the deserts and drinks section, and there's this big tureen or purple kool-aid. Purple. Kool. Aid. Grape drink, you know? And at that point, we just shook our heads.

I mean, my college is 79.1% white, and underrepresents blacks. And what do we have for dinner on "black history month" night? Chicken, catfish cornbread, mustardgreens, and kool-aid.

Were we being oversensitive, or is this kind of weird?

[Robeson]

1. Ever heard of soul food?.....

...It's pretty common in the South, and oh yeah, the Whites like it too, down here. The kool-aid part, however, is one I don't get.

[nemo137]

2. Yeah, I have.

But the foods they chose have the unfortunate side effect (the kool-aid, especially) of being the ones that the white suburban kids target when they make racist jokes.

I don't know. On the one hand, yeah, it's soul food, and it was (with the exception of the greens) really good. On the other, it was also the kind of menu that a white guy from Naperville would put together if you asked him to make a menu for a "black dinner."

[Robeson]

3. Kool - aid always gives me unfortunate side effects....

...and that one's a mystery to me as to why they would have it there, especially when combined with alot of fried foods....:hurts:

[nemo137]

4. totally away from my original query, but

it was damn good kool-aid. grape, with lemons in it, and really strong. Good lord, yes.

[SouthoftheBorderPaul]

7. Sweet tea's much better. -nt

[Magrittes Pipe]

12. Quick question:

What ethnicity are the majority of the cooks at your school?

I ask, because at my (majority white) college, the majority of the kitchen staff were Black. We didn't have any special Black History Month menu; but on breaks, when the school's population of students was skeletal, the cooks made what they wanted to. And what they made was soul food. And it was delicious!

[eyesroll]

5. What would you have expected?

I taught in a majority-minority school for a year out of college. If I asked the kids what they had for dinner on Sunday, chances are, it would have been something from that list. (The chicken might have been fried, and there might have been some other greens or yams or black-eyed peas, but the gist was similar.)

Now, if you ask them about Christmas, the answer would have been chitterlings.

[BikeWriter]

6. Soul food. I didn't hear that until the 1960s, and I was raised on it.

[kwassa]

8. This is pretty standard southern/soul food.

I've never understood why mac and cheese was southern and/or black, but it seems to be.

But they didn't have Uncle Melvin's fried fish, which is heavenly.

And where is the sweet potato pie or the peach cobbler for dessert?

[nemo137]

10. both, actually, and I forgot to mention them

(Let's just turn this into a "soul food is wonderful" thread, since I'm thinking most of my wtf-ness came from it being at a mostly white college, at one of the notoriously suburban, white, and pretty damn racist dorms)

I didn't have any cobbler, but the pie was nice, real nice.

[donheld]

9. "which tasted like ass"

You know this how?

[nemo137]

11. Um, comparison?

Parliament cigarettes supposedly taste like ass, and the mustard greens tasted vaguely like parliament cigarettes, therefore, the greens tasted like ass.

[cmf]

13. The food doesn't offend me

But they went over the top with the Kool Aid.

[Karenina]

14. It should have been Lemonade

and I mean LEMONS/WATER/SUGAR, served in Mayonnaisse jars...

But WHY bother serving cafeteria faux soul food to a bunch of unappreciative bigots? Accomplishes zip other than reinforcing their prejudices. :shrug: