Invited to the Cookout

About

Invited to the Cookout is an expression used to describe the African American community, exclusively. However, the phrase is often used to describe an outsider who has shown themselves to be an ally of or friend to African Americans. The phrase has also been used to exclude members that have expressed opinions that are antithetical to the interests of the community.

Origin

While it's likely that the expression had been used offline, the phrase was first used on the internet on February 29th, 2019. That day, the hashtag #WhitePeopleInvitedToTheCookout trended. That day, Twitter^[1] user @_BushidoB_ tweeted, "#WhitePeopleInvitedToTheCookout Leonardo DiCaprio, Betty White, Justin Timberlake, Paul Wall, Steve Nash (feel free to add to the list)." The tweet received more than 800 likes and 500 retweets in three years (shown below)

Spread

That day, Twitter^[2] user @MartelDHarris tweeted a photograph of Adele and the caption "#WhitePeopleInvitedToTheCookout when I saw Adele do her hand like this, I knew I could fix her a plate." The tweet received more than 19,000 likes and 16,000 retweets in three years (shown below, left). Throughout the day, others shared versions of the meme (examples below, center and right).

Several media outlets covered the hashtag, including Hello Beautiful,^[3] Bossip,^[4] The Daily Dot ^[5] and more. On March 3rd, Redditor ^[6] RadiantSun asked about the hashtag in the /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddit.

The following year, on February 13th, 2017, Urban Dictionary ^[7] user Drink2that defined "The Cookout" as "a metaphorical gathering of the black community usually exclusive only to blacks." The post received more than 120 upvotes in two and a half hours (shown below).

On February 20th, 2019, conservative commentator Stacey Dash wrote a piece entitled "What BBQ?"^[8] She said, "It was explained to me that the 'cookout' is an analogy for a private club of sorts that has a whole list of special requirements the most crucial one being that you have to be black. So why wasn’t I invited you ask? Well, the trolling Instagrammer who told me I was uninvited was trying to insinuate that I wasn’t black or black enough because of my support of Joy Villa. Being a Republican is another sure way to be disinvited."

On June 5th, Twitter user @PEOPLEOFMEMPHIS tweeted a video of a white bride lip syncing Cardi B. They captioned the video "YEAH..SHE INVITED TO THE BBQ." The post received more 13 million, 115,000 likes and 22,000 retweets in less than two weeks (shown below).

YEAH..SHE INVITED TO THE BBQ 🍗‼️ pic.twitter.com/88zMXM8e6W

— PEOPLE OF MEMPHIS (@PEOPLEOFMEMPHIS) June 6, 2019

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References