US school apologizes for ‘unpardonably insensitive’ Black History Month lunch

Nyack Middle School and grocer Aramark have apologized over the food (file image)

A New York school has apologized after serving what it called an “inexcusably insensitive” lunch on the first day of Black History Month.

Nyack Middle School students were served fried chicken, waffles and watermelon on February 1st.

The foods were used as racist tropes against African Americans.

School officials said their food supplier — Aramark — changed the planned meal to include cheesesteaks, broccoli and fruit.

“We are extremely disappointed in this unfortunate situation and apologize to the entire Nyack community for the cultural insensitivity of our food service provider,” principal David Johnson wrote in a Feb. 2 letter to parents.

The foods the supplier chose “reinforce negative stereotypes about the African American community,” he said.

Honore Santiago, a student at the school, said she was surprised when she saw the food in her cafeteria.

“They asked people if they wanted watermelons and I remember being confused because it’s not in season,” the sixth grader told local news outlet WABC.

She said she told her mother when she got home and they were both upset over lunch. “I just hope they don’t do it again, in another school or my school,” she told the BBC’s US affiliate, CBS News.

School grocer Aramark apologized for the incident, calling it an “unexcusable mistake” that “never should have happened”.

The grocer has historically sparked backlash over meal choices.

In 2018, New York University parted ways with the company after a Black History Month luncheon it offered at the university contained red Kool-Aid and watermelon-flavored water, along with other foods used as racist tropes.

And in 2011, the food vendor served fried chicken and waffles to University of California students on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

According to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, watermelon became a racial stereotype in the United States during the Jim Crow era. The fruit was once a symbol of self-sufficiency among South African Americans who grew and sold watermelons after emancipation, but later came to be used as a derogatory symbol.

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