We Shall Overcome The Menu

I saw this menu floating around Twitter yesterday but since I had a lot of things to tend to I didn’t bother joining in the uproar. That and I saw no real reason to get in an uproar anyway. Maybe if this were a few years ago when I had a pick stuck in my head might I have gotten a wee bit sensitive about and joined in the chorus of jeers.

I did have a few potential ideas in my mind when I saw it, though. Like maybe this menu is the brainchild of some confused non-black person who wanted to pay “tribute” via food.  As in, uh, what do Black people eat? Soul food, oh yeah, let’s serve everyone that. You know, good intentions that weren’t necessarily all the way thought out. A few people would get upset, but no big deal in the end.

And then there’s the other scenario that places some racist with a penchant for prejudice jokes turning the cafeteria into one indirect Klan rally where they get  to prove white superiority by serving a bunch of bug eyed, sophomoric (in their bigoted minds) blacks some watermelon and fried chicken.

If that sounds stupid to you then good, that was my intention.

As unfortunate as the latter scenario would be, that’s not what’s keeping black men, women and children in peril. We have bigger catfish to fry.

But I forget how funny life is and no greater example of that point is this video that I stumbled along only a few minutes ago:

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Breakaway From Seconds


I can already predict how this is going to go. The blogs will run wild with this photo, leading the tabloids to comment on how fat she’s gotten. Then, eventually Kelly Clarkson will be asked to comment on her obvious weight gain, which will lead her to pull a Tyra Banks and tell the world to kiss her fat ass.

Instead of the world doing the right thing and telling her we don’t have that kind of time, most will champion her for fighting the unrealistic standards of beauty the media places upon people.

I’ll be the first to admit that not everyone is meant to be a stick figure, but at the same time not everyone is meant to walk around like they’re caring twins called Snickers and Twix.

I like Kelly Clarkson and I appreciate her for a number of different reasons. She can actually sing and despite gaining fame from the most corporate and packaged shows on television, she managed to break away from that and try her hardest to be respected as a genuine artist. Although she fell flat on her face with the second album trying to do her music completely her way, I respect her for trying.

Still, she’s fat. When I first saw this picture I thought it was photoshopped.


Then I saw a second picture and realized that she’s been hitting the Chinese buffet too hard. Look at her: She looks ready to throw some BBQ sauce on the mic and make herself an on stage snack.

As a former fatty, I’m not grilling her for simply being overweight. She looks unhappy and more importantly, she looks really unhealthy. That can only lead to additional problems — including more difficulties singing live. Ya’ll have seen Aretha try to sing. Poor thing blows out more wind than your average hurricane during a performance.

I don’t know if she’s eating so much to help cope with she’s been forced to go back to recording with the cookie cutter hit makers she swore off or what, but I’m going to need her to go run a couple of laps before she morphs into Roseanne.

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But I Love Chick-fil-A


I’ve known for a while now that Chick-fil-A shoulder leans to the conservative side of the political spectrum. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that them closing their restaurants on Sunday suggested that the company is headed by Evangelical Christians. I never grumbled about their decision to do so either; I actually respect them for it.

I wish more companies that claimed to represent certain values would run their businesses as such. It would be great if I could get my 24 nuggets, or two sandwiches with wheat and provolone (I learned about wheat and provolone from a friend) any day of the week, but if people are that strong in their views I’ll glady wait until Monday.

But there are some cases where a company’s view of the world might prevent me from supporting them. I’m not entirely sure if this is an example of such yet.

It’s been brought to my attention that there is a bit of an uproar over Chick-fil-A supporting those who participated in the tea party protest. Honestly, I found most of those people to be hypocrites whining because their side loss. If they were that pressed about high taxes and big government they would have tossed an ocean’s worth of tea bags at the White House when Bush ran it into the ground over eight years. I see this protest as nothing more than political posturing not worth paying close attention to.

I had a feeling the company supported John McCain in the last election.

Still, I love their food. I’m sorry, but I do. It’s so good. They use peanut oil, which is healthier than what the other fast food chains are fryin their stuff in. Speaking of other fast food joints, sometimes I have to wonder whether or not I’m really eating chicken or “chik’n.” I don’t have those fears when I enter a Chick-fil-A.

