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You seem to be mired in the metaphor and thus unable to participate in the actual discussion.
It doesn't matter what other people eat or why they eat it.
ADOS people would not have eaten chitterlings if we had had the bacon and the ham. If you've ever participated in slaughtering a hog (I have) or spent hours carefully picking the crap out of them with your fingernails (I have) or endured the 12-hour stench of boiling them (I have) you would know why.
And the fact is, chitterlings are a poor food source. Nobody should be eating it. It had been banned in Hawaii for decades (it may still be) for reasons that have nothing to do with black people, but because it is a health hazard.
It's the sum total of 300 years of slavery and a hundred years of Jim Crow. It's the sum total of how we were forced to live--not how we chose to live. It's not the sum total of our dreams and aspirations, but only of survival.
You don't eat the chit'lin's when you've got access to the ham and bacon.
It's time to smell the chitlins and toss them out.
And thus, this is what more people need to understand. Black slaves were not eating chitterlings because they wanted to. They were eating chitterlings because that is what they were GIVEN. Keyword is "given". And this is something more people need to understand.
I've never slaughtered a pig. I've helped with cleaning fish though. Cleaning a fish is a piece of work. I imagine slaughtering a pig is much more labor-intensive. I say this as someone who has seen a pig slaughtered on Youtube, not in person.
Speaking of which, I watched two videos about Central/Eastern Europe. They were in Hungary and Romania. In both videos, a pig was slaughtered. While the offal did get used in one video, it was used for making sausage. Most of the pig goes used. No chitterlings in Hungary. And most certainly no chitterlings in Romania. No one was trying to eat the intestines of the pig. Now, the offal might get used because you don't want to waste the pig (every bit of an animal is considered usable in societies where growing and raising your own food is important). But even if the aforementioned countries, no one eats pig entrails if they don't have to.
Seeing a pig slaughtered in person, that is no joke. After all the work just preparing the pig for slaughter, and then cutting the pig up, I wouldn't want to clean the entrails. Besides, as you say, when you have the bacon and the ham, you don't keep the intestines. I'm also of the view that there are better sources of meat than pig. I went to the store a few days ago, and was able to get lamb for less than what you get beef.
Chitterlings have never been considered a healthy source of food. There is a reason the slave master passed it off to the slave. The master wouldn't eat that trash.
In general, the slave diet was not a quality diet. The slaves ate whatever the master would give them. And it wasn't all that healthy compared to what the master and his family got. The slaves got salt pork, cornmeal, whatever greens the slavemaster didn't want, syrup, molasses, occasionally sweet potatoes and field peas. The human body needs more variety than that. Slaves were often not in the best of health, especially as they got older. A diet heavy in starch, sodium, and the scrap parts of the pig, and the vegetables provided weren't the best as far as nutrition goes.
What some people aren't understanding is what the chitterlings are a metaphor of. African slaves who were literally stripped of their original cultures. The way they got here was by duress. Everything all the way down to the language and food. What replaced it wasn't what they chose, but what they were given, the scraps. What replaced the old culture was not a functional culture. The "chit'lin culture". It was basically a matter of survival during slavery times. However, today, we all know how dysfunctional and bad it is.
You seem to be mired in the metaphor and thus unable to participate in the actual discussion.
It doesn't matter what other people eat or why they eat it.
ADOS people would not have eaten chitterlings if we had had the bacon and the ham. If you've ever participated in slaughtering a hog (I have) or spent hours carefully picking the crap out of them with your fingernails (I have) or endured the 12-hour stench of boiling them (I have) you would know why
You're mired by your assumptions, sir...
Quote:
And the fact is, chitterlings are a poor food source. Nobody should be eating it. It had been banned in Hawaii for decades (it may still be) for reasons that have nothing to do with black people, but because it is a health hazard.
This is a legitimate concern in a time and place where most black people are more likely to consume sugar and chemical-laden foods than they are pig intestines? If there's anything that would kill us it would be the same foods that white people are eating.
Again, how is it any better to eat lobster or other shellfish which have been considered filthy, lower quality food by numerous cultures since antiquity? Is it because white people said it's okay?
Quote:
It's the sum total of 300 years of slavery and a hundred years of Jim Crow. It's the sum total of how we were forced to live--not how we chose to live. It's not the sum total of our dreams and aspirations, but only of survival.
And now we're free to do whatever we want, so yes I understood the metaphor, but I'm not seeing the logic behind needing to discard "chitlins" or anything else for the sake of survival. Eat what you like.
I think we've evolved past what you and greenmariner are suggesting. Because It sounds like you would assume that anyone that dares to eat soul food is most certainly less affluent and educated, incapable of appreciating anything different -- but I happen to know that isn't the case at all.
