Colin Flaherty: NYT vs GQ - Who Speaks For The Fellas When It Comes To Chicken Craze

Colin Flaherty author of Don't Make the Black Kids Angry commentary news video - Why the Popeyes Chicken Sandwich Craze Quickly Morphed into Black Shaming
The popular fast-food release rekindled stigma about the black neighborhoods Popeyes dominates—without consideration of socio-economic forces driving it. New York Times GQ leftist media African american crime violence beat up assault ruin everything destroy neighborhoods due to community dysfunction denial deceit delusion condone excuse

At some basic level, there is nothing about wanting to eat Popeyes new chicken sandwich that’s different from wanting to sip a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte or dig into a Sweetgreen winter squash salad. The sandwich is the flavor of the month. It is a crunchy, fried, juicy, savory food trend that smells like a family reunion and tastes like homecoming. But while the sandwich’s hype has mouths watering from Orange County to Downtown Brooklyn, there is something unique about its popularity in black communities.

Like so many Internet phenomenons, hype for Popeye’s chicken sandwich first sparked on Black Twitter. Sales swelled as people posted tweets proclaiming it “a chicken sandwich fit for a God”; declaring it “a damn revelation”; playing the “Popeyes or Chick-Fil-A” music video in which rapper @Gmaccash spat: “I ain’t knocking Chick-fil-A, Chick-fil-A good/But it ain’t a Chick-fil-A in the hood/And I ain’t driving 30 minutes just to get some chicken.”

Yet despite the long relationship, the bond between black people and the restaurant is complicated. Its parent company annually admits to its investors that it is under constant threat from “health campaigns against products we offer in favor of foods that are perceived as healthier [that] may affect consumer perception of our product offerings and impact the value of our brands.” More pointedly, Popeyes has lobbied against local legislation designed to improve the health of minority communities like New York City’s 2015 sodium warning regulation.

https://www.gq.com/story/popeyes-chicken-sandwich-black-communities