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Comment by thegayngler | Hacker News Reader

I just have a complex about being a good enough front end engineer. Otherwise I dont mind if people refer to me as the black guy and I love watermelon. I get people mixed up all the time so Im not offended if someone mistakes me for another black guy.

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I believe that your experiences are somewhat related to the apologist behavior he mentions in the first paragraph. I'm easy going as well and I've never been terribly bothered by people mistaking me for somebody else as a result.

That being said, I can see how it would be bothersome especially if a source of the confusion was due to something I'm sensitive about. I imagine (from your post) it'd be like if somebody mixed you up with "that other guy who isn't good enough to be a front end engineer". Even if both of you were plenty qualified to be front end engineers, due to your sensitivity it might be a little bit more raw. Thankfully most of us don't have to walk around with evidence of our sensitive issues all over our bodies.

The cross-race effect is a thing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect] and is not unique to whites making this mistake, so it's a little bothersome that someone would have a problem if you get mistaken for someone else. I think it can be an honest mistake that anyone can make.

Who doesn't love watermelon? Try it with good feta cheese - that is the way we traditionally eat it in the Balkans. The tartness of the cheese is match made in heaven with the sweetness of the watermelon.

I never understood this stereotype. Yes, my entire family and I love fried chicken, who the hell doesn't??? I wonder how different things would be if the stereotype was pizza, cake, or some other universally loved foodstuffs.

Probably not so much with things like chicken legs and wings per se, but 'soul food' (or at least certain offerings) have their roots going back to sharecropping and late slavery (probably even throughout the entirety of the American slave trade) where certain scraps of meat and animal deemed "unfit/unsavory" for the plantation family to eat were given to the slaves to feast on and were eventually integrated as part of the culinary tradition of Black Americans.

I would imagine, without going too far down the research rabbit hole (because this is a close topic to me being both black and a lover of food history in general) that the whole "fried chicken and watermelon" thing are likely poorly understood branches coming from that evolutionary tract.

I totally agree and have read supporting evidence backing your entire first paragraph. But I've never seen that evidence suggest chicken and watermelon fell into the chitterlings and ham hock category.

Yeah that's why I say I think it's just a misunderstood thing coming from that tract; meaning over time casual associations of certain food groups now considered "staples" of soul food became less and less understood and discussed along with other aspects of that era of time to the point where foods that were never there to begin with got tossed in, no one checked it and everyone else ran with it.

Take Huey P. Newton for example, I've had plenty of frank, honest and open discussions with individuals who want to tell me everything they know about Huey P. Newton and his "radical-ness" and his "anger" and his "passion" as a Black Panther because of whatever oral tradition they've had passed down to them informing their viewpoint of the man-but it never goes very far beyond surface-level descriptions, and rarer still his philosophies or doctoral essays. Substitute Newton with James Baldwin, Clarence Thomas, MLK, heck even Dr. Cornel West.

I think the same unfortunate blurring of the culinary traditions of Black Americana has happened re: Fried Chicken and Watermelon-thin, surface-level oral traditions passed down time and time again until we got where we are now "Fried chicken, watermelon and purple koolaid" are for good or ill tied into every conversation of "black foods".

Thanks for clarifying. I can see exactly what you're talking about when I hear people talk about how Malcolm X needed to die because he wanted to kill all whites as if he wasn't excommunicated for preaching peace and unity after his pilgrimage.

I live in Boulder, CO, and not liking fried chicken (amongst numerous other, less-racially-charged foodstuff) is a status-signaling thing here, I think.

Not to say there isn't a huge problem with attitudes towards race in Boulder, but I've encountered people here who broke off long term relationships because a partner refused to go militant vegan and instead remained merely vegetarian, so I wouldn't place too much stock in the mind blowing food neuroses that tend to be common around these parts.

And not to derail the conversation, but as a fellow Boulderite who desperately misses having a a Popeyes within 20 minutes, have you found any good fried chicken places? I have yet to find anything besides Yellowbelly and the exceptionally terrible KFC on Arapahoe.

I googled "best fried chicken in Boulder" and literally every place I found had closed since earning the honor.

Argh. That and good barbecue seem to just not exist here.

I mean, it's a parallel stereotype to making fun of Italians for eating pizza. It doesn't make more sense than <ethnicity> likes <ethnic food>!

I am not sure whether you are speaking hypothetically about your racial background from the way you phrase that sentence.

But my God are are you brave for using that handle on HN, sir.

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