Fried chicken has long been associated with African American culture and cuisine. The prevalent stereotype that black people love fried chicken more than other ethnicities has deep historical roots and commercial influences. But does the stereotype reflect reality? This article will examine the origins and veracity of the fried chicken stereotype, as well as the reasons why it persists.
The History Behind the Stereotype
During slavery in America, chickens were one of the few animals enslaved people were allowed to raise themselves. As a result, chicken-based dishes like fried chicken and chicken stew became staples of southern black cuisine.
After the Civil War, minstrel shows and comedic skits began mocking black people’s apparent fondness for chicken. These racist portrayals cemented the fried chicken stereotype in the dominant white culture. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film Birth of a Nation further popularized the stereotype by depicting a black man ravenously eating fried chicken.
In the early 20th century restaurants like Coon Chicken Inn and Sambo’s Chicken capitalized on the racist stereotype, using caricatures of black people as their logos and mascots. This commercial exploitation made the stereotype even more widespread.
So while the stereotype has undeniably racist roots, the popularity of chicken in African American cuisine does have historical basis. Many black cooks and chefs took ownership of the stereotype, proudly serving dishes like fried chicken, chicken and waffles, and chicken wings as staples of soul food.
Is the Stereotype Accurate?
While clearly exaggerated, current data does show African Americans eat slightly more chicken on average than white Americans.
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According to a recent survey, 33% of African Americans eat chicken daily, compared to 28% of white people
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Fried chicken is the most popular food for African Americans for Sunday dinner, with 59% reporting eating it weekly.
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African Americans consumers account for more than $200 million in chicken wing sales at fast food restaurants.
So the numbers show that yes, African Americans do eat a fair amount of chicken. But the differences are quite small compared to the intensity of the longstanding stereotype.
Why Might Black People Really Love Chicken?
Beyond the historical associations, there are several reasons chicken might genuinely be more popular among black Americans:
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Accessibility: Chicken has long been an affordable and obtainable meat, especially important during slavery and segregation when resources were limited. The popularity carried forward.
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Cultural Pride: Soul food chefs have reclaimed chicken and elevated it to an icon of African American cooking. Eating traditional dishes shows cultural pride.
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Family Traditions: Recipes and cooking techniques get passed down through generations, keeping chicken cemented as part of family traditions.
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Versatility: Fried, baked, grilled, in stews – chicken is an extremely versatile meat. Creative cooks can do a lot with it.
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Good Old Fashioned Taste: It may be simple, but fried chicken just tastes delicious to many African Americans. More than a stereotype, it’s nostalgic comfort food.
The Persistence of the Stereotype
While the numbers confirm African Americans do eat a significant amount of chicken, the pervasiveness of the stereotype far exceeds the relatively small difference compared to other groups.
Unfortunately, the fried chicken stereotype gets used to demean and mock black people to this day. High-profile black figures like Tiger Woods have dealt with hurtful fried chicken jokes. And companies still make racially insensitive marketing decisions based on the stereotype.
The exaggerated fried chicken stereotype persists because it provides an easy way to put down African Americans and dismiss soul food and black contributions to culinary culture as unsophisticated.
In conclusion, the reality behind the fried chicken stereotype is complicated. There are indeed cultural and historical reasons why chicken holds an important place in African American cuisine and traditions. But the mockery and associations with minstrelsy and racism can’t and shouldn’t be ignored either.
The fried chicken stereotype reveals the difficult balance between celebrating authentic culinary traditions and acknowledging the painful baggage attached to certain foods and stereotypes. While the racial mockery must be called out and rejected, the joy many black people feel eating traditional chicken dishes should also be embraced and honored.
Eating Chicken, especially fried chicken, has long been a stigmatizing experience for black people despite the fact that most omnivores (regardless of their race or ethnicity) love chicken, fried or otherwise.
Despite chicken’s popularity across food cultures, Black people have had to deal with centuries of it being used as a tool of White supremacy to stereotype and discourage us from having any self-determined relationship to the animal. However, Black people’s relationship with chicken extends far beyond Colonel Sanders co-opting fried chicken and European enslavers accusing enslaved Black people of theft. Instead our relationship is irrevocably tied to a legacy rooted in the foodways and resistance strategies of the African diaspora.
Guinea Hen by Mark Stansberry II
Although the chickens we’re most familiar with today originated in Asian and European countries, people of the African diaspora have a connection to birds that traces back to West and Central Africa where the people of those regions have had a native bird all their own. The Helmeted Guinea Hen (or Guinea Fowl) aka Numida Meleagris, is native to countries in the African savannas (e.g. Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal) where it has been domesticated for thousands of years.
Guinea hens were, and still are, significant in these countries for several dietary and spiritual reasons. They’ve long been used in multiple West African religions to honor deceased relatives and friends, and prepared as an offering to deities. They also had a significant presence in feasts when celebrating loved ones or planting important crops like yams. Igbo and Mande cultures would often have the birds roasted, barbecued, fried, or boiled in a variety of dishes for these occasions. These cooking methods would eventually be carried across the globe by people of the African diaspora.
