Pod Insights The Sporkful What Can McDonald’s Tell Us About Black America? About this episode Growing up as a Black kid in Chicago, Dr. Marcia Chatelain says she learned more about Black history from McDonald’s than from her fancy prep school. Now, she’s a professor of Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, Dr. Chatelain explores the role that McDonald’s has played in Black communities since its founding in the 1940s.
Transcript 6,918 words · 11 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Pashman? As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. As someone who has been lucky enough to go to Napa Valley, I can tell you, it's everything people say it is. Beautiful scenery, quaint, beautiful towns, and phenomenal food and
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1:18 Dan Pashman? All right, kids? Yeah? We're gonna be arriving at lunch soon. I want to tell you something exciting about what we're gonna eat. We are going to a restaurant in a mansion. Yeah! Yeah! I'm in the car with Janie and the kids, and this mansion restaurant we're going to is in New Hyde Park, New York, just outside New York City. It's a 19th century historical landmark. What do you imagine a restaurant in a mansion would be like?
1:44 Speaker 01 Like a humongous restaurant that's super fancy and has super yummy food.
1:49 Speaker 02 Golden tables and chairs with white tablecloths and red carpets on the floor.
1:54 Speaker 03 Yeah, what kind of food do you think it has?
1:56 Speaker 01 I want Caesar salad.
1:57 Speaker 02 They probably have Caesar salad with gold Caesar dressing.
2:02 Dan Pashman? So how are you feeling now, knowing that you're about to go into a mansion for the first time in your lives?
2:08 Speaker 02 I'm excited, but I feel like there's a catch. Or something you're not telling us about it.
2:19 Dan Pashman? This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. McDonald's, you've probably heard of it. It's everywhere. In fact, it's so omnipresent that when you start a story at McDonald's, you can end up just about anywhere. And today, we have two stories about the fast food giant. The first one is just a quick nugget, then we'll move on to something meatier. So, given that setup, you may have figured out that the restaurant in a mansion, the one Becky imagines will have white tablecloths and gold furniture, is in fact a...
2:53 Speaker 02 McDonald's! Woo-hoo!
2:57 Speaker 03 Whoa, look at that. Here, let's get a...
3:01 Dan Pashman? New York's got this road Route 25. It was built by the colonial government in 1745 as a military highway. It runs from New York City straight east, all the way to the tip of Long Island, over 100 miles of what for generations was farmland. Today, this road is 100 miles of almost continuous strip malls, big box stores, car dealerships, fast food restaurants, and gas stations. But one relic remains. In the 1860s, a farmhouse on this road was converted into a Georgian-style mansion. It was later used as a funeral home, and then in 1986, McDonald's bought the property. They planned to tear down the mansion, place it with a typical McDonald's. The residents fought the plan. They gave the house landmark status. In the end, there was a compromise. McDonald's agreed to spend millions
3:46 Dan Pashman? to restore the mansion, keeping its historic look on the outside, while making it a typical McDonald's on the inside. In exchange, residents agreed to let them build a drive-thru in the back. And that's why today, wedged in between all those strip malls and gas stations, there's a big white house with columns and cornices, and it's a McDonald's. All right, here we go into the mansion.
4:15 Dan Pashman? We visited this McDonald's back in 2021. The indoor dining area was closed because of COVID. But we could still see inside. It had high ceilings with big black pillars and a grand staircase leading up to another dining area. There was a wraparound porch that had been enclosed in glass to offer another place to sit. My first thought, if you're looking to have a nice wedding on a budget, this place is an excellent option.
4:36 Speaker 04 May I please have a Happy Meal? What can I have? A cheeseburger.
4:43 Dan Pashman? Yeah, so I'll have two cheeseburgers, one spicy crispy chicken sandwich.
4:48 Speaker 04 Okay.
4:49 Dan Pashman? One medium fries.
4:50 Speaker 04 Okay, and a soda?
4:51 Dan Pashman? No, nothing to drink. Janie went with a hamburger. Did I mention it was Mother's Day? She's a good sport. We took our food outside, sat on the steps with a nice view of an auto body shop, and chowed down. What do you think, girls?
5:04 Speaker 01 Well, at least the food's good.
5:08 Speaker 04 I'm eating my cheeseburger cheese side down.
5:11 Dan Pashman? Smart move. That's my girl.
5:18 Dan Pashman? That mansion McDonald's is in New Hyde Park on Long Island. If you hit Mavis Discount Tire, you've gone too far.
