Rikki Byrd, lecturer in the Sam Fox School
The situating and selling of soul food in retail spaces shows the ways in which blackness so often becomes compartmentalized and detached from the experiences of black people.
Food and style have acted not merely as fleeting emblems of identity for black Americans, but as means of connecting their collective pasts to their present selves.
Collard greens will never just be collard greens and chitlins will never just be chitlins, even when they’re served with champagne at the country’s finest department store.
Read the full piece in Racked.