Africa Is a Country

White People Eat Fried Chicken

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

White People Eat Fried Chicken

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH_WxJVxHcw&w=500&h=307&rel=0]

Allison Swank
Just as Nelson Mandela went underground as the Black Pimpernel in 1961 to evade the white apartheid government, in this TV ad for  a popular South African fast food chain, this white Afrikaner family goes underground in 1994 to escape Mandela’s black government–what?

And white people eat fried chicken at a food joint whose slogan is “soul food”?

This intermingling of race roles is a clear attempt to normalize black stereotypes of soul and chicken in white culture–which is represented here as uptight and fearful. To sell chicken to white people, Chicken Licken tries to bridge the divide between what is stereotypically white and black, while managing to reinforce both clichés. Over it.

Further Reading

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?

The road to Rafah

The ‘Sumud’ convoy from Tunis to Gaza is reviving the radical promise of pan-African solidarity and reclaiming an anticolonial tactic lost to history.

Sinners and ancestors

Ryan Coogler’s latest film is more than a vampire fable—it’s a bridge between Black American history and African audiences hungry for connection, investment, and storytelling rooted in shared struggle.