Credit: The Borgen Project. Ghanaian kids barbecuing some guinea hens. 2015.
West African people’s prior experience with guinea hens and other livestock played a role in European enslavers choosing who to capture for trading across the Atlantic. In Psyche Williams-Forson’s book Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs, she details some of the early relationships Black people had with chicken when they were forcibly brought to the Americas and Caribbean during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Although chickens were abundant in the European colonies, they weren’t valued by Europeans in the same way that they valued cattle and pigs. Cattle could be used for field labor, while pigs and other animals were more popular as a source of meat. Although chickens were in the rotation of livestock kept on plantations, they weren’t as prized as birds like geese and ducks. Chickens were viewed as common wild animals that were often left to roam freely, and if they were kept it was for their eggs, and only occasionally slaughtered for their meat.
Credit: Library of Congress. Farmer Violet Davenport tending to her chickens in 1940 in Thomastown, Louisiana.
Either way chickens were one of the many animals that enslaved Black people were charged with raising on plantations. As a lower caste food it was often one that they were allowed to raise to supplement their rations alongside tending to vegetables in their subsistence gardens. Due to chickens being so abundant yet undervalued, they were one of the few items that some enslaved Black people, particularly Black women were allowed to sell in local markets. At the markets they could also socialize with other enslaved or free Black people, and have some autonomy from the plantation. This wasn’t the case everywhere, but in some states it was very common.
In areas of the country where enslaved Black people weren’t allowed to raise and grow food to supplement their rations, many were forced to desperate measures such as stealing food, including chickens, from the plantation. In Williams-Forson’s book she points out how the necessity of theft by enslaved or poor Black people is one of the many ways that chicken became a useful tool in stereotyping us.
Credit: Library of Congress. Staged photo of a Black boy stealing a chicken. New York : Underwood & Underwood, publishers, c1901.
Stereotyping could, in many ways then be used as a tool of controlling, degrading, and shaming Black people’s foodways. Although not all Black people stole, most White people (enslavers or not) knew that because of the conditions of White supremacy many Black people would need to steal, thus creating a narrative for discrimination against them.
Chicken is all tied up in this. However, despite these stereotypes, historians like Williams-Forson, Frederick Douglass Opie, and many others, highlight in their works how Black people have continued to create a culture around chicken that is unstoppable and powerful. After all, Black people inherited a connection to birds like chicken from their African roots. Those roots would serve as the reference for chicken being used as means to advance economic opportunities and human rights for Black folks.
Credit: Town of Gordonsville (although technically I stole it this from an NPR article, but either way it inspired the header )
Chicken would show up on the menus of Southern eateries that fed Black communities during segregation and Jim Crow laws.
It would travel as a source of comfort for families making The Great Migration.
Chicken would be the focal food item sold by the Gordonsville waiters along railroads in Virginia (seen above), with income from their sales going towards paying for homes and education for their families.
It would be prepared along with biscuits and pies by women like Georgia Gilmore during the Civil Rights Era to support protesting efforts such as the Montgomery Bus Boycotts in Alabama.
And renowned gospel singer Mahalia Jackson would start a fried chicken franchise as a means of creating robust economic opportunities for Black people (e.g. including paid time-off and health care in their employee packages).
These are just a few of the examples of Black people historically, whether intentionally or not, creating a more complete narrative of their relationship to chicken.
Screenshot from Georgia Gilmore interview (here) about The Club From Nowhere funding the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
All that to say that while chicken has been a violent tool of White supremacy used by White and non-Black people, often encouraging a disconnection from our food, these are distractions from our complexity and inheritance. Instead these stories go to show that Black folks have included chicken as one of many tools of uplift and cultural innovation throughout time, and continue to. Our relationship to chicken (and other animals) is therefore something really special and to be celebrated, not mocked and distorted.
A young girl risking stereotypes by eating fried chicken in public, with no fork!! (2019) Credit: Asia H.
Why Do Black People Like Fried Chicken?
FAQ
Which race eats the most chicken?
What are most black people’s favorite foods?
African American foodways, or what is frequently thought of as “soul food”, is characterized by its content (pork, pork fat, chicken, collard and turnip greens, black-eyed and field peas, yams, and cornbread) and preparation styles (slow stewing and frying) (Whitehead, 1992, 2003; Wiggins, 1990; Williams-Forson, 2006); …
What is black people’s favorite chicken?
If burgers are America’s favorite cookout food, then fried chicken is Black folk’s favorite food for dinner. The almost half a million west Africans enslaved in North America brought a knack for frying and braising chicken from their own cuisines.
Why do southern people like fried chicken?
Enslaved Africans continued benefitting from an expensive and easy-to-feed source of meat. Some of the earliest American Southern cookbooks, including those by freed Black authors, illustrate the allegiance many Southerners felt toward fried chicken, and that allegiance has carried on well into the 21st century.