Black Culture

I had a conversation with someone about a remark a professor once made which I seen as her being sneaky, trying to sneak-diss Black people. We were discussing some American religions and one that came up was the celebration of Independence Day. She then started to bring up some of the traditional celebratory things we do as a culture and shit like BBQing, fireworks, and drinking ice cold beer came up. No harm there until she blurted out "and you guys watermelon." Now I caught that light jab from this old stanking ass Jewish woman, but the rest of the class didn't seem to see anything wrong with it. I didn't open my mouth because just MAYBE she wasn't trying to be snarky and genuinely thought that all Black people ate watermelon on Independence Day, but being that the class was 90% African (like from Africa) and West Indian they didn't see anything wrong with her comment at all. See I'm West Indian myself, so I never understood the beef with watermelon comments until I lived in the southern part of America and realized it was somewhat of a racial stereotype. I mean I don't eat watermelon and the only people I saw eating watermelon was the people who I knew were raised in Black American households which wasn't many of my friends. Back to the person I had this discussion with, their perspective was that eating watermelon and chicken actually IS Black culture in America. Now the professor made the comment abut a week ago and now I'm not even offended by it anymore. When I look at Black culture in America it embodies every fucking stereotype that is out there, some by choice some are forced but they are present. I mean we cannot be the people who are on welfare the most we're like 15% of this country, but per capita we are the most represented. Per capita we've the highest dropout rates in high school and the lowest SAT scores, not solely our fault but this is a stereotype we don't seem to mind proving right. Per capita we've spat out the most single-mothers from our community, but that's not solely to sex mis-education because we have to factor in the unfair treatment of Black males in the judicial system via absurd jail sentences or law enforcement simply shooting us dead in the street. When I drive through White neighborhoods I dont see Kennedy, Crown, Kansas, American, etc... Fried Chicken, KFC, Churchs, or Popeyes on every other corner so I mean is it safe to say Black people like chicken like a motherfucker? Someone is going to misunderstand this blog and feel as if I'm hating my own people, but when I sit back and evaluate Black culture in America all I see is Eurocentric idealogies forced upon us being carried out and exercised. All the plans they had for us are working out for Them, not Us. We embraced everything they gave us and will fight tooth and nail to keep those oppressive practices thriving in our culture. I've never seen a Black Jesus in a White person's home, but a Black person will be quick to tell me it doesn't matter what race Jesus is with a White Jesus on their wall. Not trying to get too into the religious aspect of it, but that was just an example of Black culture embracing what we was given. I know that people eat chitterlings in the southern region of America still, but the ones I encounter are only the Black people. Not to say there aren't any White people who do, but the history of that nasty ass food comes from... Go look it up. So listen we like fried chicken and watermelon, but I'm also smart enough to know that every and anyone can and does enjoy those two foods. For it to be a stereotype, sure why not. It's moreso an American thing than a racial thing, but let's not act like Black people dont like chicken and watermelon. All the other stereotypes I mentioned, unfortunately we do represent them well and it's a fucking shame because of actually discrediting these as stupid assumptions about Us as a people by doing the total opposite, we'd rather excuse and explain them without a plan of action. Just a thought yall... Peace!