5:28 Dan Pashman? Now, on to our second story about McDonald's, which is our main focus today.
5:33 Speaker 05 My name is Marsha Chatlin. I'm the author of franchise The Golden Arches in Black America.
5:38 Dan Pashman? Do you prefer doctor or professor?
5:41 Speaker 05 Um, I mean, this is not class, so you can please call me Marsha.
5:44 Dan Pashman? Marsha is a professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. And like any good academic, she is very committed to her subject matter.
5:51 Speaker 05 I have a Substack newsletter that's devoted to fast food and teaching, the two things I'm obsessed with.
5:57 Dan Pashman? All right, I'm subscribing now. Click, click, click.
5:59 Speaker 05 It's called, it's called Your Favorite Prof.
6:02 Dan Pashman? Okay, okay.
6:03 Speaker 05 We did, we did a, I did like a we, it's just me writing it. I know, the team and I.
6:08 Dan Pashman? As Marsha said, she's the author of the 2020 book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in History, a James Beard Award, and a number of other awards. It's an authoritative look at the role of McDonald's in Black communities across the US. I asked her to read an excerpt about her personal connection to McDonald's.
6:27 Speaker 05 Growing up, McDonald's was everywhere. We ate at McDonald's before or after church on Sundays. I hosted my friends at birthday parties there. And no matter how many high-end pastries I sample, the chocolate banana birthday cake offered at the McDonald's on Western Avenue in Chicago's Rogers Park is my favorite of all time. My friends and I would pull our orders of french fries on the brown trays after school and chat as we enjoyed our growing freedom. In high school, I would go to McDonald's in downtown Chicago that was decorated with portraits of Black history makers and prints from Black painters and visual artists before I took an hour-long train and bus commute home. In my financially lean days of college and graduate school,
7:09 Speaker 05 McDonald's was a staple of my diet. When I was scrambling to finish term papers and dissertation chapters, I frequented other fast food restaurants over the years, but McDonald's was where I grew up. And for most of my life, I have eaten there and enjoyed it. As I've aged and studied, my feelings about fast food have changed, but my gratitude remains for the many memories I've collected over the years.
7:33 Dan Pashman? I was gonna start off by asking you how this became one of your areas of study, but I think that passage kind of answers the question.
7:43 Speaker 05 Yeah, I mean McDonald's was, I think, one of the most reliable presences in my life growing up. I mean, I just felt like in the absence of having a lot of family traditions, in the absence of having, you know, grown up in just one home, McDonald's in many ways was like the thing that I always knew was there.
8:09 Dan Pashman? Marsha's connection to McDonald's isn't just about warm and fuzzy memories of meals shared. She says when she was growing up as a Black kid in Chicago, McDonald's in her neighborhood was more than a restaurant. It was a community hub.
8:20 Speaker 05 It's like you know who the Black McDonald's franchise owners are if you like grow up Black in certain cities because they're everywhere. Like, they were on local TV. They're on the radio station telling people to fill out the census and like register to vote. And this was like one of these weird like racial Rorschach tests when I was on my book tour. I, you know, a white audience member would be like, I have no idea who's the franchisee of my McDonald's.
8:45 Dan Pashman? On the surface, it seems McDonald's had a largely positive impact on black communities. It offered an opportunity for black people in cities to own a business and create jobs. And black franchisees use their resources to give out scholarships to local students and invest in education about black history.
9:00 Speaker 05 McDonald's black franchisees used to sponsor this Martin Luther King PSA short video thing. I used to love it as a kid. It had a song. There was this whole like series of Black History Month content that was on like a cassette tape.
9:18 Dan Pashman? McDonald's made that?
9:20 Speaker 05 McDonald's black franchisees like regionally pooled their money. It has like MC Light on it. And the thing that I find really stunning about that is that I'm a historian of African-American life and culture, and I had more exposure to black history because of McDonald's stuff than I did at school. And I went to like a like fancy like prep school. So I had the best education, but it was McDonald's that would like open up the path to my career. Oh, and look at me now. I'm writing these books critical of it.
9:56 Dan Pashman? As a historian, Marcia turns a more critical eye on the place she loved so much as a kid. Because even while McDonald's franchises became pillars of black neighborhoods, the relationship between the corporation and the community was often tenuous. The standard McDonald's origin story goes like this. The McDonald brothers opened a hamburger restaurant in California in the 1940s. It's a drive-in, so you order at a window or through an intercom, and the server brings the food out to your car. That is the same time as the rise of the American suburbs, expanding highway system, greater access to cars. The restaurant is a hit, so they moved to a franchising model. Individual franchisees pay McDonald's a startup fee to essentially own their outpost. The franchisee operates according to the company's rules and has to pay them a percentage of sales.
