Borgata Casino's Martin Luther King Menu Sparks Racism Row

The Borgata casino in Atlantic City created a restaurant menu intended to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 19th, but the courses of fried chicken, collard greens, sweet potato casserole, and macaroni cheese has instead been branded ‘seriously racist’ by social media users, with debate on the issue having gone viral.
Amongst the legion of people questioning the appropriateness of the menu was poker pro Shaun Deeb, who tweeted a photo of the $24 menu followed by a hash tag asking #isitracist, with other posters tweeting “you’ve got to be kidding me,” and “trash.”
Defending its choice to offer courses which many consider packed with stereotypical African-American dishes, Borgata senior vice president Joe Lupo said that the menu was in the same vein as the casino’s policy of serving Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo, and Chinese food during the Chinese New Year. Furthermore, Joe Lupo explained that the menu was based on historical evidence of the  African-American Civil Rights Movement leader’s favorite foods, and that the casino’s female African-American restaurant general manager wanted to create a menu to honor Dr. King. Addressing the criticism, Lupo added:
“We allow our managers to run their restaurants. She did research and came up with an authentic recipe. It’s very clear these were his favorite foods. Borgata’s only intention, and her only intention, was to honor the weekend. We were surprised that there were so much negative comments, but we probably could have communicated better that it was done so that it was his favorite foods.”
In the end, however, opinion seems divided between those people believing the Borgata made a huge faux-pas with its stereotypical African-American menu, and those people who agree many of those dishes were indeed favorites of Martin Luther King. One thing for sure, however, is that it has drawn a lot of attention to the casino restaurant, with many visitors seen snapping photos of the menu, and as one visitor Adam Firestone, 29, commented:
“Dude, that’s hella racist, but I’ll probably order it.”