In June 2020, a meme was shared on Facebook suggesting that members and supports of the Black Lives Matter movement are tampering with white people's fast-food orders.
Is there truth behind the story?
The post is asking white people to be alert because a certain source told the white patron of a fast-food chain not to eat the food since there is a nationwide conspiracy that Black Lives Matter protesters and supporters who are working in the food industry tamper with the food of white customers.
However, it turns out that the post is not true. The site Snopes did a thorough investigation and they found out that the meme was an example of "copypasta" according to Dictionary.com. It is a block of text which is copied and pasted repeatedly by people over various online forums and social media sites.
The assumptions that the post makes are very problematic. The idea that there is a nationwide conspiracy to poison the food of white patrons is made up because if it is real it would have made national news and there should be multiple sources written about the said conspiracy.
The alleged conspiracy should have led to a public health crisis. But since no action has been done and there is no trusted source that confirms this, the meme is nothing but a baseless rumor with no concrete evidence offered.
Black Lives Matter is a movement for social justice and it is not a membership-based organization that aims to take revenge. The activists who support the Black Lives Matter movement seek social equality, institutional reforms, and the end of police brutality towards the Black community, they have no intention of harming white people.
Also Read: 3 NYPD Officers Fell Ill After Drinking Milkshake from Shake Shack, Cries Intentional Poisoning
Baseless rumors
This was not the first time that a false rumor about poisoned food circulated in the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. In early June, three New York police officers complained about tasting bleach on the milkshakes that they ordered from Shake Shack.
However, a police investigation found no criminal activity. According to CBS New York, the cleaning solution may not have been properly rinsed out of the milkshake machine, but the incident was certainly not intentional. The meme about Black Lives Matter supporters and protesters tampering with the food of white patrons may have come from this incident.
Days later, female police from Georgia was dubbed by the internet as "Officer Karen" after she posted a video of her crying because her Mcdonald's order was minutes late and expressed her fear that it may have been tampered with. It turns out that her order was late because there were a lot of orders that morning and only a few employees showed up due to the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing protest, according to The Daily News.
Police officers have a history of alleging food tampering. Last year, a police officer from Indianapolis accused an employee of McDonald's of tampering with his food by biting into his sandwich. This turned out false because the police officer just forgot that he was the one who ate the sandwich, stating that he got distracted while eating because he placed an anonymous phone call to a radio station, according to the Rolling Stones.
Also last year, a police officer from Kansas, claimed that an employee from McDonald's wrote the words "f*king pig" on his beverage cup, but only for it to be later revealed that he had written it himself.
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