10:41 Dan Pashman? The brothers have a handful of franchises when a milkshake machine salesman named Ray Kroc comes on board in 1954. By 1961, he squeezes out the McDonald brothers and eventually grows the company into a multinational franchising behemoth.
10:56 Dan Pashman? As McDonald's is growing in the 50s and 60s, so too is the civil rights movement. Activists are pressuring businesses and government to desegregate. And some of the most famous protests of the era are taking place at lunch counters and restaurants.
11:09 Speaker 05 When we think about the 1960s sit-in, McDonald's is just like completely erased from that history. Although desegregation of McDonald's was actually an agenda item for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, there were fights in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee, throughout North Carolina about McDonald's having segregation in their like little ordering windows because a lot of them were drive-ins. And you know, throughout the South, desegregation led a lot of the fast food restaurants to not want to do inside dining because they didn't want to deal with the fact that they would have to have integrated seating. And so like McDonald's has kind of like scooched its way out of that story.
11:53 Dan Pashman? By the early 60s, most franchises do desegregate their ordering windows. But the company turns a blind eye to the ones that don't. Then in the late 60s, in the wake of Martin Luther King's assassination, McDonald's shifts their strategy.
12:07 Speaker 05 McDonald's started to present itself as racially progressive because they were opening restaurants in African-American communities and because they were recruiting black franchise owners. You know, the historian in me is like, wait a second, like, not so fast. You have to kind of do a rewind to think about the origins of this relationship.
12:26 Dan Pashman? And what exactly is McDonald's thought process in the late 60s? They make a conscious decision, we are going to invest in African-American neighborhoods and African-American franchisees. Why did they decide to do that at that moment?
12:41 Speaker 05 So if you like read some of the material they write, it's because they were so moved by the moment. If you really look at what was happening during the period, there are two things. One is some of the white franchise owners found themselves in neighborhoods that had either through white flight became predominantly black or had some strained community relations because during the uprisings after King's assassination, there was a lot of questions about white profiteering in black communities. And so some of these franchise owners wanted out. McDonald's was willing to like transfer them out. And they had made this investment in a restaurant. And so The Nixon administration during that time was also promoting this idea of black capitalism.
13:22 Speaker 05 And so they were providing money, federal funds, to help minority businesses start. And you have a moment in which the loss of a major figure in the civil rights structure is kind of opening the door to anything could be civil rights.
13:37 Dan Pashman? In other words, there's this idea that civil rights doesn't just have to be about passing laws. Another avenue to civil rights could be investing in black businesses. Capitalism could further the cause. And McDonald's isn't the only one with this idea. In the late 60s, several black celebrities start their own fast food chains. Muhammad Ali, Mahalia Jackson, James Brown. Marsha says these stars are motivated partly by this idea of civil rights through business and partly by plain old business.
14:05 Speaker 05 People get super into franchising in the 1960s. One, they're seeing the incredible growth of McDonald's. It's the first fast food restaurant to become a publicly traded company. They're also seeing this kind of new landscape for celebrity. Because after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and there's gradual desegregation of public accommodations, particularly restaurants, African-American consumers are becoming more comfortable in like going to restaurants without fear of violence or fear of rejection. And so there's like all this market potential. There's also the rise of an emergent black middle class that has more buying power. And so everyone is like seeing dollar signs.
14:45 Speaker 05 And so celebrities also, you know, if you think about like the NFL and the NBA back in those days, there weren't like huge Nike contracts. Like if you weren't Joe Namath, you weren't making crazy money on your image.
14:58 Dan Pashman? A lot of those guys had jobs in the offseason.
14:59 Speaker 05 100%. And so they are starting to learn about how to license their names to these franchises. But one of the reasons why franchising was so popular, particularly among African-American celebrities, it was this idea that you could give people a chance to start their own business.
15:16 Dan Pashman? But getting a McDonald's franchise requires a lot of money upfront, which for most folks means taking out a big loan. And once you have the restaurant, it's not exactly the same as owning your own business. You're beholden to McDonald's. They own the land your restaurant is on. They decide if you can get a second location, and if so, where it'll be. And if they say you have to upgrade your equipment to add a new menu item, you don't have much say in the matter. On paper, you're a restaurant owner. But in a lot of ways, you're still at the company's mercy.
