KFC Pulls "Racist" Australian TV spot

@dlowan,

Quote:

Set...only someone being unpleasant would label you as racist.

Hence, the tenor of my response, both to Brown, and the pack of school kids who came along with him to laugh . . .

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Quote:
Set...only someone being unpleasant would label you as racist.

Hence, the tenor of my response, both to Brown, and the pack of school kids who came along with him to laugh . . .

I consider ebrown's arguments infantile in these type discussions, if well motivated.

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So, verily that conflict is resolved and swept under the rug, I trust.

Talked to the missus about the fried chicken/American racism thing the other day. She's been exposed to it for as long as I remember. I grew up in CA, she grew up in CA/NJ/NY. She also told me about a black co-worker who grew up in Mississippi who will not order chicken in a restaurant (a la some of Chappelle's sketches) because of the stereotype, though his own frig is stocked with the bird.

I wonder -- is there a generational component to this stereotype? Could it be related to some 1970s proliferation of fried-chicken restaurants in urban neighborhoods during white flight or something along those lines?

There's also something qualitatively different about the watermelon thing vs. the fried chicken thing. I've had a couple of (male, definitely male) black friends who've joked about the fried chicken thing, but watermelon would definitely have been off-limits. This would make sense if the chicken stereotype doesn't date back to the time of legal segregation and lynching, as the watermelon stereotype does.

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That's plausible. GW opined it might be a Yankee thing, and Roger and i agreed, because we were unfamiliar with it. Roger and i are of an age, though, that would make a generational explanation equally as plausible.

I couldn't find anything online, but i'm pretty sure that Crisco once advertised their product as being the best for making fried chicken. These days, of course, that is taboo because of the anti-fat thing among the health food types.

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@patiodog,

Yeah, generational would fit. I'm very aware of it and am older than patiodog but closer to patiodog's age than to Setanta and Roger.

In my experience fried chicken and watermelon have been pretty equivalent, and are often (not always) used in the same sentence.

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I did a little research. The watermelon connection mostly goes back to the time of slavery and especially the Jim Crow era. Watermelon is a symbol associated with apartheid and lynchings . The fried chicken thing seems to have come about as blacks were being pushed into run-down urban neighborhoods and public housing (aka ghettos). Fast food was becoming popular with the rise of places like McDonalds, but the first chain into the poorer black neighborhoods was KFC. KFC competed with private black restaurants that specialized in southern dishes. Remember KFC always pushed their "special recipe", now their "original special recipe". As Setanta mentioned, southern women were proud of their recipes for fried chicken. Black southern women were also proud and started eateries using their special recipes as a draw. Probably KFC picked that market because they knew many of these blacks were escaping the racism of the south and already had a positive nostalgic connection to the product as comfort food. I think it's why northerners easily see the connection and southerners have to think about it. I think it's why fried chicken is an uncomfortable
connection to the black community, but does not have the deeper evil connection of watermelon.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Listen, Dickhead, the clown Brown is here slinging accusations around that sound an awful lot like he's calling me a racist--implying it at the least. You seem to think that makes me fair game, a figure of fun.

Not only is Brown full of ****, making baseless accusations, i have the pleasure of your brain dead comments on top of it. This has nothing to do with "channeling" anything, although it doesn't surprise me that you believe in **** like that. What this has to do with is not appreciating being inferentially called a racist by an hysterical loon without a leg to stand on, and then having a clown like you show to suggest that the one is as bad as the other.

I'm not surprised that Brown says he's loving it, after all he gets away with calling me a racist, having absolutely zero evidence, and he gets a late night with David Letterman ditto-head like you helping out his cause. You're pathetic.

I'm offended as a dickhead! You racist against dickheads?

Actually, I agree more with your points in this thread (when you'll pause your slur assault long enough to make one), but I just don't need to repeat myself over and over. Agreeing with you does not exclude me from being entertained by you acting like a dancing asshole in the thread. So even though I don't agree with ebrownp, you've given me hardly a reason to take you serious with your rage and unwarranted indignation.

So yeah, you two are on par. I'm nobody's minstrel.

T
K
O

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@Green Witch,

I just looked up Jim Crow (words I was familiar with, and knew meant very racist, without actually knowing exactly what they meant.)

