Throwback Thursday: Sean Invited White People to the Cookout

The origin story of how white people got invited to a cookout.

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On May 15, 2015, a young journalist named Michael Harriot texted his sister to wish her happy birthday. Because he had recently relocated, he had missed his family’s “soul food” cookout to celebrate Mother’s Day and his sister’s birthday.

That conversation started a birthday tradition of him embarrassing his sisters on Facebook with a nonsensical, funny story that continues to this day. After the original post went viral, editor Tom Ley asked him to reconfigure the Facebook post for a Deadspin article entitled “The Caucasian Guide to Black Barbecues,” which led to a freelance position with The Root.

Although he had worked as a journalist, this is how Michael Harriot got his first job writing online for a Black audience. If you search the internet for the origin of the phrase “invited to the cookout,” Google will tell you that the term began in 2016 (I also argue that this is how “raisins in the potato salad” became popular).

This post appeared on Facebook on May 15, 2015.