15:44 Speaker 05 Absolutely, and I, I love being a downer because I'm a historian. And like, no, this is how it really happened. Like, I'm the worst. Like, don't let me like, take your kids to a museum or like, help them with their history homework. Because it'll be awful. So I get that. But with that being-
15:59 Dan Pashman? Mom, Dad, Auntie Marcia told us.
16:01 Speaker 05 That none of this was real, right? Um, but the reality is, is that for a very long time, franchising has been presented as the American dream. Like, this is how an everyday person could go into business. I think this is why it's such a double edged sword when African Americans particularly go into franchising, because this is a community that has been outside of business opportunities. And so they're trying to hold on to this opportunity because this may be their only way into having a business, but franchising is very risky and very high stakes.
16:33 Dan Pashman? And yet, that's a chance some black Americans are willing to take. McDonald's first black franchisee in 1968 is Herman Petty in Cincinnati. By 1972, there are enough black franchisees that they formed their own interest group, the National Black McDonald's Operators Association. And despite the obstacles, black owned McDonald's start doing very well. When we come back, McDonald's assumes its place as a pillar of urban black neighborhoods and exposes the limitations of pursuing equal rights through business. Stick around.
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18:20 Dan Pashman? As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from L.L. Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from L.L. Bean, whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. L.L. Bean, be an outsider. Start the day strong with Quaker Protein Products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious to get a good source of protein. No matter what the day has in store, Quaker Protein Products give you a variety of ways to reach your protein goals.
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19:52 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. And hey, if you like unexpected stories about fast food like the one you're listening to right now, well, check out this past Friday's reheat. For years, a group of seniors in Palm Desert, California, come together for a Shabbat dinner every week at Wendy's. When I heard about this ritual, I was so intrigued that I flew to LA and drove to Palm Desert to check it out myself. Sharon, the group's founder, told me how it all got started.
20:15 Speaker 08 Well, we were sitting around in the summer months and at the pool. And one Friday night, I said, let's go to Wendy's. And then we said, maybe we could have Shabbat here. And so the husbands were embarrassed and said, no.
20:30 Dan Pashman? Husbands, is this true?
20:32 Speaker 08 Yes, that's true.
20:33 Dan Pashman? From that early idea came a weekly Shabbat that's been going strong for years and was even the subject of a documentary. In a world where there's so much social isolation, these seniors tell me why this ritual is so important to them, how they're building community, and how they take their fries. That episode's up now. Check it out wherever you got this one. And remember that every Friday, we're dropping a reheat, one of our very favorite episodes from our archive. These episodes used to be featured in a premium service. That went away, and people said, how are we going to listen to our favorite episodes? Well, this is how. And if there's an episode you want to hear, drop me a line, [email protected] . Let me know your name, where you're from, what episode you want to hear, and why. And make sure you subscribe to the podcast, or follow, or like, whatever the thing is
21:16 Dan Pashman? in your app, so you don't miss any of our episodes. All right, back now to my conversation with Dr. Marcia Chatelain, author of franchise, The Golden Arches in Black America. As we get into the 70s, McDonald's is adding more and more Black franchisees. And those franchisees are getting some help from the administration of President Richard Nixon.
21:36 Speaker 05 So, the federal government of the 1970s is all over the place in terms of what to do with African-American voters. They've, the Republicans have lost a lot of voters to the Democratic Party, but they have some loyalists, they have some people who are hanging on. And they also have celebrities like Wilt Chamberlain, like James Brown, who are willing to kind of make inroads with the Nixon administration for the purpose of platforming and expanding Black capitalism ideas. And so, there's this like, kind of like... Uneasy, awkward, like, we are going to get the most out of this Republican administration that we can. Meanwhile, like Nixon is spying on black activists. He's like telling the FBI
22:19 Speaker 05 to like essentially, you know, disrupt the Black Panthers and different freedom struggles. Like, he is like messing with people's lives.
22:26 Dan Pashman? And he won election using the Southern Strategy, which, you know,
22:30 Speaker 05 Yeah, scaring white voters into thinking-
22:33 Dan Pashman? It wasn't even really a dog whistle, it was just a whistle.