The staff members are typically polite (sans this jackass colored lady at one location in Houston), and they often giveaway free food. Once because I was the 100th customer of the day I got my meal comped. Another time I drove at NASCAR speed so I could get the free chicken biscuit the location nearest me was handing out to frequenters.

The food is so so good. They’re not even stingy with the condiments. These days a cashier at McDonalds is ready to start a shootout if you ask for extra sweet and sour sauce. Or so I’ve heard. I haven’t been to a McDonalds in quite a while. Their nuggets are usually pretty good, too, after the club, but eh, I don’t go. Same for Wendys.

But you know, neither has anything on Chick-fil-A. That is, unless one or the other is willing to sponsor this blog and my life.

OK, what I was talking about again? Sorry, I got lost in a sea of breaded chicken.

Oh, the political stuff. Yeah. Alright, people are upset because a lot of these tea bag protestors are racist as hell. I saw some of the scenes. A lot of those illiterate jackasses were throwing out age old stereotypes to insult Obama. Yawn.

However, I kind of see why people would be upset. Why toss your money behind an event catering towards a certain faction of society inclined to dabble in bigotry?

And it’s not just this tea party protest either. They tossed a lot of money behind Proposition 8. In case you haven’t caught on yet, I’m pretty left of left in terms of my political views. I wasn’t happy about the decision (although I know it will eventually change).

So does that mean I should stop supporting Chick-fil-a?

My first reaction is NOOOOOOOOOOOO.

My second: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Third: PLEASE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Fourth: Hell no.

But then, if I met with the family that runs Chick-fil-A, they’d probably send me to hell. :|

I try not to throw my money behind companies that support any form of discrimination. I’ve read about Walmart’s alleged mistreatment of its employees, but damn, they’re cheap. Actually, I hate going into most Walmarts.

In fact, a month or so ago someone took me to the location on Crenshaw. Before you even ask, it was not my idea. When I went in there, it seemed like the location should only be allowed to sell coke…and I don’t mean the kind that comes in a can.

Yet when I go online, I look at the prices and think, “I love you Target, but they’re cheaper right here.”

Am I hypocrite? I have the desire to use my purchasing power correctly, but I have to be rationale: Some shit is too high, and a deal is a deal.

If I can’t even shake Walmart completely, how could I ever do the same with Chick-fil-A?

Fortunately, I don’t have to make a choice yet. I don’t know of any standalone locations in LA and I don’t really frequent the mall like that anymore. It’s not recession friendly.

Maybe I can write a letter to the Cathy family (who runs Chick-fil-A) before I ever think it buy another meal from them?

P.S. I doubt many of ya’ll even care about this because you’re too busy eating your leftover chicken from Popeye’s. I know a bunch of ya’ll went and got up on the 8 piece mixed 4.99 special yesterday. Gimme a biscuit.

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Skinny People Want Their Fries, Too

As I sit here digesting the whole pizza I just ate (it was flatbread and it had spinach on it — that makes it healthy, right?), I am so grateful to Pharrell.

See there: Those who can fit a small are willing to act up for some food just like members of the medium, large, and no-size-fits-you populations.

If you recall, he was a part of my shout out to the slim man crew last year, but after watching this clip he deserves his own post. He has provided living proof that a slim waist doesn’t mean you never yearn for the taste of a McNugget. Now some people – bougie people who act like they can’t eat mystery meat like the rest of us – are looking at this and going, “Well he ended up not getting anything, so I bet his skinny ass starved.”

That’s not the point. The point is Pharrell was willing to dance, sing, and act like he popped an x pill half an hour prior to arriving at the cash register just to get some a Filet-o-Fish. That is dedication, people.

Pharrell handles hunger much better than me, though. I remember a few years ago I damn near cursed out a friend over a chocolate Frosty. My friend told me they were good and worth trying. They were not and at the time I spent my entire break trying to get one. I ended up tossing that nasty chocolate crap in a cup and went back to work still hungry. I would’ve done better eating from the street meat vendors trying to pass off rat marinated in expired BBQ sauce as terayaki chicken.

