Bizarrely, it seems it was racist, but not in the way we thought…
Apparently it’s true that the association between fried chicken and BAME people isn’t especially significant in the UK, but the Government ignorantly thought it was; documents regarding the campaign clarify that they did mean to target ‘the ethnics’ (itself a spectacularly inappropriate term).
That too. And I actually enjoy an Eisbein every couple of months.
maybe - or maybe in their part of the UK it looks different.
I’ll be honest, I don’t go to chicken shops any more unless I’m on my own, I’ve had too many beers and it’s very late in the evening. But when I go past them, they seem to reflect the youth demographic of the area (in my part of town, that’s predominantly white/Asian).
My gut feeling is that this is an imported form of activism, taking offence at something that is obviously racist in an American context, but not necessarily in British or whatever one.
An extreme case of it would be interpreting capirote wearers during hols week in Spain as endorsing KKK. Or to pain Buddhists or Native Americans as Nazi sympathisers because they use swastikas in their design.
Or, as a less extreme case, claiming that the „Schwarze Mann“ (literally „The black man“; culturally „Bogeyman“) obviously refers to blackfacing and is thus a racist concept.
Just go read the Guardian article already, and look at the ad campaign. They’re using “ethnic” (a pejorative, and not only because the article says so) in a contemporary mindset.
Conversation has swiftly turned to the creative team behind the campaign, an advertising agency called All City Media Solutions. The now viral screengrabs from its website have described the agency’s rationale: “Never has there been an opportunity to target the … ethnics” it boasts, with seemingly zero awareness that “ethnics” is pejorative and hasn’t been said by any young person since 1987.
Thanks. That link had escaped my attention and I had read only the BBC article. That is some weird mess and I haven’t unpacked it completely. It appears, to me, as if the “African American sure like chicken” stereotype was lacking from Britain, so they invented it again? For pretty much the same reasons? (Uncultured people eating with their hands, except that they aren’t proper English, so they won’t target fish and chips)
And it’s the same in the U.S.A. that the clientele of fried chicken restaurants is pretty ethnically diverse. The issue is not the actual demographics, but the psychological associations that are in the minds of the populace at large. Stereotypes don’t have to have any basis in fact (especially facts about the present day) in order to have cultural power.
“Breasts or thighs?”
Wouldn’t you say it had more of a class association?
Sure. I still believe that the stereotype ‘black people eat fried chicken’ is far stronger in America than here in the UK. As others have said, whatever association we do have is imported.
That said, someone has pointed out the use of the word ‘ethnics’ in all of this, which is shitty and racist;
And someone else has pointed out that this was sparked by the owner of a fried chicken shop where a kid got stabbed, trying to do something good,
which isn’t.
Good intention, poor idea, terribly executed, with the racism entering the chain sometime around the point the advertising executives got involved. Quelle surprise!
If so, the campaign would have included fish and chip packaging.
Partly. Bigots, even more than humans in general, have no problem holding to conflicting ideas in the same time. Fish and chips = quirky beloved English custom = okay. Fried chicken as finger food = uncultured swine.
If the whole thing was rational, they would indeed finance youth programs, seriously tailored at the interests of the Young People most at risk.
True, but to echo @andrewlwood, I’m not aware of that psychological association being widespread in the UK.
*sighs
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