22:35 Speaker 05 So, isn't that kind of interesting? So he's doing all this like bananas racist stuff, and then he's also saying things like, "I believe in black power" in the most constructive sense of the word, meaning, "I believe in segregated communities." And the way we build up segregated communities is we make investments in business and investments in housing, but we do it in a way that never has to kind of like disrupt any of the ideas about integration.
23:05 Dan Pashman? In other words, Nixon's thinking is, "Use federal programs to invest in black business so that black Americans do well enough that they have no reason to leave black neighborhoods and move into white ones." Regardless of the intentions, Marsha says this increased investment in black business fills many black Americans with a new sense of possibility.
23:24 Speaker 05 From the vantage point of 1968, anything is possible. People who had lived during a period in which African Americans had to fear for their personal safety if they entered the wrong diner, were now in a position to create a business where people could ostensibly be treated well, that they could like help you, that a lot of the early black franchise owners, and this continues to be a tradition, like they use a lot of their money for scholarships.
23:49 Dan Pashman? So black franchisees start getting McDonald's, and they do very well, partly through sheer will, and partly because of a range of other factors.
23:58 Speaker 05 They do really well because they're competing in a field where a lot of restaurants, a lot of businesses have closed. They are backed by the capital and the strength of the McDonald's brand, and so people who wouldn't be able to get a loan for one kind of business are now able to get, you know, some backing and some financing to- Open a franchise, you know, they're considered community positive. This is a moment in which black consumer power is also rising. And then it's also being supported by, you know, some of the veterans of the civil rights movement. People like Jesse Jackson, people like Hosea Williams, like they are also promoting business as an extension of MLK's dream.
24:42 Speaker 05 And so it's kind of like a very winning strategy.
24:46 Dan Pashman? And McDonald's takes notice.
24:49 Speaker 05 Oh, McDonald's takes notice. They realize, I mean, they used to call them black stores. They realize how well black stores are doing and the black franchisees. If they're in this weird position because they are doing well, but they are doing well under some of the most difficult conditions. Their stores have been damaged. They have old equipment. They're sometimes operating in neighborhoods with a lot of high safety concerns. And through this, they form an organization to represent their needs and McDonald's tolerates it. And listen to them on the advertising piece because they know that the black consumer market is spending a lot of money at McDonald's. And, you know, in the seventies, there was a huge oil embargo. So people are not filling up their cars and going on vacations and they're not driving to McDonald's.
25:33 Speaker 05 But a lot of the urban clientele are walking to McDonald's. And there's a lot of reason to believe that that urban strategy allowed McDonald's to outperform its competitors in staying strong during the embargo.
25:47 Dan Pashman? As black franchisees do better and better, they start pushing McDonald's to let them open restaurants in white areas. The exact thing that many white people in power were trying to prevent when they got behind black business in the first place. According to some black store owners, McDonald's basically says no.
26:04 Speaker 05 Allegedly, black franchisees are only offered opportunities in black neighborhoods. And if you're white, that you get to choose for whatever you want. And the reason why this becomes important is because we know. That depending on the racial demographic of a neighborhood, some of the costs of insurance, some of the costs of taxes in urban areas are different than suburban areas. And so the argument is that McDonald's limits the economic potential of its black franchisees by employing this strategy. This is what has been alleged for a very long time.
26:36 Dan Pashman? It's like redlining, but for franchises.
26:39 Speaker 05 You said it, Dan. Yes. And people use that language. They use a lot of the language of residential segregation to talk about this franchise issue.
26:47 Dan Pashman? These allegations have been leveled against McDonald's for decades. There have been multiple lawsuits going back to the 60s. Many have been settled out of court, some have been dismissed. And in at least one, the judge ruled for McDonald's. And in the time since Marsha's book came out, nearly 50 black McDonald's franchise operators have been in litigation with McDonald's over claims of racial bias. Shortly after the 2024 election, McDonald's announced that it will end some of its longest running DEI initiatives. Marsha says that in past cases that settled, McDonald's has never admitted any discrimination.
27:17 Speaker 05 You know, there was a big case in the 80s involving this guy in LA. He, you know, he says like, I want to expand. And McDonald's retort back in the 80s was like, well, don't you want to do business in your community? And he's like, I'm rich. I live in Bel Air. That is my community. And there's just like really awkward kind of like, but you're doing this for your people. And him saying, but I'm rich now, so why do I only get these stores in Los Angeles? So they settle and, you know, McDonald's says that he didn't make a cent off of the racial discrimination claims, that we were settling other issues. So that's usually how it goes down.
