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

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

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?