For anyone else in a similar state:

Wikipedia

Quote:

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.
Some examples of Jim Crow laws are the segregation of public schools, public places and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms and restaurants for whites and blacks. The U.S. military was also segregated. These Jim Crow Laws were separate from the 1800-66 Black Codes, which had also restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans. State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964[1] and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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@sozobe,

Geeze! You suppose we learn our stereotypes by some certain age, and just don't acknowledge anything that hasn't aged for forty some years?

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@roger,

Not entirely... but I think there are generational aspects of what we see/ read/ listen to and what people around us are saying. It's not absolute but I think there are definitely trends.

At any rate, that's speculation and not anything too strong. All I know for sure is that I ([barely] under 40, midwesterner, city girl) am VERY aware of the fraughtness of both fried chicken and watermelon and have been for a while.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

All I know for sure is that I ([barely] under 40, midwesterner, city girl) am VERY aware of the fraughtness of both fried chicken and watermelon and have been for a while.

But it's not in our society soz. Honestly, when I watched this ad, (and every other Australian) all I saw was an Aussie cricket supporter surrounded by West Indies supporters. They're making a lot of noise, as West Indies supporters always do, and he gets them to quieten down a bit by offering the "crowd pleasing" box of chicken. That ad had been running for weeks and there was NOT ONE complaint from any section of Australian society. I saw an interview with a West Indies expat living here, and she didn't see anything racist in any way shape or form. I'm actually pretty pissed off that it was pulled just to protect American sensibilities. We've got a right to our own culture, it's different to America, and that's the way I want it to stay.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

I couldn't find anything online, but i'm pretty sure that Crisco once advertised their product as being the best for making fried chicken. These days, of course, that is taboo because of the anti-fat thing among the health food types.

You are correct that Crisco has been a standard for making fried chicken. Their packaging had a picture of fried chicken on it for years. I once had an ESL student who spent a large chunk of her food stamps on containers of Crisco because she thought there was fried chicken inside, and she could not read english well enough to know it was actually just a product for making the dish. The problem with Crisco is that is partially-hydrogenated oil and that is very bad for the human liver and heart. Eat real fat.

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@Green Witch,

Sure hope your ESL student wasn't stocking up on baby food.

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@Wilso,

Wilso wrote:

I'm actually pretty pissed off that it was pulled just to protect American sensibilities.

If those American sensibilities can effect American sales, then the American management has a business obligation here to pull the ad. It doesn't matter that it didn't effect Australian sales negatively.

T
K
O

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@Wilso,

Yeah, I wasn't addressing that part -- just the question of why Setanta and Roger (Americans) weren't aware of how fried chicken can be racially fraught while Patiodog, Diest TKO, me and I think someone else too (Americans) WERE aware of it.

In terms of this specific issue, which I haven't really weighed in on yet (mostly just reading along), I think that:

1.) Purely in an Australian context the ad is probably fine. (I also wince at how the white guy had his head in his hands and was shaking his head at the boistrousness of the Windie crowd -- smacks of condescension/ paternalism -- but I get that in context it just didn't have the resonance it has here.)

2.) It's a video that can be seen worldwide.

3.) In an American context it isn't fine.

4.) KFC is an American company.

5.) It makes sense that as such they pulled it.

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@sozobe,

Did you see the video that was posted a few pages ago about the Young Turks people bitching about a Japanese Fried Chicken company posting a 'racially charged' ad. They wanted that ad pulled down too, and it's not even an American company.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

You are a first class asshole, Drew Dad . . . i genuinely pity your daughter.

WTF? Where does my daughter come into this? And which one?

You might want to take a close look at who you really have a complaint with, here, instead of wildly lashing out any anyone who comes up in your sights.

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@maporsche,

Deaf, so didn't get the content.

There are definitely people who overreact, and I can believe these people did. Don't have the necessary info to judge though.

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@sozobe,

Sorry, I did know that. My bad.

And yeah, I agree, people do overreact.

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@sozobe,

Quote:

1.) Purely in an Australian context the ad is probably fine. (I also wince at how the white guy had his head in his hands and was shaking his head at the boistrousness of the Windie crowd -- smacks of condescension/ paternalism -- but I get that in context it just didn't have the resonance it has here.)

NOT just Australian.

I think the fear of watermelon and fried chicken is "purely" a US thing.

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KFC Pulls "Racist" Australian TV spot

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