27:58 Dan Pashman? In the 80s, while these discrimination lawsuits are going on, McDonald's puts more focus on marketing to black consumers in ways that Marsha says are very positive. They sponsor events like Essence Fest and the McDonald's Gospel Tour, and they feature black celebrities in their ads.
28:12 Speaker 05 Michael Jordan, Patti LaBelle, you know, like all of these like Gladys Knight for McDonald's. Like this is really significant in a time where there were still questions about whether black artists could be crossover hits. And like McDonald's has them in all their commercials. Like this is, again, these are not small things and I really want to recognize how expansive that shift was.
28:36 Dan Pashman? I mean, I have to say, I certainly have noticed a big change more broadly in representation in commercials, big corporate food commercials on TV. When I was a kid in the eighties, McDonald's ads were one of the only place you would see black families.
28:52 Speaker 05 100%. The creative material was really, really significant because they were using for many years, a black advertising agency. And then Burger King did that. And then KFC did that, right? But McDonald's like did it the best.
29:09 Dan Pashman? In the last few decades, McDonald's efforts to connect with black Americans have also extended to the food itself.
29:14 Speaker 05 There's some regional specificities that I think are very much attuned to black customers, like sweet tea in the South, the adding of grits. There was another product that didn't work so well. It was called a McBeef steak and you're supposed to have it with onion nuggets. And everyone's like, the onion nuggets give you gas and like, like, why would you try to eat a steak at McDonald's? But it's so interesting to look at the storyboards around it because it's all of this idea of like working class, black people being able to treat themselves to something that was like, kind of like a steak dinner, but not.
29:45 Dan Pashman? It's interesting. I, I still keep thinking about this, this quote that I saw back when the Popeyes fried chicken sandwich went viral and the New York Times did an article. The headline was Popeyes Sandwich Strikes Record For African Americans. So they have a quote in here from a woman's Facebook post comparing the Popeyes fried chicken sandwich to Chick-fil-A's. It says Chick-fil-A's version, she wrote, tasted as if it were made, quote, "by a white woman named Sarah who grew up around black people." "The Popeye's sandwich," she added, "tasted, quote, 'like it was cooked by an older black lady named Lucille."
30:20 Speaker 05 Right. So like, that's perfect. And that kind of contextualization, right? It's like, one person has a black domestic, and the other one might actually be the black domestic. And it's something like I think about in my book a lot. Like McDonald's is not a black business, but in many ways, it indexes ideas about blackness and ideas about race in order to sell itself. There's a great book about Walmart and evangelical Christians. And she writes, like, Walmart is not a company for Christians, but there's something about it that it's like very much tethered to kind of Southern evangelism. And I always think that's like such a fascinating way of thinking of these like big brands, the way they try to like, kind of merge themselves onto cultures.
31:09 Dan Pashman? In the new millennium, the conversation around McDonald's shifts towards new issues: obesity and food deserts in black urban communities. But as Marsha explains, you can't separate this issue from others.
31:21 Speaker 05 We want to see more grocery stores in neighborhoods. That's fine. But I think one of the things that we see in the 2000s, some of the claims against racial discrimination, against McDonald's on the part of franchise owners, the solution is, open more minority-owned stores. Open more outlets, open more outlets. Well, when you open more outlets, then you have more people that you're feeding in this way. And it's more space that's taken up by fast food and not other types of businesses. So I think like, sometimes we lose sight of like, what does a victory mean? This is not about like, what people eat. This is about the conditions in which people have to make choices. And one of the things that was really important to me was to not write a book
32:04 Speaker 05 that suggested that a person was bad because their kids eat fast food, or they're bad because they eat fast food. But rather, if a person wanted to make a lot of choices about what they eat, do they have that opportunity? And what is the history of limiting those opportunities for populations that don't have the power to call the shots?
32:25 Dan Pashman? So some good has come out of McDonald's investment in black communities over the decades. But of course, those investments have not addressed deeper structural issues.
32:34 Speaker 05 You know, with the hindsight of 50 years, we knew that communities could not be rebuilt on the strength of a black-owned McDonald's. But from the vantage point of 1968, neighborhood businesses are closing and moving away. And McDonald's is like, here's this thing. Maybe this could help. I understand why it was like so seductive.
32:53 Dan Pashman? This book was published in January of 2020. In May of that year, George Floyd was murdered. And the mass protests that followed led to government panels and reports that tried to diagnose why this happened and what should be done about it in the future.