I should’ve handled my disappointment the way Pharrell did — by annoying cashiers with an awkward Michael Jackson inspired dance routine.

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WSJ to Obama: You Need Seconds

I thought we were making progress. I felt that despite our growing differences, we were finally beginning to coalesce around a candidate we felt shared our goal of turning this country around. But just when I begin to think this country was starting to get over its hangups, I read a Wall Street Journal article that confirms my greatest fear: Thinphobia is alive and well.

In the article, “Too Fit to Be President,” writer and hating ass hater, Amy Chozick ponders whether or not the greatest symbol of success for skinny men since pre-wite-out Michael Jackson is too slim to win the presidency.

Big Chozick writes:

But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.

So because most of this country looks like a bottle of Welch’s, Barack Obama isn’t like everyone else? Why couldn’t the author point out that we all die. That’s something that ties us together. All she had to follow that up with is note that some of us choose to die differently. Personally, I’d rather die from natural causes or some terrible freak accident that takes me out in a millisecond over my heart jumping out of my body because it’s can’t wait for another fish sandwich fix.

Why is this in the Wall Street Journal anyway? Do they not have a floundering economy to cover?

As if this article’s premise weren’t offensive enough, Heavy C injects the opinions of bigoted big folks to slant her article and further offend slim and sessy people the world over.

“He’s too new … and he needs to put some meat on his bones,” says Diana Koenig, 42, a housewife in Corpus Christi, Texas, who says she voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

“I won’t vote for any beanpole guy,” another Clinton supporter wrote last week on a Yahoo politics message board.

These people are just fishing for reasons not to vote for Obama. First he’s not Black enough. Then he becomes too black. Soon after he was too educated. Later he it was an issue of him being too popular. Now he’s too healthy. Why are people so worried about his waistline being thin when their wallet is bulimic?

Sen. Obama drew cringes on a campaign stop in Adel, Iowa, in July 2007, when he asked a crowd of farmers: “Anybody gone into a Whole Foods lately and seen what they charge for arugula?” The upscale supermarket specializing in organic food doesn’t have a single store in Iowa.

OK, so that wasn’t smart, and I admit that I had to Google ‘arugula’ when I first heard about this. Still, what does some spiffy lettuce have to do with preventing a bunch of terrorist from blowing me up in a subway car?

Lately, Sen. Obama is more careful. On a campaign stop in Lebanon, Mo., on Wednesday, Sen. Obama visited with voters at Bell’s Diner and promptly announced “Well, I’ve had lunch today but I’m thinking maybe there is some pie.”

He settled on fried chicken and told the crowd he’s become a junk-food lover. “The healthy people, we’ll give them the breasts,” he told the waitress. “I’ll eat the wings.”

I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling, especially after you read about that uber-healthy menu he set up for the DNC. Barack: Don’t let them do you. I know you were praying that those wings weren’t fried, and we both know some people are still going to want to slap you with a bottle of Crisco. Besides, the pundits used to joke about Gore’s weight years ago, and they said Bill Richardson was too fat to be president. How did their presidential bids turn out? In the end many of them are more pressed about your complexion than your frame, so if you worked the phrase “no pork in my fork” into your lexicon, don’t backtrack now.

This has got to be one of the stupidest issues of the ever growing list of stupid issues related to the 2008 presidential election.

And ya’ll wonder why I wrote the Skinny Swagger Salute. I will say that it gives me hope that I, too, can become President. I’m not that far away from Obama. I couldn’t do any worse than Bush.

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Skinny Swagger Salute

After showing one of my friends this cover her response was, “Snoop looks like has a disease.” Though she did add that Pharrell was, “a hot skinny guy,” I started to wonder if she, like others I’ve come across, was thinphobic. Yes, I made that up.

For far too long the thin man has been assailed for his underweight status, and enough is enough. It’s about time people start appreciating the underweight lovers of the y chromosome. As someone who’s gone from looking like a sun burnt Pillsbury Dough Boy to someone of a taller and leaner stature, I’ve encountered many a thinphobe.

