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Wow serving culturally relevant food during a cultural festival what a crazy controversial idea I can’t believe they did this wow.
America is devouring itself.
Edit: To people saying racist people satirize black people eating fried chicken and watermelon. I know, no shit racist people satirize every food of every ethnicity. That doesn't make it racist for people to eat that food or serve it at a cultural festival.
If I was a student I would just want to get rid of Aramark for the food. My grade school used them and it always tasted like shit. >

When I first started working at my school the food was actually “decent” they made staff lunches and most teachers would get it almost every day.  The food the kids got was pretty standard school food, but it was fine.  Then Aramark came in.  No more staff lunches and while we are certainly allowed to buy food from the student line, I don’t know a single adult that would.  It’s pretty awful.  
However you know Aramark’s food sucks, but the contract the school signed is also super restrictive.  Home economics teachers have a hard time ordering ingredients since all food purchases must go through Aramark.  The school guarantees a certain number of days where lunch is served so all half days must have lunch even if the timing makes no sense.  It even restricts how we handle emergency closures.  Of course now the district doesn’t have to give any benefits to underpaid “lunch ladies” so it will never go away. >

My wife tried to be friendly with the trustees and she was effectively run out of the job for acting like they are human beings deserving of even the basics of human decency. This was in a prison though... Not sure about their school side 🤔
You cannot have a kind heart and work for Aramark, apparently. >

School side and prison side are probably the same side. >

When my campus had them the truck's next stop after us was San Quentin  prison. 
Then we changed to a cheaper food supplier :( >

They reportedly were serving maggot and rat infested meals in Detroit prisons, as well as food taken out of the trash. You guys made the correct choice. >

We’re having homemade fried catfish, instant grits, collard greens, fried breaded okra and some black eyed peas for dinner and we always have enough for company! >

No self respecting southerner eats instant grits >

So how many minutes would it take to make your grits? Well perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove! Were these magic grits? I mean, did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?! >

I love how any line from the movie I can hear in whoever's voice, with the exact ~~annunciation~~ enunciation and inflection.
Edit - I no spell good. >

The two yoots >

Did you say yoot?
What is a yoot? >

Oh... excuse me your honor... two y o u u u t h h z z... >

Is it possible the two defendant's... >

Please take this the right way.  I mean this with a good heart.  What would be a good menu to celebrate black heritage that wouldn't be offensive? >

The first thing I clicked on had fried chicken as an entree and watermelon salad as a side. >

Cause they're fucking delicious tbh. Like dude, they didn't just eat it because it was the only thing available, they ate it because it was decent good for cheap AND frying chicken is AMAZING. >

One of the best meals of my life was eaten in New Orleans at some lunch Buffett I found off the beaten path. I had about 7 pieces of fried chicken. >

I literally just added stuff to make fried chicken to my instacart. Alas watermelons aren't available right now but holy shit I can't wait for a meal of fried chicken next week rofl. Prolly going cantaloupe >

For Cinco de Mayo, serve me tacos with a side of rice and beans. I’m Mexican American. I DO eat that and often >

Back in the day. The mental institutions used to grow food and feed the institution. They would sell excess food to the prisons. The money received would help fund the hospital. The patients there had a job and responsibilities, giving them a sense of purpose.
Now we have neither mental health care or home grown food. Instead we have Aramark. >

This sort of thing should be a teaching moment, though. Everyone eats food, so the history of food is really just... history, but through a lens that everyone can identify with.
Watermelon was a staple crop among the freed slaves in the post-Civil War years due to being fast-growing, readily portable, and usable without infrastructure-intensive processing. That black people flocked to grow it didn't escape notice, and a whole bunch of negative stereotypes showed up almost immediately. Fried chicken, similar story. It first showed up in American in the first third of the nineteenth century, but took off after the war where it combined some Scottish frying techniques with West African seasoning styles.
It's okay to have a stereotypical food as part of a history month, because stereotypes are part of history, and we should examine them. It's critical to make it about the knowledge, though, and not "oh lol yeah black people like watermelon, we'll do that." >

Ehh... yes and no.
You're right: this is a teachable moment. Stereotypes exist, and frankly we should be teaching kids about stereotypes with an eye for identifying harmful ones and not perpetuating them, while also identifying legitimate aspects of culture, and even how a thing can be both of those things depending on the context.
But serving stereotypes for lunch isn't the right context when you're cramming stereotypes in. Chicken and waffles? Sure. But maybe with a side of biscuits, or okra, or any number of other soul-food items that are more legitimate than stereotypical. Watermelon? Same thing, but maybe with a culturally relevant main that's not a raging stereotype.
It's the context that matters here. This is the school-lunch equivalent of Gabriel Iglesias' racist gift basket, except not  done as a joke between good friends. It's not that any of the items are offensive in and of themselves, it's that when grouped together like that it's clearly an insensitive racial message, not an educational cultural one. >

