Glossies: It's February—Let Them Eat Cake Soul Food!

Pop Quiz: Look at the picture to your right. What type of food is this?

If you said “fried chicken”, you only get half credit. The politically correct term would be “African American”, but now it is being called (ahem) “international cuisine.” That’s right, in some circles black folks are so rare, we're considered foreigners.

Places like…Condé Nast's ultra-modernist Times Square headquarters. According to Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove,
the fourth-floor cafeteria offers an "International Table" menu highlighting a designated foreign cuisine. And the International Table offering for Feb. 15...

“African-American," proclaimed signs posted around lunchroom, highlighting "Jamaican beef patties, shrimp jambalaya, rice, okra, corn, black-eyed pea stew, deviled eggs and biscuits." Mmm mmm good soul food foreign cuisine.

Condé Nast's empire—led by slick glossies like the New Yorker, Details, Vanity Fair and Vogue—isn’t famous for recognizing people of color, either as subjects, subscribers or employees. Grove reports this month, of the 18 titles listed on the Condé Nast Web site, only GQ features a black person—Oscar nominee Ray Charles Jamie Foxx.

Grove quoted a Condé spokeswoman, who said a contractor operates the cafeteria, and the company does not usually check menu selections. But she confirmed the offerings were “celebrations of Black History Month."

That makes me feel so much better. Almost no black writers or editors, but in the shortest month of the year, Jamie Foxx on one magazine cover and black-eyed peas in the cafeteria. [The Daily News via Gawker]