Chick-fil-A Says Tweet Seemingly Referencing Black Community Was ‘Poor Choice of Words’

Chick-fil-A is under fire for a tweet that social media users said called out a Twitter user’s race.

On Friday, Sept. 9, one Twitter user tweeted at the fast food chain, writing, “grilled spicy deluxe but still noooo spicy nuggets…………@ChickfilA…..”

In direct response to the tweet, the official Twitter account for Chick-fil-A responded, “Your community will be the first to know if spicy items are added to the permanent menu, Don!”

While the initial tweet only had six replies, Chick-fil-A’s response garnered more than 1,600 replies and 6,800 quote tweets due to the choice of wording used in the message. Many Twitter users called out the account’s decision to use the term “your community,” questioning if they were targeting the user’s identity, which appears to be Black.

“What do you mean by ‘your community’???????” one tweet read.

Another user added, “Your community? I’m gonna need explanation for that comment. ‘Our’ community wouldn’t wanna think that there was some racial undertones behind that.”

“Chic…this aint a good look. What you meant by that specifically?” one user questioned in a tweet.

However, other users, some from the Black community, made light of the situation by making copious jokes out of the awkwardness of how the response appeared.

“Chick Fil A said “We know how you people like spicy...” said one user on Twitter.

“wdym by your community???” said another user on Twitter along with an image of a pensive Black Charlie Brown, staring outside of a window. Editing a kente hat onto a meme is usually meant to evoke that serious (or unserious) conversations on race are occurring.

“This shouldn’t of made me laugh as hard as it did,” said another Twitter user in response.

“Oh we going to popeyes tonight,” added another Twitter user, including a kente hat-topped Photoshopped image of “Abbot Elementary” stars looking on in distaste.

“Now what community is that?!” said another user on Twitter, with a kente edit of Tariq, the Corn Kid.

“Lmao like leave him outta this,” another user responded.

“Ayyyye yooo, Chick-fil-A, you got some explaining to do here,” joked one user on Twitter, along with a trio of laughing emojis.

Further, some users pointed out that this is a common response from the fast food chain’s social media. One user shared a screenshot of another tweet from Chick-fil-A from the end of August.

“All jokes aside, they reply like this frequently,” the user wrote.

Another user shared a screenshot of a series of tweets from Chick-fil-A replying to other Twitter users, highlighting messages that mentioned the word “community.” Alongside the screenshot, they wrote, “Y’all hilarious” alongside a laughing emoji.

In a statement emailed to TODAY, Chick-fil-A responded to the claims.

“The response was a poor choice of words but was not intended in any way to be insensitive or disrespectful,” a spokesperson said. “We often use the term ‘community’ in a broader sense to talk about places where we operate restaurants and serve the surrounding community.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com