Questlove, drummer for The Roots and all-around well-respected guy, came upon something curious in the NBC cafeteria. As anyone with a camera phone and a point to make would do, he took to the Internet and posted the following photo on his twitpic account [via mediaite and Mike Riggs]:
Yikes.
A picture says 1,000 words, and with all the words crammed into this picture, it says a whole lot about NBC’s utter ignorance at the fact that they would never consider that someone would get upset by celebrating Black History Month through a stereotype in the company’s cafeteria. Congrats to NBC for setting the bar so low in the oddest way possible.
Sigh. I think we need to get Tracy Jordan and Liz Lemon on this pronto.
Seems like just yesterday we were outraged at somebody else for serving “stereotype food”.
http://www.google.com/search?q=fried+chicken+for+black+history+month&hl=en&safe=active&sa=X&tbo=p&tbs=tl:1,tll:2000,tlh:2009&ei=aKdrS_jSK4TIlAed0eHyBA&oi=timeline_histogram_nav&ct=timeline-histogram&cd=9&ved=0CHwQyQEoCQ
Do they have separate lines in the cafeteria as well? One for whites and one for coloreds? Maybe the staff can put on their black face and do a little shuck and jive while they serve food.
Definitely absurd, but it’s not like it’s a decision coming down from on high at NBC. We had soul food night at college run by the black student union; greens and chicken and even Kool-Aid and watermelon in the summer. Got a similar deal at my current workplace. This is indistinguishable from menus at NYC soul food restaurants. My best guess would be that the NBC cafeteria has a black chef who wanted to have some fun and not that this is the work of NBC HR’s diversity training crew.