![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/01\/UC-Davis-Medical-Center-MLK-1.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nOn the one hand, the cafeteria is making an effort to mark MLK day and, to be fair, the food choices are traditional “soul food” familiar to (especially Southern) Black populations and the South more generally. \u00a0On the other hand, preparing foods associated with Black people is about the shallowest possible way to celebrate such an important man.<\/p>\n
The conundrum — do we or don’t we, as a cafeteria<\/em>, acknowledge Martin Luther King day and, if so how? — is a familiar one. \u00a0Can one do so without reproducing stereotypes and appearing on blogs like these? \u00a0Or should we just pretend the day doesn’t exist?<\/p>\n The truth is, in a context of ongoing racial inequality in which stereotypes continue to harm, organizations such as these are stuck between a rock and a hard place. \u00a0That’s how racism has such staying power: it makes it such that all choices resonate with its ugliness.<\/p>\n See also: wrong ways to celebrate Black History Month<\/a> and how not to include racial \u00a0history in school curricula<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emily B. sent along this notice for a UC Davis cafeteria Martin Luther King day menu: On the one hand, the cafeteria is making an effort to mark MLK day and, to be fair, the food choices are traditional “soul food” familiar to (especially Southern) Black populations and the South more generally. \u00a0On the other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2124,254,283,285,1760],"class_list":["post-53408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-foodagriculture","tag-holidays","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53493,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53408\/revisions\/53493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}