I'm gonna be fucking PISSED if someone serves me birthday cake for my next birthday.  That shit is SO STEREOTYPICAL. >

That's really not a great analogy at all. 
First--serving birthday cake at a birthday party actually is a cultural thing. So, when living in that culture, it's not a negative stereotype, just a cultural trait.
Second--in some hypothetical future society where kids are being taught about US culture around the turn of the millennium, serving birthday cake at a mock birthday party would be actually teaching the kids about that culture through participation in what amounts to a cultural ritual. 
You'd have to frame it as "hurr durr, look at me, I'm a white guy, I'm eating birthday cake and and saltine crackers and a hot-dog aspic, now I'm going to put some mild hot sauce on a chicken wing and complain about it being too spicy" for it to be offensive. Much like "I'm eating what black people eat, look, fried chicken and watermelon." >

I think it would be fine if the food was a part of a history lesson and taught kids that yes, these foods were stigmatized (despite being delicious).  Ofcourse you couldn't even have that discussion in Texas or Florida.
A little girl has a crush on my son,.and missed his birthday party.  So she got her parents to throw my son a second birthday party.  They asked me what my son's favorite food was, and besides bagel and lox, his favorite was fried chicken and watermelon (he has a summer birthday btw).
For years my sister refused to eat watermelon and friend chicken, around non black people because she felt like she was playing into the stereotype.  So she was not happy that I told that family, what my son's favorite food was.  
Watermelon is a delicious healthy fruit, that's fun to eat, and I don't think we should let the next generation continue to be afraid of the stereotype.  Especially because it's just fucking ridiculous.  So they used to call watermelon's n-word apples.  So fucking what. >

We've gotta just let comedians guide us through this shit. Dave Chapelle already did that a decade ago when he talked about fried and chicken and watermelon.
In the end it was like: "Who the fuck doesn't like fried chicken and watermelon?" And that's true, most people love it.
I agree with you completely. We gotta get past this stuff soon, it's really fucking up these most recent generations who don't realize how much better things got over the past few decades regarding racism. I feel like a lot of it is being undone now because people are tired of having to defend themselves in every direction. >

I really don't think its gotten any better, in fact its gotten worse, with law makers passing laws to attack segments of the population they want to oppress. >

The trajectory has been bumpy for sure. I certainly feel racism is much less an issue today than it was in the 60's for example. That said, I also feel racism is worse today than it was 10-15 years ago. It's subjective. >

there is so much less racism in society today, but many more things are considered racist by default depending on the ethnicity of the group in question. celebratory if done by the ethnicity that’s being celebrated or another minority, performative or racist if done by white. side effects of social media and resegregation efforts  tbh >

Way less of the racism that was fought against, but new racism has popped up in its place. Much of it also comes from the side most opposed to racism, which is hilariously ironic. Then there is the divide. Despite the fact there is less racism, many people actually think it is a bigger problem than ever.
I don't know what to do about it, I just know I am sick of it and so are plenty of others. I'd love to see the pendulum arrive to its rightful place: judge people for who they are, not what they look like. >

Comments about this make me think the watermelon stereotype isn't as prevalent as it was when I was growing up. But TLDR for anyone unaware of it, it's a Reconstruction era racism that black people had no higher ambitions than a farm animal that wants to be fed its favourite snack like a good boy. >

Black farmers were making money off of chicken and watermelon. White ppl made them feel guilt for being good at things they could commercialized, black farmer could get into with not much capital. >

Same with salt. For eons the stereotype was that black ppl put to much salt on everything and ate foods high in sodium and sugar and saturated fat. Now the new cliche is black ppl proclaiming that white people dont season their food or that white peoples cooking is bland and that healthy eating should be ridiculed. Black ppl created and innovated something of their own and then here comes mainstream society to try and twist it around into a criticism of the black community. >

pretty sure the Chinese or Romans harvested salt first >

Good tasting food in the US is the result of Black America’s influence on cooking post reconstruction. >

Im not arguing that black Americans didn't improve food (they did), just the literal origin of salt aha >

Aramark is a reprehensible company. They do not care. >

At a certain point, it's not a mistake.