'Obama Fingers' -- Surprise, Food Has Race

I thought this was old news. The link to the report from Deutsche Welle I'm adding here is dated March 10. But the story hasn't been widely seen.
In short, a frozen product called "Obama Fingers" has appeared in German freezer cases: just pieces of fried chicken (with curry sauce, yikes). When asked if anyone was aware that a racial, uh, problem arises when you link an African American "brand," even a presidential one, to a fried-chicken product, the Fingers spokeswoman basically shrugged her shoulders and said, "Warum?"
We Germans don't pay attention to such things.
Now, it could be that such non-culinary distractions are easy to overlook -- if you believe that food doesn't have meaning. But it does.There's no such thing as value-neutral food. Food and race, for example, go together like ... rice and beans, gefilte fish and horseradish?
"They could have made a full Obama Finger dinner if they added Wassermelone, lol."
It's not exactly a secret that blacks have borne the brunt of Aunt Jemima Uncle Ben advertising as well as wildly racist food "humor" for decades and decades -- you may know what "alligator bait" is. And that hasn't been limited to the U.S.: guess what some folks call Cadbury bars (phrase starts with an N).
Nasty fingers will poke everywhere, so it's smart to poke back.
For an automatic alert when there is a new Out There post, email
Categories:
Blogroll
More a saltstick than a roll, but 10 for the moment:
Studies in Crap
Obit
Ehrensteinland
Artopia
Matthew Gallaway
David Lida
ARTicles
Young and Foodish
C-Monster
Pam Rosenthal
AJ Ads
AJ Arts Blog Ads
Now you can reach the most discerning arts blog readers on the internet. Target individual blogs or topics in the ArtsJournal ad network.
Advertise Here
AJ Blogs
AJBlogCentral | rssculture
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
rock culture approximately
Laura Collins-Hughes on arts, culture and coverage
Richard Kessler on arts education
Douglas McLennan's blog
Dalouge Smith advocates for the Arts
Art from the American Outback
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
No genre is the new genre
David Jays on theatre and dance
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
John Rockwell on the arts
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
media
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Martha Bayles on Film...
classical music
Fresh ideas on building arts communities
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
Bruce Brubaker on all things Piano
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
Jerome Weeks on Books
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
visual
Public Art, Public Space
Regina Hackett takes her Art To Go
John Perreault's art diary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog

15 Comments
Leave a comment