Quote:
You don't eat the chit'lin's when you've got access to the ham and bacon.
And possibly suffer from high blood pressure due to all of that sodium
What some people aren't understanding is what the chitterlings are a metaphor of. African slaves who were literally stripped of their original cultures. The way they got here was by duress. Everything all the way down to the language and food. What replaced it wasn't what they chose, but what they were given, the scraps. What replaced the old culture was not a functional culture. The "chit'lin culture". It was basically a matter of survival during slavery times. However, today, we all know how dysfunctional and bad it is.
What some people aren't understanding is what the chitterlings are a metaphor of. African slaves who were literally stripped of their original cultures. The way they got here was by duress. Everything all the way down to the language and food. What replaced it wasn't what they chose, but what they were given, the scraps. What replaced the old culture was not a functional culture. The "chit'lin culture". It was basically a matter of survival during slavery times. However, today, we all know how dysfunctional and bad it is.
And I'm just not sure I agree with that. It's 2022. I can eat soul food and listen to rap music but still be the smartest, most affluent guy in a room full of college educated white men.
Now are there counterproductive attitudes and practices still being passed down in our community? For sure, but this is not unique to us and I'm not seeing that we need to be singled out here. A black neighborhood that has a drug and violence problem coexists with a nation that has a drug and violence problem.
Today I read an opinion article about the continuing saga of black oppression in the U.S. Some excerpts:
Quote: Black folks are simply trying to survive an America that continuously threatens our very existence.
40+ million of you are simply "trying to survive"? What is your biggest threat? (Hint: Other black people.)
Quote: Black people are still expected to be front line soldiers in the fight against oppression, while those in other groups sit on the sidelines demanding us to be their savior.
Whites, Asians, gays, etc. are all demanding for blacks to save them?
Quote: And yet, there is still the underlying expectation that Black folks save this nation from itself again in November—a nation that has yet to see our humanity.
Uh huh.
Quote: This is a reminder to all who are not Black but expect us to continue to put our lives on the line for you — Black folks are NOT your mules.
How many people actually "expect" this?
In understanding where such a dysfunctional culture came, New ideas can be gathered from this. A dysfunctional culture must be replaced by a better culture. It is important to sit down and decide
1) What aspects of a culture are beneficial.
2) Which aspects should be discarded.
3) What can be learned from other cultures.
Today I read an opinion article about the continuing saga of black oppression in the U.S. Some excerpts:
Quote: Black folks are simply trying to survive an America that continuously threatens our very existence.
40+ million of you are simply "trying to survive"? What is your biggest threat? (Hint: Other black people.)
Quote: Black people are still expected to be front line soldiers in the fight against oppression, while those in other groups sit on the sidelines demanding us to be their savior.
Whites, Asians, gays, etc. are all demanding for blacks to save them?
Quote: And yet, there is still the underlying expectation that Black folks save this nation from itself again in November—a nation that has yet to see our humanity.
Uh huh.
Quote: This is a reminder to all who are not Black but expect us to continue to put our lives on the line for you — Black folks are NOT your mules.
How many people actually "expect" this?
1) What cost exactly and to whom?
2) I really don't have any respect for those coming here to make snide remarks.
3) I don't care how angry some people are. I'm angry at the individuals who bullied me growing up. I'm angry at those who complain about Black people as a whole.
Who's complaining about black people as a whole? Are you lookin at me? According to you this thread is about black ghetto culture. Same topic I'm on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by green_mariner
If you don't care where such dysfunction came from, I recommend you just not come to this thread.
And yet I came anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by green_mariner
I didn't ask you to fix anything. This thread has Black people talking to other Black people on how to fix their own problems.
Just how much African ancestry do I need to have to get a seat in your diner and how did I not make the cut?
Quote:
Originally Posted by green_mariner
If all you can offer is anger and snark, don't come to this thread.
What you mean is that if someone says "I think you're wasting your time and here's why ..." well those people with their uncomfortably different ideas need not participate. Roger that.
I mentioned earlier that as we learn more about how hard black people attempted to assimilate into Anglo culture during the Jim Crow years, it's tragic.
Jim Crow was all about preventing black people from assimilating.
That was reactionary to a century of Jim Crow. Heck, I felt it as a teenager myself. However, separatists like Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey were not friends of chitlin culture, either.
In some ways, it was very ironic that there are those who embrace the chitlin culture. Jim Crow was about more than just keeping Blacks from being assimilated. It was a last gasp at keeping the plantation hierarchy intact. The abolition of slavery was something the South was not ready for. Jim Crow was a way of restoring the antebellum social order based on race. And slavery is where the chitlin culture came from.
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