Monday Morning (Mc)Nuggets

So much has happened since the late time I blogged, I figure I’d write a little blurb about everything.

Just Wrong. Common and Queen Latifah are starring in a new movie.  I want to shoot myself.  It looks terrible.  I officially hate them both. So much that I want to pull a C. Delores Tucker and declare war on them.  Does anyone have a spare bulldozer?  I have some CDs to destroy.  Just Wright beats the idea of a Why Did I Get Married trilogy, I guess.  And neither Common nor Queen Latifah have starred in a Tyler Perry flick.  Let me re-think my position.  Wait a minute.  I just remembered Bringing Down the House and Common’s GAP commercials.  Nevermind.

The Hangover. Last Friday, Henry Louis Gates Jr. published an op-ed piece about reparations for Negroes.  In the New York Times article–yet another addition to the “Obama is mixed-race, so he should be able to fix this shit,” genre–Professor Gates argues against reparations not simply because of the practical difficulties that might arise, but also because Africans were an integral part of the slave trade.   Since our African brethren were instrumental to our bondage, then the United States and other white power(s) that benefited from the institution should no longer be blamed…and therefore should not have to pay reparations.  In other words, since the “African elite” sold a gang of our ancestors to Europeans, we should stop tripping about lynching and rape and Jim Crow and anything else that informs our current situation.

Um, okay.  Shutting up now, but real quick:

I think Wall Street and all those big banks used similar tactics.  Seems to work.  Folks are still getting their million-dollar bonuses.

Every alleged criminal who had an accessory should use this argument in court.  “Your honor, when she sold me the car I was going to rob a bank, so that means no jail for me, right?”

One more question, isn’t Gates’ whole DNA project, in fact, much of his career, kind of its own form of reparations?  Aren’t his PBS specials, to say the least, direct beneficiaries of or indirect reparations for these crimes against humanity that couldn’t have happened without the help of Brother (and Sister) Africa?  Should he give that money back?

Does KFC stand for Killer Fuckin’ Chicken? Tamara mentioned KFC’s latest invention, The Double Down (as in, they’re going to have to “double down” on that CPR if you eat that thing) on her blog the other day.  N, a vegetarian and occasional vegan, has become obsessed with it.  She keeps telling me to buy one so that she can “scientifically” observe it.   I won’t do it unless N provides a defibrillator, a pair of Sketchers Shape-Ups in exchange, and some Dairy Queen coupons.  I’ve been watching the NBA playoffs (#teamWITNESS), so I see the commercial for this sandwich sans bun, ostensibly aimed at men, pretty regularly.  I’ll admit curiosity, but I wouldn’t eat this thing, which is saying a lot because I still occasionally crave Big Macs.

These commercials are KFC’s way of saying, “Hello, we’d like to kill you.”  What’s even more ridiculous isn’t that people will and have bought the sandwich (And I know that some of us will buy the sandwich out of necessity.  You can feed two people with that thing.), but that the Double Down is so absurdly American.  We live in a world, in a country where people areliterally starving, and the Food Network is available on basic cable.  Double Down commercials will be shown between segments of Man v. Food, a show–that I’m simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by–about a man who eats his way through the United States and engages in some sort of eating contest (as in, he eats X number of sandwiches in X minutes and gets a t-shirt or his name on the wall of fame) at every stop.  Yet there are literally people who didn’t eat yesterday or the day before that or the day before that–and not because they suffer from an eating disorder that masks some deeper issues, but because they cannot afford to eat.  Meanwhile, KFC works on manufacturing more heart disease.  How lovely.

Hell, I feel like I need angioplasty just from writing this thing.

Damn.  Why they wanna stick me for my paper[s]? The big news last week was Arizona’s effort at immigration “reform.”  Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070, a bill that encourages police officers to essentially demand papers from anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant.  And by “illegal immigrant” they mean anyone who looks Mexican.  (TBS, if George Lopez suddenly stops showing up to work, you know what happened.)  Outside of just being infuriated by the blatant racial profiling, the only think I can say is I bet the people indigenous to the Americas wish they had an immigration policy circa 1492.  By the way, Governor Brewer, Arizona used to be Mexico.  #justsayin’  More on this later.

Hearts led, baby, it’s your deal. I helped write a follow-up post on Erykah Badu over at the Crunk Feminist Collective.  Check it out.