Racial Stereotype
In the United States, fried chicken has stereotypically been associated with African Americans. The reasons for this are various. Chicken dishes were popular among slaves before the Civil War, as chickens were generally the only animals slaves could raise on their own.
On two occasions the golfer Tiger Woods has been the target of remarks regarding fried chicken. The first occurred in 1997 when golfer Fuzzy Zoeller said that Woods should avoid choosing fried chicken for the Masters champions' dinner the following year; the second when golfer Sergio García was asked in a press conference in 2013 whether he would invite Woods to dinner during the U.S. Open to settle their ongoing feud. García said: "We will have him round every night . . . We will serve fried chicken," which Woods said was "wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate". Both Zoeller and García subsequently apologized to Woods.
In 2009, a Bangladeshi immigrant to the U.S. renamed his restaurant "Obama Fried Chicken" in honor of recently inaugurated President Barack Obama. Despite controversy at the time, the owner refused to change the name back, and the restaurant continues to operate under this name.
In 2012, Burger King received criticism over a commercial for a fried chicken wrap served by the restaurant that was seen as using negative racial stereotypes in relation to fried chicken.
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Famous quotes containing the words racial and/or stereotype:
“I am convinced that our American society will become more and more vulgarized and that it will be fragmentized into contending economic, racial and religious pressure groups lacking in unity and common will, unless we can arrest the disintegration of the family and of community solidarity.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)