#fufuchallenge

African restaurants in the U.S., while not as popular as their foreign counterparts, are not far and few between in states such as a D.C., New York, and Georgia having large African communities. In recent weeks, videos of people trying variations of fufu and stew have popped up seemingly out of nowhere, unknowingly creating a “trend” called the #FufuChallenge. While some of the reactions were positive, many of these videos were quite the opposite, in which individuals with little to no home training had the absolute gall to record themselves treating the food as if it were 50 Shades of Grey – including but not limited to spitting, slapping, tossing, and other things that are considered incredibly disrespectful.

Now, fufu is native to West Africa and made from boiled and pounded cassava. Different countries have their versions of the same food, give or take a few ingredients - banku, eba, ga’at, ugali, mofongo, and cornmeal coucou (fungi, for my VI people). As disclaimer – I am an adventurous eater, and the first time I tried fufu, I was a fan. I don’t think it’s a food that’s hard to enjoy flavour-wise, but I can see how the texture may not be agreeable for everyone. Additionally, being from a culture that eats with their hands, there’s a lot of etiquette that’s instilled in at a young age– the most important being that food is not a toy. However, the recent videos have sparked a debate about Black acceptance between different members of the diaspora.

It is interesting how, during a time of inclusivity and unification within the Black community, it is taking no more than pounded root vegetable for most of you to show your ass. I don’t feel like now is the time to remind Black Americans that some of “common” foods would be considered abhorrent to others – chitlins and pickled pig feet, we’re looking at you. Everyone is losing their mind over pounded cassava, but the idea of eating soggy cornmeal – also known as grits – is a normal phenomenon. We can also bring snack foods into this - hot pickles in a bag, Vienna sausages - but the point of this conversation is not to sit here and bash culinary history, but to make the argument clear that every culture has foods that others would find less than palatable.

In the same breath that we want to come together, fight systemic oppression, and be on some fake Marcus Garvey shit, people are referring to African food as disgusting, garbage, and even “dog food”. But you want to go back to Africa, right? Find your roots?

Have you all lost your damn minds?

Black people exist everywhere, and that inherently means that the techniques and methods of cooking we use are prevalent in a lot of other cultures. If you don’t believe me, take the time to Google Korean fried chicken and the fact that the idea of frying chicken in batter was introduced by Black soldiers stationed abroad in the 1940s and 1950s, or how gumbo and jambalaya are variants of traditional African foods, created using recipes that date back to slavery. So, there’s a chance that there are other foods across various cultures – including Black American meals - that resemble traditional African cuisine. Why don’t you drag those on social media as well?

More likely than not, before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, this is probably the food that peoples’ ancestors were eating, and by reasonable conclusion, it’d be the food that OUR ancestors were eating. Additionally, there are so many other cultures with foods that can be turned into trend, so why was the Internet’s thought process to bully African people for no reason other than for laughs on social media? No, just traditional African food? Ok, noted.

Like ENNY said, please free my people from clout. PLEASE. I’m begging at this point.

And non-Black people have not escaped scrutiny either – so if you found yourself at a protest this year or have a cheeky little “BLM” in your bio, but you still found the time to degrade African culture on your timeline, I’m going to need you to go ahead and click backspace on your bio for me really quick, because the math is not math-ing. When it comes to other ethnic groups asking for parts of their culture to be respected and kept sacred, everyone wants to be quiet and listen, but when Black – specifically African people - ask for the same respect, people struggle to do so and are left with two options, or what they think are their only options – to, A, dismantle parts of Black culture to be co-opted and renamed to be acceptable to the white gaze or, B, label these things as disgusting and left at the mercy of Twitter think piece writers and Clubhouse podcasters who have nothing better to do than talk about things that they absolutely have no knowledge on.

Lastly, a LOT of foods from other cultures that are popular in the United States are not even authentic to that culture. To stand in front of a Taco Bell, or Panda Express, or Olive Garden and tell anyone that is your idea of eating “ethnic” food is not only a lie, but the curse of nationalism and Western closed-mindedness.

If you think our friends in Mexico are sitting down at their tables each night with a Crunch Wrap Supreme and Nacho Fries, you are highly mistaken, beloved.

But, with no empathy, authentic African culture has been co-opted as a sort of internet trend in which it’s acceptable to bash damn near an entire continent for food that takes immense labour and cultural knowledge to create successfully. And then, the people who posted their negative reviews actually had to sit, order the food, set it up, film themselves eating it, decide they didn’t like it, go back and edit the video – with their disrespect front and centre – and thought they could post it on the internet free of scrutiny. Like, we (as Americans) aren’t even eating traditional foods from other cultures to BEGIN with, so why was now the time to start, and why did you all start with African food?

Answer, and quickly.

There has always been tension within the Black community between Black Americans and the African diaspora, over feelings of perceived superiority and inferiority on both sides, and in all honesty, this is an argument I don’t subscribe to - at the end of the day, systemic racism does not care what flag you have in your bio, or how long you’ve lived in America – you’re Black, plain and simple.

But West Africans were not the first people who hopped on the internet and begged people to try their food, so the unwarranted opinions are more proof that maybe sometimes, it’s ok to gatekeep. And no one is begging for these reactions either or saying that you have to like it – if you’re not a fan, just nize it and maybe just…delete the video? Outside of the topic of respect also, the Internet is forever. So those of who you unabashedly are posting disrespect on the internet, think where this video will be circulating in a year or so.

Lastly, if you think Africans are blowing the response to the “fufu challenge” out of proportion, keep that same energy next time you see white women in box braids, rocking evil eye pendants, doing intricate henna on your timeline, or trying to lecture you about aligning your chakras, since it has now been established that disrespecting peoples’ culture is no more than acceptable social media discourse.