It’s Not Like White People Don’t Know Black People Eat Chicken: The #MaryJBlige Controversy

by Funnel Cake Flowers, The Urban Chameleon news reporter

If we never saw another Black person associated with chicken would racism go away? Would we get our 40 acres and a mule? Or would there be something else to bitch about?

When news broke that Mary J. Blige participated in perpetuating one of the oldest stereotypes in the book by endorsing Burger King’s new crispy fried chicken in a wrap, or something like that, I couldn’t help but to chuckle right before letting out a long ass sigh. To quote the article “Mary J. Blige soulfully sings about chicken,” as if we needed a description of how Mary J. Blige saaaangs or that it would have made a difference if the chicken song were performed in Classic Rock. Regardless, I wasn’t sure if I should be blaming Mary for not knowing better or the Black community for bringing attention to this older than dirt matter.

I sometimes wonder if raising awareness about “Black people chicken singing” does the opposite of what we intend, provide a different reason to be stereotyped. Isn’t saying, “Don’t associate chicken with Black people” just as bad as “All Black people eat chicken?” (However, I do hate that Mary is looking at the only sista in the Burger King trying to make a connection like, "Gurrrrl, I know you about to get some chicken). I digress.

Have we lost sight of what we’re fighting for? Or are Black people just prone to become defensive when it comes to chicken?

The original stereotype dates back to when exaggerated depictions of Blacks (blackface minstrelsy) were used as mascots to sell fried chicken (I refuse to include a photo). Mary J. Blige is a rich successful recording artist, recognized internationally, and I doubt that she needs whatever Burger King was paying, although I’m sure it didn't hurt. (Maybe she did it for the free chicken because uhhhh...she actually likes chicken). Regardless, did we ever consider the fact that Mary J. Blige felt like she could comfortably do a commercial about fried chicken might just be the progress we were once looking for? Maybe I’m being too optimistic in my thinking, but I bet in a 2.0 version of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s “I have a Dream” speech, there might just be a line about little Black boys and little Black girls being able to talk about their chicken eating lovin' without shame.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been plenty of negligent moments portrayed in media that need calling out. For Example, I think Bravo and VH1 do more harm to the images of women and minority groups than Mary J Blige singing about chicken, but for some reason Black people never seem to profoundly rally around this. Are we on autopilot; Chicken=problem? If we keep making something a problem when do we ever realize when the problem is no longer a problem? Maybe we should put more focus on having people of color endorse things like granola or yogurt. I know one thing is for sure, it's complicated. I'm Funnel Cake Flowers your Urban Chameleon news reporter.

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Herman Cain: “The Martin Luther King Values” candidate for president?

Funnel Cake Flowers, The Urban Chameleon news reporter comments on the latest attempts to compare Herman Cain with Martin Luther King. Are they more similar than we realize?
contributing Urban Chameleon writer: Lauren Brown

Not since Edward Brooke have Black Republicans done well as political office holders. The hit-it and quit-it ouster of Michael Steele reveals that the Black man has an even shorter life expectancy in the GOP than the time in between the use of the “N” word in a Quentin Tarantino film. Statistics like these beg the question of how well Republican’s newest Negro, Herman Cain, will continue to perform on the national stage. Many have said that Cain could be our nations first REAL Black president suggesting that he certainly seems to share more attributes with our beloved civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, with of course the exception of not participating in the civil rights.

Like Dr. King, Herman Cain attended Morehouse College. Both King and Cain have started influential movements. For Dr. King, Civil Rights, for Herman Cain, the Intelligent Thinkers movement. But the most damning and glaring commonality these two share? Both Republicans??? According to the National Black Republicans Association hey are claiming King as one of their own.

One might now wonder if Dr. King would have supported Cain’s controversial 9-9-9 plan? To date, Dr. King is the only citizen to be prosecuted under the Georgia income tax perjury statute. Which means 9-9-9, would have saved him a world of legal bills. But here is where it gets interesting; Dr. King was also born in 1929, it was 9 years, between the time he was asked to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott and when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Moreover, Herman Cain and Martin King each have 10 letters in their first and last names and what is 10-1? 9!

999!!!

But is being Morehouse graduates and using complicated math involving the number 9 enough to say that these two Black men are similar? Or has the Republican Party put a DJ Funk Master Flex remix on this beat?

Yes both men stress the importance of dreaming but to Cain I say, dream on brotha. I know one thing is for sure, it’s complicated. I’m Funnel Cake Flowers, your Urban Chameleon news reporter from Tickles.TV

E-mail Funnel Cake Flowers a news story at funnelcakeflowers@tickles.tv

Witnessing President Barack Obama dedicating the final Capitol Mall monument ever to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

In exactly one week, I'll be witness to President Barack Obama dedicating the final Capitol Mall monument ever to Dr. Martin Luther King. Am readying myself, my family, for next week's road trip retracing of the "March on Washington" journey to DC. What a moment in history.

Next step in preparing for our journey will be educating my daughter about the bravery, humanity and transformational outcomes of the efforts of Dr. King (and the warrior spirit of the team around him and before him) will be the viewing of "Citizen King." This excellent History Channel documentary can be purchased on line. Though she enters her second year of study at Columbia, I am pretty sure she has had little more than a "I have a dream" recitation leading up to MLK holiday. Shame on me.

