Podcast
99% Invisible
It explored the complex relationship between McDonald's and the African American community, specifically regarding franchising and black capitalism, examining the successes and failures of this model.
For us today, because fast food is so readily available, we often mark it as something that is unspecial.
— Episode: A Side of Franchise
Episode: A Side of Franchise
It explored the complex relationship between McDonald's and the African American community, specifically regarding franchising and black capitalism, examining the successes and failures of this model.
For us today, because fast food is so readily available, we often mark it as something that is unspecial.
But for African Americans, if you consider, in the 1970s, who have only been federally protected in a public accommodation like a restaurant for maybe 5, 10 years, going to McDonald's is actually a really big deal.
It looks at the, quote, somewhat bizarre but incredibly powerful marriage between a fast food behemoth and the fight for civil rights.
So franchising, as I described in the book in Freudian terms, is the idea that a parent company makes all the rules, but the children earn all the money.
It was how McDonald's replaced the state in black America in the sense that the McDonald's is the place where a senior citizen can hang out with friends. It is the place that is underwriting the cultural and athletic events at the local school.