Monday 12 April 2010

1.6 iRant: Blacks and Chicken

This is a very funny stereotype...in fact I'm actually quite silly for even taking this one on because...well erm, its a bit of a no brainer.

Black people LOVE chicken, it is the sacrificial meat of the black diet. Please do not get offended because I'm using the term 'Black' to describe a people and please understand when I say 'Black' or 'Blacks' I'm referring to Africans.

Before you start getting all specific and segregative, Africans = anyone with Black skin. If you wish to try and identify if you or anyone else has black skin, do this simple assessment:

"If you or they (person your trying to decipher as black) were to run down the street and grab some old ladies bag and there were loads of witnesses, how would those witnesses describe you/them to the Police?"

Now on the surface this is misleading right, because some mixed raced people would/could be described as black right? Now you see how misleading a stereotype can be....

Anyhoot I digress, back to the Chicken saga. Its a stereotype that has been with black people for a very long time, now although it does not necessarily paint black people in a bad light, it has been used as a subject of ridicule. Some large global well known food outlets have taken it upon themselves to 'target' the black market...nothing wrong with that I hear you say and I principle I agree, but then you watch an add like this:



Now I am a simple man, very simple in fact, but I cannot for the life of me understand what the "Awkward situation" was, from what I could see, fans of the Caribbean cricket team were cheering their team on and minding their own business. I could see no threatening behaviour towards the Aussie fan and no reason for the crowd to be 'pacified' with chicken... Am I missing something?

Then there is this:



Now...um...err... sorry, I'm totally unbiased with all of this, but this just took the absolute piss!

Ads like those above do not do anything for unity or peace amongst the races, young impressionable people watch the ad and automatically think its 'OK' to think or put across these type of views because if it managed to get on TV..it 'MUST' be 'OK'...*SMH*.

Anyhoot seems I've digressed somewhat again!

Right so I've been lucky enough to travel to different parts of the world and on my travels I always try to remain open minded but also keep a keen eye out for the details.

On my travels I've noticed, a majority of the fast food chicken outlets (branded and non branded) share a common trait. No its not that the Chicken is abused, or that the chicken offers very little nutritional value. No the thing I've noted to be in common in a majority of fast food chicken outlets is the geological origin of the person serving the chicken, they always seem to be of Asian decent. When I say 'Asian' in this instance I do NOT mean Eastern Asian..I mean Western, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka, Pakistan, India...that part of Asia.

I noticed it in:

London
Luton
Leicester
Manchester
Birmingham
Portsmouth
Basingstoke

Chicago
Boston
Minnesota

Amsterdam
Paris
Barbados
St Lucia
Jamaica

No...really I did! I couldn't believe it.

Now the way I see it, Asian's must love chicken just as much as black people, because in truth a lot of Asian dishes are made with chicken. In fact Lamb and chicken are most common meats in Asian dishes. That coupled with the fact that most chicken shop/spots/ fast food outlets are manned by Asian's.....????

Obviously your sitting there thinking "Just because someone sells something doesn't mean they love it too, they may not even use/consume the thing they are selling". To which I will pause, then say "You are partly right, but, go and ask a drug dealer (preferable a cocaine/crack dealer) if they love Bolivia". You might be looking at the screen and wonder what the hell I'm on about now, so I'll explain:

A drug dealer, one who is pretty high up in the ranks, the 'importer' if you will, loves Bolivia, he may never have been there in his life! but he loves Bolivia. If you come between him and Bolivia, he will kill you for the love of Bolivia. This drug dealer doesn't even take drugs...he just sells them... Asian's Love Chicken!

I'm even going to go one step further! There are more Asian's in the world than black people, so even if only half the Asian population loved chicken...guess what, thats still more than the total number of black people that could...

This stereotype is nonsense!

I will continue to rant...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are so harsh but I ca see where you are coming fromand where it is leaading to.......

Comfort | Without Apology said...

That Korean advert takes things to a whole different level of offensive...wow!!

Enjoyed this blog, and most of them to be honest. Your style of writing is very engaging.