ABC 15 Goes to Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles for Reaction to Trayvon Martin Case | Valley Fever | Phoenix | Phoenix New Times | The Leading Independent News Source in Phoenix, Arizona
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ABC 15 Goes to Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles for Reaction to Trayvon Martin Case

Out of all the places where ABC 15 could have looked for people to interview about their opinions on Trayvon Martin case, it just happened to pick Lo-Lo's Chicken & Waffles.Perhaps the lighting at the local basketball court wasn't conducive to filming television interviews that night...
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Out of all the places where ABC 15 could have looked for people to interview about their opinions on Trayvon Martin case, it just happened to pick Lo-Lo's Chicken & Waffles.

Perhaps the lighting at the local basketball court wasn't conducive to filming television interviews that night.

If this is flying right over your head, allow us to explain -- the belief that African-Americans like fried chicken and waffles (or are good at playing basketball) is what's called a stereotype.

The explanation from Dave Chappelle can be seen below:


Let's say a major university decides to serve chicken and waffles in a dining hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- which actually happened -- there's going to be a bit of a public-relations disaster.

Naturally, some people would opine that a TV station might not want to pick a chicken and waffles joint to interview people about a crime that many black activists see as racially charged.



Ilana Lowery, the editor of the Phoenix Business Journal, posted to Twitter, "As a journalist, I'm appalled @abc15phx went to Lolo's in Phoenix to get reaction to #ZimmermanVerdict. Why a chicken and waffle restaurant?"

Multiple people on social-networking websites compared it with a California TV station getting pranked into reading racist, fake, supposedly Asian-sounding names of the pilots involved in a plane crash, like "Wi Tu Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk."

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Follow Matthew Hendley on Twitter at @MatthewHendley.


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