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Chick-fil-A is a popular chicken sandwich fast food franchise that opened back in 1946. It was originally called the Dwarf Grill which was located in Atlanta. The original chicken sandwich was created in 1963 by Truett Cathy. Later they started adding more items to their iconic menus like lemonade, fries, chicken nuggets, and more. They then rebranded themselves as the name they are known as today and later on spread out as their new brand all across America. By 2000 they had reached over one million in sales, becoming one of America’s top and most favorite fast food restaurants.
But recently Chick-fil-A faces backlash on poor word choice making a very racial tweet the Twitter user had stated using the popular social media platform: “grilled spicy deluxe but still noooo spicy nuggets…………@ChickfilA…..” The Twitter official account of Chick-Fil-A made a direct tweet towards the user, named don, the tweet stated “Your community will be the first to know if spicy items are added to the permanent menu, Don!”
While originally the tweet only had six replies, more people chimed in on the tweet thread and soon Chick-fil-A had more than 4,300 quotes tweets and 700 responses because of the poor choices in the wording. Many Twitter users called out the official account because of the poorly used term “your community.” Numerous people started questioning the large company. Wondering if it was purposely targeting the specific user because they were Black, as this also offended the Black community. Another Twitter user stated something similar: “Your community? I’m going to need a better explanation for that comment. ‘Our’ community would not want [to] think that there’s something racial undertones behind that comment.” The Twitter thread started growing even more to 6,800 quote tweets and 1,600 replies.
Many were tweeting about how the large company has offended yet another community. Others went as far as to stop supporting the company altogether by going to Popeyes and other popular chicken sandwich restaurants.
In proportion to the “Today Show” also having something to say about the incident, a Chick-fil-A representative gave a response to all the backlash by clarifying: “The response was a poor choice of words but was not intended in any way to be insensitive or disrespectful. People often use the term ‘community’ to make a broader statement when talking about places where restaurant franchises operate and serve the neighboring community.”
This isn’t the first time that Chick-fil-A had said something that offended an entire community. Back in June 2018, the official account was slammed for tweeting a very homophobic tweet during pride month. Then CEO of Twitter was Jack Dorsey who was put on blast for ordering food.
After a tweet from the CEO of Chick-fil-A Dan Cathay expressed his very negative opposition to same-sex marriage, back in 2011. The company was also caught donating millions to anti-gay collections. The many controversial issues that Chick-fil-A had been slammed for making, create a problem for many of the public. Those who often eat out there and enjoy the food don’t want to look like they support such a problematic company. Many from the community had boycotted several restaurants and protested from eating at the popular franchise.
Written by Zaylah De La Torre
Edited by Sheena Robertson
Sources:
NBC News: Chick-fil-A says tweet that seemed to refer to the Black community was a ‘poor choice of words’ by Luke Sharrett
Today: Chick-fil-A says tweet seemingly referencing Black community was a ‘poor choice of words’ by Raymond Boyd
Vox: Chick-fil-A’s many controversies, explained By
Black Enterprise: CHICK-FIL-A RESPONDS TO OUTRAGE OVER TWEET ABOUT CHICKEN NUGGETS THAT SEEMINGLY TARGETS BLACK MAN’S RACE by Wendy Medina
Featured Image Courtesy of Michael Gras, M.Ed. of Flickr – Creative Common License
Inset Image Courtesy of m01229 of Flickr – Creative Common License
