As a respected member of the United Black People Council’s Feminist Ladies Auxiliary (formerly known as “The Females”), Mid-Atlantic Division, I humbly propose that we add the destruction of Sweet Potato Pie to our case for reparations.

Can I get a second? Jackson? Jones? Bueller?

No takers?

Okay, let me explain…

I’m talking about an All Lives Matter version of the sweet potato pie called Stuffed Sweet Potato Pie.

What is it stuffed with?

Oppression.

Also cheese. More specifically, Parmesan cheese. You know the stuff you put on top of pasta and meatballs?

Don’t believe me this is a real thing, check out the quick tutorial video for this monstrosity below:

Somewhere in this world, Patti LaBelle has kicked off her shoes and readied herself to smack the Parmesan cheese out of some stranger’s White baby.

Honestly, I don’t know anything else about the makers of the video, other than it comes from the food site Cooking Panda.

I have no idea who those hands belong to. For all we know, it could very well be a very light-skinned Black person’s hands mixing together that f*ckery – ahem, I mean old family recipe.

For all we know, those could be the hands of a very pissed off sister, upset because the only time the Panda calls on her for cooking tutorials is when it wants her to make something stereotypically African American like fried chicken, collard greens and sweet potato pie.

What an insult.

Why the sister could have been top of her class at Le Cordon Bleu Paris. She could have had a Ph.d in Asian and Sub-Saharan African fusion.

I bet this fictitious sister said she would show them one. And if the Panda only wanted her to make the sweet potato pies then she would make one of the best. I’ll give them one of best Ms. Minny’s poop pie this side of Georgia…

What? It could happen.

But very likely, it is a very confused and demented White person behind this, which makes this culinary distortion all the more insulting.

As food historian Michael Twitty wrote about the history of the classic African American dessert on his blog back in 2011:

“When enslaved Africans were introduced to European puddings they were reminded of the steamed vegetable and grain dishes they knew in their homelands. Europeans on the coast of Africa introduced the concept of “desserts” to tropical Africa. Sweet potato pie is Creole in the sense of its combination of a tuber with a spicy pudding with a pie form. After reading several recipes, it appeared to me that the sweet potato pie we eat today does not really approximate the taste of the kind of sweet potato pies eaten in the quarters. Eggs, butter, white sugar, vanilla, flour, spices, etc. would have all been very precious ingredients. Two recipes suggested rum in place of spices and vanilla extract, and we know that liquor was a commonly traded item in the quarters, particularly West Indian rum. If nutmeg or cinnamon was ever included in the pies in the quarters it was probably purchased at great expense, traded or liberated from the Big House pantry.”

And no where in those recipes does it mention anything about cheese.

Listen, this is not just pie we’re talking about here. This pie is symbolic of who we are as a people in this country. A people born through slavery and oppression yet still manage to rebel against the invasion of pumpkin in favor of our own familiar palette. A people who literally took nothing and made something – delicious.

Sweet potato pie is freedom.

It’s been there for us through every holiday including the made up one called Kwanzaa. It was there during our graduation parties, weddings, baby showers and when Cousin Peanut came home from prison.

It was there on both the nights when W.E.B Dubois completed the Soul of Black Folks and when President Barack Obama wrote his speech for his historic inauguration.

Sweet potato pie walked along side Harriet Tubman as she followed the North Star and was there when Marcus Garvey purchased his first boat ride ticket to Ghana.

It was there when Chicken George got his freedom papers and when the Evans family – minus James Sr. – made it out of Cabrini Green.

What I’m trying to convey here is Sweet potato pie is the reason why the caged bird sings.

And to corrupt it with a cup of got-damn Parmesan cheese is nothing short of sacrilegious.

And racist.

Like, haven’t Black folks suffered enough from you people?

Have you no shame?

Have you no sense of right or wrong?

Have you no humanity?

Have you no God?

Rosa Parks did not sit on that bus just so it could roll over us and steal our grandmamas’ pie recipe.

No, we deserve pain and suffering for this egregious act of cultural appropriation. We deserve reparations.

Can I get a second?

Charing Ball is a writer, cultural critic, free-thinker, slick-mouth feminist and the reigning queen of unpopular opinions. She is also from Philadelphia. To learn more, visit NineteenSeventy-Seven.com.