Racism Stole Chicken Wings
American appropriation of Black creations without proper due
There’s an irony about America’s long love affair with racism.
America can’t always seem to treat our Black brothers and sisters with the dignity they deserve. It shows up in our educational and housing policies. In health care. In environmental policy. Policing and criminal justice.
So many are now fighting efforts to equal the playing field. Courts are ruling that plans to achieve diversity are illegal.
Some are even treating diversity as a bad word. Calling inclusivity part of some evil plan to harm white people.
But when, despite obstacles and systemic racism, Black people create, we have no problem falling in love with those creations.
Then we take those creations as our own, without any thought or credit to the people who gave us them.
Take chicken wings.
The Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York is widely credited with inventing in 1964 the now immensely popular dish you’ll find on restaurant menus coast to coast: chicken wings. For decades, the story has been told and re-told that Teressa Bellissimo came up with the idea to fry and toss wings in sauce.
