On the first day of Black History Month, a school in New York issued an apology for providing what it described as a “inexcusably insensitive” lunch.
Fried chicken, waffles, and watermelon were provided to the students at Nyack Middle School on February 1.
The meals have been applied to African Americans in racial stereotypes.
The planned lunch of cheesesteaks, broccoli, and fruit, according to school officials, had been changed by Aramark, the school’s food provider.
“We are extremely disappointed by this regrettable situation and apologise to the entire Nyack community for the cultural insensitivity displayed by our food service provider,” Principal David Johnson wrote in a letter to parents on February 2.
He claimed that the goods the supplier chose
“reinforce negative stereotypes concerning the African American community”.
Honore Santiago, a sixth grade student at the school, said she was surprised when she saw the meal in her cafeteria.
“They were asking people if they want watermelon and I remember being confused because it’s not in season,” the sixth-grade student told a local news outlet.
She claimed that after getting home, she told her mother about the lunch, and both of them were angered.
“I just hope that they won’t do it again, at a different school or my school,” she said.
Aramark, the vendor for the school, issued an apology for the incident, which it called a “inexcusable mistake” that “never should have happened.”
In 2018, New York University severed ties with the company after a Black History Month lunch it offered at the university included red Kool-Aid and watermelon-flavored water as well as other foods that have been used as racist tropes.
According to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, during the Jim Crow era in the US, watermelon developed a racist connotation.
After being freed, southern African Americans who produced and sold watermelons used the fruit as a symbol of self-sufficiency, although it was later derogatorily used
Author-Roberta Appiah
