Monday, October 1, 2012

Stereotypes of Racial Identity

A cultural artifact that constitutes a stereotype of racial identity is fried chicken. Fried chicken is commonly associated with blacks. It commonly advertised towards black people. This racial stereotype has a negative meaning and has had many jokes made out of it.

Fried chicken has been heavily advertised towards blacks. Popeyes chicken and KFC advertise towards black people. There thought is to advertise cheap fried chicken so people buy it. They assume that black people are poorer than white people, so they have black families in their advertisements enjoying their fried chicken. One Popeyes commercial shows a black man pretending to drive and then a sign comes up saying, "avoid sticky steering wheel syndrome". Then it shows the new way they designed their boxes so that no mess will be created. Then the same man holds up a sign saying, "no mess" avoid and he shakes it around. Lastly it says how much of a value the fried chicken is. The advertisers marketed there value priced fried chicken toward black people because they think that poor black people will come and buy their fried chicken. They show the man to be very happy so that the viewer sees how happy they can be is they buy Popeyes fried chicken. 



Many jokes have been made connecting black people and fried chicken. Comedian Gabriel Iglesias has made a joke about KFC fried chicken. He said he once made a racial basket for his black friend. Inside he put a lot of stereotypical objects relating to black people and one of the objects was fried chicken. Gabriel Iglesias knocked on his door and ran away around the corner and watched his reaction. He was angry and then Gabriel Iglesias appeared and he calmed down. The point of the joke was to exploit all of the cultural stereotypes that have to do with racial identity. This shows the type of racial stereotypes that are impeded in society today. Fired chicken is just one of the many cultural artifacts that constitute a stereotype of racial identity that were in the basket. Gabriel Iglesias played with these cultural artifacts to make the joke funny.


Another joke that has been made is a meme. In the meme it assumes the racial stereotype that black people are obsessed with fried chicken. This is unfortunate because the meme assumes just because a person is black they have to like fried chicken and obsess over it. This meme makes it seem like black people are less than human because according to the meme they want their fried chicken. This comes from the deeply rooted racism that has been in American society for a long time.
(source http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Fried+Chicken.+probs+a+repost+but+its+funny+as+hell_19c418_3070308.jpg)

Fried chicken is just one of the many cultural artifacts that relate to a stereotype of racial identity. It has been used to make many advertisements and jokes. The jokes give black people a less than human characteristic and it isn't true. The racial gift basket is an assortment of cultural objects that have a racial meaning to them. The Popeyes advertisement plays on the stereotype that black people like fried chicken. The fried chicken cultural artifact will continue to be popular among jokes and advertisements because of the deeply rooted stereotype of black people liking fired chicken.

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