“We want to acknowledge some feedback received regarding our Juneteenth celebration,” Pezzuto said in his letter obtained by The North Carolina Beat. “Although our intent was to celebrate this nationally recognized day, some of you voiced your concerns regarding the associated food choices.”

In other words, we’re sorry you were offended.

  • @[email protected]
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    111 year ago

    Reading the article, it seems like it may have been more of a case of poor judgement from management instead of intentional racism (maybe subconscious stereotyping, though). It’s a really stupid mistake. For any holiday, all you have to do is ask the team for input BEFORE making decisions and you can avoid most of this nonsense.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Feels racist but my work doesn’t even celebrate…This is NC though. I’d expect those are staples.

  • BoofStroke
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    81 year ago

    Racism will continue to exist so long as people continue to get offended by friggin food of all things.

    • @[email protected]
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      141 year ago

      Hey everyone! I don’t understand racism in the slightest but I’m sure going to tell everyone my opinions on it!

      Fixed that for you.

    • @[email protected]
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      91 year ago

      Racism has very little to do with being offended. It goes much deeper than that. If all racism entailed were a few people being offended then we wouldn’t have a holiday based around the freeing of a enslaved people. If people continue to tell people to get over it, nothing will ever change because the healing can never begin.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      The issue is having just fried chicken and watermelon, which are tied to extremely racist stereotypes. If they’d been part of a meal then there would be no issue (fried chicken and watermelon are both extremely delecious…) but they weren’t.

    • @[email protected]
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      151 year ago

      Looks to me like BBQ chicken would have been more appropriate, but I’m a white guy, so I’m going to say that I have no place picking a corporate Juneteenth menu. I’m not even sure it’s appropriate for a corp to have a Juneteenth celebration - give people the freedom to recognize it however they like, without the oversight of corporate bosses. It’s like having a corporate seder for rosh hashanah or an eid al-Fitr: guaranteed to go badly.

      If the corp does insist on having a party, they need to have members of the relevant community as prominent organizers, not some dude named Pezzuto. A white guy planning Juneteenth is going to be either condescending or cultural appropriation.

      • Y|yukichigai
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        41 year ago

        It’s like having a corporate seder for rosh hashanah or an eid al-Fitr: guaranteed to go badly.

        Good point. Even if they stick within the “rules” the risk of it coming off poorly is too high, same as any cultural-specific holiday.

    • growsomethinggood ()
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      291 year ago

      I’m not seeing fried chicken on that article though, just barbecue (which could be chicken or not, but wouldn’t be fried). Judging by the company response, someone over there is definitely being an asshole, even if there are elements that are traditional.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          I’m not trying to be an asshole.

          Maybe you’ll believe from a sistah

          This is manufactured outrage

          Mhmm. Not trying to be an asshole indeed.

          To the commenter below - No, you didn’t have to explain to this asshole anything. They know what they are doing and saying. Considering how easy it is to block people in lemmy, I’m taking advantage of that right now by blocking them.

            • @[email protected]
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              1 year ago

              You didn’t bother to read either link , remain ignorant

              That’s rich considering that you clearly didn’t read your own first link. If you had you would’ve known it didn’t include fried chicken before it was pointed out by another user. But hey, let’s keep pretending you’re not just making a poor effort to dismiss and downplay blatant racism - and you definitely weren’t just including a random link and betting on people being too lazy to actually read it.

              Every year some dipshit racists at a company somewhere in the US decide to serve fried chicken and watermelon on Juneteenth because they think they’re super clever and subtle and the moment the backlash hits the news there are thousands of people like you waiting in the wings to gaslight comment sections across social media.

                • @[email protected]
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                  1 year ago

                  How many more do you want, cupcake?

                  Okay, we’re done here. Your blatant bad faith racist bullshit has received as much of my attention as you’re going to get.

        • @[email protected]
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          321 year ago

          The fuck it is. Black ppl aren’t a monolith with a hive mind. We don’t all agree on everything. Also there’s a huge difference between a majority white controlled mega corporation handing out Friday chicken and watermelon on juneteenth vs a private local celebration doing it. Especially since it’s not the ONLY thing they serve

          Jesus Christ the fact this even has to be explained

          • @[email protected]
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            1 year ago

            Jesus Christ the fact this even has to be explained

            I don’t think it needs to be explained to anyone approaching this conversation in good faith. However, the person you’re replying to is just making a poor attempt to dismiss racism and gaslight people.

              • @[email protected]
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                1 year ago

                What are you going to say when everyone finds out it was a black person who was in charge of the food and drink choices?

                I have zero interest in entertaining your hypothetical situation. Find a different mark.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            Who the hell doesn’t agree that fried chicken is awesome, though?

            Also, I bet you anything that if you did some digging into who it was at the company that was in charge of the concessions, it was a black person.

  • sunzu
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    1021 year ago

    The thing is that both are great foods but knowing how a southern white clown thinks… they meant it. Fuk 'em

    • rustydomino
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      391 year ago

      Ikr? I fucking love fried chicken and watermelon but they had to go and ruin it for the rest of us.

    • Irremarkable
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      Right? I’ve never understood how that became a stereotype in the first place. Fried chicken is basically ubiquitous in all cultures in one form or another, including Europe. Turns out the vast majority of people like deep fried meat. Were southern elites just lying their asses off like “fried chicken? Yeah, disgusting. Totally hate it”?

      Such a dumb fucking stereotype

      • @[email protected]
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        191 year ago

        Chickens were often the only animals enslaved people were allowed to raise for themselves. Like many racist stereotypes, it’s more rooted in the 20th Century than slavery or early American history. There used to be some chain restaurants - notably Coon Chicken Inn - that used racist caricatures to sell their fried chicken, so it’s basically an advertising meme.

        • @[email protected]
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          81 year ago

          Pretty much the same thing for watermelon. It was an easy to grow fruit that freed slaves used as a source of income and they caricatured it in racist media.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      but knowing how a southern white clown thinks

      The weird thing is a huge percentage of people living in Charlotte aren’t even from the south. There are a lot of corporations headquartered in Charlotte, which has led to a huge influx of transplants over the last two decades. Hell, It’s got a large enough Western NY population that there are Sabres/Bills bars and I could get regional products like white hots at the grocery store.

      Source: I was one of them until two months ago when I relocated again.

  • Drusas
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    121 year ago

    Every summer cookout should have watermelon, but…

    Also, that fried chicken looks terrible.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    The day commemorates the liberation of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas in 1865, following the Civil War and President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation two years prior.

    I mean, technically correct, but it wasn’t really about Galveston. It’s about how that was when the last of people heard the news. It represents how long it takes for actual rights and freedoms to be even told to people. I think it represents all yhag is wrong with the struggles of obtaining AND ENJOYING rights and freedoms. I feel like their summary was a bit too brief and simplifying.

  • Nougat
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    871 year ago

    If fried chicken and watermelon were the only things served, then there’s a problem. Otherwise, no.

    Unless the other things served were grape drink and Newports.

  • mozz
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    1 year ago

    Honestly fried chicken is some good shit maybe they—

    Watermelon

    Er

    Well, yeah, that seems pretty sus—

    “Although our intent was to celebrate this nationally recognized day”

    Yeah they racist af

    (I don’t even know what it is that connects the wording choices so clearly with the image of a slightly smirking man who’s secure in the knowledge that at the end of the day, what the fuck are you going to do about it, nothing that’s what, now get back to work watermelon man your day was yesterday)