#106. Acknowledging Their Love for Soul Food

We live in a world governed by few rules, but the most important of all laws that must be acknowledged without fail is simply this: Thou Shalt Not Display Black People in a Negative Light.

Thus, the need for a month dedicated to celebrating accomplishments of a race largely devoid of any accomplishments or contributions to the United States (outside of entertainment or sports), for Black people's conspicuous absence from collective historical relevance is an unflattering truth that can't be explained away by white racism.

Undoubtedly, you have heard of the first rule of Fight Club - you don't talk about fight club. In the United States of America, anytime a Black person of significance screws up their race is a careful guarded secret - save for their discernible melanin-enhanced skin - and anytime a city with a majority Black populace falters, any mention of the racial makeup of that municipality isn't tolerated.

The corollary to the First Rule of Black Run America (BRA) is you can't acknowledge Black people lest you do so in a positive manner.

Even in Pre-Obama America, Black people found these rules were largely the law of the land.

Unfortunately - as in any society - criminality does exist and we do happen to have individuals who mock the law and defy the edicts set forth by the judiciary in charge of all acceptable public discourse on Black people.

It is discussed in impolite circles that Black people have the strange habit of never passing on seconds and this nearly unspeakable truth has led to gross imbalances in the distribution of calories between the races and thus, the pendulum of corpulence swings Black (the following statistics are from - and we are not making this up - the Office of Minority Health, a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services... and you thought BRA wasn't holding up a kernel of truth):

• African American women have the highest rates of being overweight or obese compared to other groups in the U.S. About four out of five African American women are overweight or obese.¹
• In 2007, African Americans were 1.4 times as likely to be obese as Non- Hispanic Whites.
• From 2003-2006, African American women were 70% more likely to be obese than Non-Hispanic White women.
• In 2003-2004, African American children between ages 6 -17 were 1.3 times as likely to be overweight than Non-Hispanic Whites.

It is strange to think that a dynamic population that represents 13 percent of the United States population is immune from public discourse, even during Black History Month. We are to celebrate Black History, correct?

Obviously, Black History includes a heaping portion of food, or why else would McDonald's find it profitable to market to Black people with the company's 365 Black promotion? 13 percent of population is relatively small, unless those Black people eat a disproportionate amount of the unhealthy food served under the Golden Arches.

It is vital to remember the Iron Law of BRA as we navigate the treacherous waters of the Black diet and find out that a staple of the 'colored' food pyramid is universally known, yet fanatically kept quiet, providing a hilarious dichotomy of truth and untruth.

Black people love fried chicken. Black people have had numerous riots over fried chicken in geographical unrelated cities, providing incidents for sociologist to study that establish a linkage between the unmistakable craving for finger-licking good food that can't be denoted as isolated.

Black people have a fond relationship with Soul Food, a constant ally in times of trouble and a delicious reminder that Black people's best friend will always been fried:

Soul food is an American cuisine, a selection of foods, and is the traditional cuisine of African Americans in the United States. It is closely related to the cuisine of the Southern United States. The descriptive terminology may have originated in the mid-1960s, when soul was a common definer used to describe black culture

Enslavers fed their captives as cheaply as possible, often with throwaway foods from the plantation, forcing slaves to make do with the ingredients at hand. In slave households, vegetables were the tops of turnips and beets and dandelions. Soon, slaves were cooking with new types of greens: collards, kale, cress, mustard, and pokeweed. They also developed recipes which used lard; cornmeal; and offal, discarded cuts of meat such as pigs' feet, oxtail, ham hocks, chitterlings (pig small intestines), pig ears, hog jowls, tripe and skin. Cooks added onions, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf to enhance the flavors. Some slaves supplemented their meager diets by maintaining small plots made available to them to grow their own vegetables, and many engaged in subsistence fishing and hunting, which yielded wild game for the table. Foods such as raccoon, squirrel, opossum, turtle, and rabbit were, until the 1950s, very common fare among the still predominantly rural and southern African American population.

Yes, Black people love soul food.


