IKEA Slammed After Juneteenth Meal Deemed ‘Racially Insensitive’ By Workers

An Atlanta-based IKEA store has come under fire for a Juneteenth menu that employees have called ‘racially insensitive’ because it featured fried chicken and watermelon.

Juneteenth, which was made a federal holiday this year when President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law just days before its June 19 celebration date, marks the day that slavery ended in the U.S. in 1865.

The menu that the IKEA store planned to serve was selected to honor Juneteenth, but employees cried foul when they were emailed the meal options on Friday, saying the company needed to educate themselves on black culture, WGCL, a CBS affiliate out of Atlanta, reported.

An employee of the store told WGCL that the meal, which included fried chicken, watermelon, mac and cheese, collard greens, and more, was to be served to customers and employees to “honor and preserve Black Americans” to commemorate the Juneteenth holiday.

“You cannot say serving watermelon on Juneteenth is soul food menu when you don’t even know the history, they used to feed slaves watermelon during the slave time,” one IKEA employee told the news outlet.

Employees called the menu racially insensitive and ignorant, criticizing their employer’s actions, while 33 workers didn’t show up for work, WGCL said.

“It caused a lot of people to be upset. People actually wanted to quit, people weren’t coming back to work,” an employee said.

A statement was issued by an IKEA Atlanta spokesperson that read in part “We value our co-workers’ voices and changed the menu after receiving feedback that the foods that were selected are not reflective of the deeply meaningful traditional foods historically served as part of Juneteenth celebrations.

“We got it wrong and we sincerely apologize. We are committed to educating ourselves and putting a process in place that will allow us to thoughtfully honor Juneteenth in the future.”

The Juneteenth menu was changed prior to being served to employees and customers and delayed by one day. It included collard greens, cornbread, mashed potatoes, and meatloaf, according to WGCL.

Employees of the store agreed that the decision of the menu should have been made by African Americans, which Juneteenth honored first, citing that no one that initially created the menu was black, the news outlet said.