One of them is my brother, who although not fat at all, thinks his “average” weight gives him the right to quote Mo’nique’s shtick about “skinny bitches” being evil. I don’t know how everyone feels on the matter, but I believe a little diabetes and mild stroke did hurt somebody. I saw Big Mama die in Soul Food because of her diet, and unlike her kinfolk, I learned a lesson (Notice at the end of the movie they all ate the same damn food that killed her — not even bothering to change ONE recipe). Skinny people aren’t evil. Insulin is.

Stop waving pork chops in front of people’s faces. I’m not a hater, but not everyone is down with eating Porky Pig. It’s just some people prefer they die in their sleep peacefully— and not suddenly in crowd of people.

“You need to eat.”

“Here: You take these last eight pieces of chicken. You need them more than I do.”

“You were meaner fatter, but I don’t know, you’re a lanky somebody.”

These comments usually come from people who would prefer a drive-thru grocery store. Oddly enough, the bulk of these thinphobics weigh about ten pounds more than me. It’s like Kelly looking at Michelle going, “Girl you need to eat!”

It’s time we stop disparaging the skinny man. Everyone should really stop and think about the contributions the thin men of the world have given us in entertainment and politics.

Ok, so maybe his legs look like 6 inch thermometers, but Snoop has proven through the years that you can be a 100 pound gangsta. If you watch his show, you know he’s not on the stick-and-move diet (stick your fingers down your throat, move to the toilet) or munching on carrots all day. He seems to love Roscoe’s almost as much as he loves weed. Quiet as it’s kept, he’s outlasted many of the emcees of the 90s, and that’s probably because he stayed true to his tall and lanky self. Suge was too big to outrun the IRS. Look where he is now. I rest my case.

If not for this thin man’s brilliance, ya’ll thicker folks would have no song to “Shake Ya Ass” and watch ya selves to. Say thank you.

Skinny = funny. Word to Pryor.

The funnier, and most talented Wayans Brothers. Obviously missing a couple of meals has given him the sadness he needed to tap into to portray dramatic roles like in Requiem For a Dream more seriously.

He was considered skinny in the 90s. I heard Uncle Phil say it on an episode myself, so don’t try to dispute this. Of course, since he’s bulked up he now commands $20 million a movie, so I will keep drinking Protein Whey and get up on my protein just incase.

T.I. is one of the south’s greatest rappers, and he probably weighs only half of most of them. For those of you thinking, “I bet if he ate more, he wouldn’t be so angry, and wouldn’t need those guns” need I remind you that it was his Napoleon (and the fact that he needed to grasps that he wasn’t in the hood anymore) complex that got him in trouble, not any “Feed the Children” curse.

He has a long ways to go before he gets to platinum status (like a couple hundred thousand), but Trey Songz is my role model simply because he’s breaking barriers for my kind. He’s lifting up people who can’t get enough of that slim swagger thrice his size at concerts. We shall overcome.

I’m just using him as a filler, but yeah, he fits the mold if we’re talking 2001. Kidding. He had a hit. That song, y’know…hmm, well I can’t think of it, but I’m sure my niece jigged to it a couple of years go. Thanks, Shad.

He weighs like 88 pounds wet, but who’s contributed more to music, the music video, choreography, and tabloid fodder in the last three decades than the Michael “That’s Lite Mayonnaise, Thank you” Jackson ? Don’t waste your time trying to think of someone else. The skinniest Jackson brother is the only choice.

I was reading an article about Obama’s stumping in Louisiana a week ago and apparently some woman patted him on his stomach and said, “You’re too frail, baby. We need to fatten you up.” No you don’t. Give him one piece of boudain, not four. Being in his weight class has gotten him this far, don’t go trying to change him.

I know you’re looking like, “Who the hell is this?” That’s me, so watch your jokes. Actually, email them to me: I might share them. I watched Top Model the night before, so cut me some slack. But yes, I am hoping to join these thin men in triumph one day.

Now we do have our embarrassments like Fonzworth Bentley, but y’know, can’t win ‘em all. I wish he’d go hit a buffet, though, and stop messing with our status.

Anyway, I hope I’ve given any thinphobics out there something to think about. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go decide if I really want this protein shake.

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