However, remembering the most important of all laws governing BRA, this factoid is a closely guarded secret and can't be discussed. Just consult with the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), gatekeepers and defenders of the Iron Law of BRA, and you will find this truth to be self-evident:

"A special NBC Black History Month lunch spread -- featuring fried chicken, collard greens and black-eyed peas -- sparked a commissary controversy yesterday, but the African-American chef who planned it doesn't understand the fuss.

"All I wanted to do was make a meal that everyone would enjoy -- and that I eat myself," NBC cook Leslie Calhoun told The Post last night.

Calhoun's proudly planned feast, which she began last year, hit a snag when Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, the drummer for Jimmy Fallon's "Late Night" show band, The Roots, shot a photo of the menu outside the network's Rockefeller Center cafeteria and posted it on Twitter.

A disappointed Calhoun, who has worked at NBC for eight years, said she's been begging for years to make special entrees in honor of Black History Month, and got her wish last year. The plan was to have one special meal every Thursday during February -- although she said she's nervous about next week.

Asked if she understood why some people might find her menu concept offensive, Calhoun said, "I don't understand it at all. It's what I eat."

Calhoun was in violation of the main law that holds aloft the pillars of Black Run America (BRA) and daring to showcase a universally accepted truth might make her a modern-day Sampson and bring that exalted structure crumbling down.

Disingenuous White Liberals over at National Public Radio (NPR) dared to openly flaunt the first rule of BRA back in 2003, when they discussed "soul food" and how to have a successful Black History Month dinner:

Black-eyed peas, rice, yams, greens, okra and cornbread. To commemorate Black History Month, Talk of the Nation looks at the story of African Americans through the lens of southern cooking, often known as soul food.

The very fact that certain foods are even on the menu in most American restaurants today tells a story of how Africans came to this country and what happened when they got here. The discussion also covers how Southern cooking has come to be known by some as soul food, what that means and what it doesn't, and how the term "soul food" has come to mean more than just food.

Discussing the importance of soul food and family cooking are NPR's Vertamae Grosvenor, author of Vertamae Cooks in the Americas' Family Kitchen, and Norma Jean Darden, co-author of Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine: Recipes and Reminiscences from a Black Family and the owner of the Harlem eateries Spoonbread Too: Miss Mamie's and Miss Maude's.

Black History Month is a special time when the open defiance of the Iron Law of BRA is on display, for the entire month is a viewing of the theater of the absurd. Attempts to locate minute contributions from Black people and pass them off as major achievements in the advancement of history leaves little room for the inclusion of any real Black History.

One such advancement befuddled Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News host, who was incredulous that Black people are capable of eating soul food in riot-free environment:

"I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City," said O'Reilly on the Sept. 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show.

"There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who [was] screaming,'M-Fer was, I want more iced tea," he told National Public Radio's Juan Williams. "[It] was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."

Contributions in the culinary arts, plus the civilized manner in which Black people satiate themselves at the dinner table are profound, and the expanding waistlines of Black people - odd that belts would be an accoutrement missing from Black people's wardrobe - should be celebrated, not ridiculed. Makes you wonder how pants on the ground happens in the first place.

But BRA can not last long if the first rule governing decency is violated. Take this similar story out of Denver, where the law was broken and the punishment was swift:

Denver Public School officials are apologizing after a parent complained that a school lunch meant to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was stereotypical and offensive.The lunch, planned for Friday, was to include southern-style chicken, collard greens and a biscuit in honor of King.D.P.S. spokesman Michael Vaughn released a statement that said:

“The plan to serve a Southern-style meal in recognition of Martin Luther King Day was well intentioned but highly insensitive in light of certain hurtful cultural stereotypes still harbored in parts of our society.”

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes acknowledging their love for soul food, for this is a crime of the highest offense and in many cases, punishable by medieval methods. We live a strange world, and in this Black Run America, to be among those who can see is a troubling burden. Black people may love soul food, but to acknowledge this is a act of sheer defiance in the face of BRA.

Those who can see are in violation of the number one law governing the United States of America, but remember, civil disobedience is written into the Declaration of Independence.

And here, for all to see, is a menu courtesy of Google that serves up a veritable buffet of stories dealing with Black History Month and Soul Food. Bon Appetite!

And better, Vince McMahon and his take on Soul Food.