A Texas restaurant owner said she didn't think she did anything wrong when she promoted a holiday special on Facebook.
Sabrina Pyle, owner of Azle Café in Azle, Texas, was hoping to draw in more customers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day when she offered a unique meal.
"I came up with this incredible, ingenious idea for what I thought would bring people in for lunch," Pyle told WFAA.
The special consisted of chicken and waffles with a side of watermelon.
Social media users quickly pointed out that the offering was problematic. The stereotype that black people have an affinity for fried chicken and watermelon emerged during times of slavery in America and after the Civil War to portray people who belong to the racial group as lazy and dirty.
"It's a way to express racial (contempt) without getting into serious trouble," a University of Missouri professor said in a 2013 NPR interview. "How it's possible to be both a taboo and a corporate mainstream thing just shows how complicated race in America is."
"To use something like chicken and waffles and a side of watermelon as a Martin Luther King special is disgusting," Brad Pelt told WFAA. "It's not okay."
Pyle said the action was "distasteful" on her part.
"I just didn't think it through," she said. "I wasn't thinking about the historical (context). I was thinking, 'We have margaritas and tacos on Cinco de Mayo, so, let's have some fun with Martin Luther King Day.'"
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