“Forsake foolishness and live. And go in the way of understanding.” (Proverbs 9:6)
By Pastor Rasheed Baaith
I have watched with shame, utter incredulity and regret as our people have decided to make real t a centuries old stereotype. A stereotype connected to us and fried chicken.
We have decided we will show the world there is nothing more valuable to us than a piece of fried chicken and some bread. So important enough to us that we are prepared to quarrel, fight even kill over it. Even more so important, we will allow our children to witness our reprehensible, embarrassing behavior.
We are not only shaming ourselves but our ancestors who fought for our equality and for our relative freedoms. But nothing is as important to us at the moment as that piece of fried chicken. I do not know how we cannot see the insult to us in this “chicken sandwich campaign.”
It is as if they sat down at Popeye’s headquarters and said “How can we get Black people to make fools of themselves and we can make some serious money at the same time?” And one of them answered, “I know, let’s use fried chicken – we all know Black folks will kill for some good fried chicken.” Unfortunately, they were right.
Let’s be clear about something. As good as they declare that sandwich to be, we all know someone, our mother or grandmother or sister or Auntie Lee makes better fried chicken. That chicken is not the best chicken we’ve ever had; it is not. I’ve tasted it and I am not impressed.
The sandwich is certainly not good enough to stand in line for hours or cause a minor riot for. It is not good enough for us to demean ourselves or others and it most certainly is not good enough for us to volunteer to transform ourselves from Black people into niggers. It’s not.
There is a racist cynicism at play here that most of us either do not understand or have chosen to ignore. Just think about it, Black people all over the country are fighting over food by choice not because of need. You cannot tell me that Martin or Malcom or Fannie Lou Hamer or Du Bois or Booker T would not be dying or shame. We have lost ourselves in a vat filled with hot oil. We are eating our dignity along with that chicken.
And we can believe that those who have labeled us clowns and untutored are saying “I told you so.”
Clarence Thomas is one of my least favorite people but he said something to Charles Barkley (also no favorite) I agree with and that is “at some point we have stop shooting ourselves in the foot.” And in the mouth.