33:05 Speaker 05 If you look at the conversations that emerged after George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, and you look at any of the major riot commission reports from 68, from, you know, 65, from the 1940s, from the 1910s, they say very similar things, right? Like, the problem in our cities, police brutality, poor quality jobs, overcrowded schools for our children, lack of recreational space. All of those things are the origins of the crisis.
33:40 Dan Pashman? That idea that black-owned business and black entrepreneurship is the key to solving some of those problems was something proposed decades earlier. It was proposed once again in 2020.
33:49 Speaker 05 And it's one of those few kind of approaches to racial injustice that isn't right or left. It's both, right? Like, Republicans and Democrats equally will have a vision of economic investment for the purposes of, like, addressing these issues. And then they will do that thing like, oh, this is such a new idea. And they will ignore, like, why this didn't happen to fruition the last time.
34:24 Dan Pashman? What's your go to order these days, Marsha?
34:27 Speaker 05 Well, okay, so I don't really eat McDonald's anymore. Yeah, so I just, but here's the thing, I ate McDonald's for years. So like, I'm not trying to be like judgy, like I don't eat, you know, people say like, they don't watch TV. It's like, really?
34:38 Dan Pashman? Like, are you not a part of society?
34:40 Speaker 05 I was like, how do you not? So I, I, I don't want to be like elbow patches McGee at like, I don't eat, you know, fast food. I don't watch TV. Like I'm watching, you know, The Bachelor and Real Housewives all day.
34:50 Dan Pashman? Right.
34:51 Speaker 05 When I used to go to McDonald's, what I would really love, I liked the Quarter Pounder, the simplicity of the Quarter Pounder, because the Big Mac was too aggressive. You know, you gotta get an order of fries and a Coke. I really miss the original apple pie. Do you remember when we were kids?
35:05 Dan Pashman? When it was like deep fried?
35:07 Speaker 05 When it was a proper fried pie, it could kill you if you bit into it too fast.
35:11 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
35:12 Speaker 05 That was amazing. I thought the sundae was quite delicious. It was a nice dessert.
35:16 Dan Pashman? You, you have a baby now, Marsha?
35:17 Speaker 05 I do. I know.
35:19 Dan Pashman? Are you gonna take him to McDonald's?
35:20 Speaker 05 I just, you know, it's like.
35:22 Dan Pashman? I mean, we're, we're looking far off into the future. You don't have to commit right now.
35:25 Speaker 05 I, I mean, I think about this because, you know, my husband likes fast food. He loves Taco Bell. I think someone will take him to McDonald's, probably to troll me. But I think, I think that I will not, right? But he will know that like mommy's hot takes on capitalism ruin everything and he will still love me.
35:45 Speaker 05 So that's how we're setting this up.
35:57 Dan Pashman? That's Dr. Marcia Chatelain. She's a professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, is out now on paperback. And she was recently quoted in a really interesting story in the New York Times on how Red Lobster is betting on black diners for its comeback. And actually, there's a lot of parallels to this McDonald's story. We'll link to it in our show notes. Next week, we are back with another salad spinner edition of the Sporkful. Turns out real, live, lit candles are back in style in restaurants, but they have their drawbacks. Sometimes people get lit on fire. We'll also discuss whether it's a good idea to have a mayonnaise themed wedding and what exactly Taylor Swift puts in her signature cocktail. I'll be joined by cookbook author Jake Cohen and chef Vivian Howard. It's
36:39 Dan Pashman? gonna be a blast. That's next week. While we wait for that one, check out last week's show where I visit Lair House in Somerville, Mass. It's a Jewish tavern and house of learning, which according to its owners, is a combination that's never been done before. I talk with them about how they're trying to reimagine what a Jewish space can look and feel like. And then, we eat. That episode's up now. Check it out. And hey, did you know you can listen to the Sporkful on the Sirius XM app? Yes, the Sirius XM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the
37:22 Dan Pashman? Sirius XM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer-
37:30 Speaker 06 Emma Morgenstern-
37:31 Dan Pashman? and senior producer- Andres O'Hara- It was edited by-
37:34 Speaker 06 Tracy Samuelson-
37:35 Dan Pashman? Our engineer is- Jared O'Connell- Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pash-
37:45 Speaker 06 And I'm Johanna from Gainesville, Florida, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
38:03 Speaker 09 Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app. Participate at McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, Inc.
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