Chick-fil-A called out for racism over controversial tweet

Chick-fil-A responds to racism allegations after its ‘your community’ tweet went viral

Chick-fil-A logo

Chick-fil-A found itself in hot water for a tweet that allegedly called out a customer’s race.

On Friday, September 9th, a Black man that goes by the Twitter name Don tagged the fast-food chain in a post expressing his disappointment that the company has yet to bring back the Spicy Nuggets to its menu amid the recent return of the restaurant’s fan-favorite Grilled Spicy Deluxe Sandwich.

The official Twitter account for Chick-fil-A directly responded to the tweet, writing, “Your community will be the first to know if spicy items are added to the permanent menu, Don!”

Reactions to Chick-fil-A’s ‘your community’ tweet

Several Twitter users called out Chick-fil-A’s for using the phrase “your community” in its tweet, wondering whether the chain was deliberately targeting Don’s race.

Some Twitter users, on the other hand, argued that there shouldn’t be an issue at all, as the phrase “your community” is a common response from the chain’s social media account regardless of the race of the customer it is talking to.

Meanwhile, other Twitter users including members of the Black community just decided to make light of the situation by making jokes about the awkwardness of how the response appeared.

“wdym by your community???” wrote a Twitter user alongside an image of a pensive Black Charlie Brown, staring outside of a window. For the uninitiated, editing a kente hat onto a meme is usually meant to evoke that serious (or unserious) conversations about race are occurring.

“Oh we going to popeyes tonight,” tweeted another user, who shared a photoshopped image of Abbot Elementary stars looking on in distaste with kente hats on top of their heads.

“Now what community is that?!” replied another Twitter user with a kente edit of Tariq, the Corn Kid.

Chick-fil-A’s response to racism claims

After its tweet went viral, a spokesperson for Chick-fil-A sent a statement to TODAY, denying the racism allegations.

“The response was a poor choice of words but was not intended in any way to be insensitive or disrespectful,” read the statement. “We often use the term ‘community’ in a broader sense to talk about places where we operate restaurants and serve the surrounding community.”

Despite admitting that the controversial tweet contains poorly chosen words, the chain has yet to delete the post. As of press time, the tweet received 11,500 likes, over 7100 quote tweets, and more than 1800 retweets.

Sources: TODAY, AL.com