An unplanned step in our Monument trip preparation was viewing "The Help" last week. Even in this Disney-sanitized story, the film reminded me of just how recent and prevalent post-slavery residues of African American powerlessness, disposability and airtight economic / educational prospects were in America. These systemic caste constructs weren't limited to deep South Mississippi, nor were they carried out by a few bad people as a film would suggest. These airtight practices of race-based discrimination in education, housing, voting rights, public accommodations, legal redress, economic exclusion, etc. were, in fact, the way of the nation / the law of the land (had it not been, the decades long resistance would not have been necessary). To borrow a metaphor from "The Help," African American existence was a daily shit pie. Having been born in 1958, it is amazing to ponder of all of the hard fought change that has been brought forth in my lifetime.

I will be internalizing Dr. King's role in galvanizing our nation and government to see and be its better self ...despite its history. I've been pondering the greatest post-ceremony homage I can pay to the many who, over the decades and in their own ways, cleared a path for a better America and extending the laws of the land to "all God's children." This is what I have come up with:

-I will remember that that it is always the right time to do the right thing
-I will vote (continue to)
-I will look at my world, "have a dream" ...and take steps towards bringing it to pass
-I will remain informed about the human inequities in my time, my community, my world ...and engage with my voice to remedy them
-I will help in my own way those who might be bettered by my efforts
-I will believe that change is possible and that my world can be a better place
-I will celebrate the promise / possibility of young people and the content of their character

What will YOU do, my friend?

To those who, since we arrived in this land, stood, who fought, who merely endured somehow, you many unheralded and mostly nameless souls are as also remembered and celebrated.

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Why do I feel guilty taking off work for MLK DAY?

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

I'm the only Black guy at my company. I started about two and a half months ago so technically I’m still under a three-month probation before being considered a real employee.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is this Monday, as it’s celebrated the third Monday of January every year, a national holiday signed by Ronald Reagan in 1983. I noticed that my company is not closed for the holiday and I’m hot and bothered by this. This is the first time I’ve worked for a company that doesn’t acknowledge Dr. King’s birthday. Apparently, only 33% of business’ close for this day. I wonder if this is racism or taking humanity for granted? Or both? This might sound harsh, but to not acknowledge the birth of a man who died for civil rights is a harder pill for me to swallow.

The owner of the company is Jewish and I thought he’d understand the importance of commemorating a day that represents overcoming hate, murder, oppression and obtaining civil rights – hello Holocaust? I referred to the employee manual to see if I can find supporting evidence for my case. I was ready to approach the company if I saw that the office was closed for Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah, but to my surprise the only three holidays we have off are the New Year, Christmas and July 4^th. Oh. I had to rethink my approach to this matter.

I decided to see my manager, who also doubles up as HR, and bring the issue to her attention. In my mind, I kept reciting how delicately and politely I would approach the subject to avoid coming off like an angry Black man. A shame that we have to think this way. My manager ended up being really cool and understanding, (not understanding enough to close the office), but explained that because the company is so small with clients who don’t take off for the holiday and are so demanding we can’t afford to close, especially in such a competitive industry. However, if I wanted to take the day off I was more than welcomed, (without it even counting against my vacation days). The irony is that we are a slave to our clients. I thanked her for her time and walked back to my desk but still not satisfied.

A friend of mine told me that he has never worked for a company that's acknowledged MLK Day. He too is the only Black guy, always finding himself in a position of having to contemplate whether or not he should take the day off because feelings of guilt and isolation arise. It's like when you don't play into the culture of corporate America; being a martyr for working to the point of exhaustion. It's a company's responsibility to set a tone and by not acknowledging MLK Day you end up feeling like THAT "Black employee" missing work over THAT "Black holiday."

MLK Day isn't just about “ME and my Black people,” it's for everyone regardless of race. It reminds us of how far we’ve come and how much farther we have to go; Gay people in this country are still fighting for civil rights. Women are still seeking equality. If your office can’t close for the holiday the least they can do is acknowledge the day; even if it’s just a company, “reply all” e-mail, subject: Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

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Secretary by Day, Royaly by Night: The African Chameleon

Urban Chameleon news

The story of a Ghanaian Chameleon

Secretary by Day, Royalty by Night

Embassy Worker Remotely Rules a Ghanaian Town

source: Washington Post

By Paul Schwartzman

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The king folds her own laundry, chauffeurs herself around Washington in a 1992 Honda and answers her own phone. Her boss's phone, too.

Peggielene Bartels lives in Silver Spring and works as a secretary. When she steps off an airplane in Ghana on Thursday, arriving in the coastal town her family has controlled for half a century, she will be royalty -- with a driver, a chef and an eight-bedroom palace, albeit one in need of repairs she will help finance herself.

"I'm a big-time king, you know," said Bartels, seated at her desk at the Ghanaian embassy just off Van Ness Street NW, where she has worked for almost 30 years.

In the humdrum of ordinary life, people periodically yearn for something unexpected, some kind of gilded escape, delivered, perhaps, by an unanticipated inheritance or a winning lottery ticket.

In Bartels's case, that moment arrived 15 months ago. The phone in her condominium awoke her at 4 a.m.

"Hello, Nana," said the overseas caller -- a relative, as it turned out -- employing a title Ghanaians use to refer to people of stature, from kings and queens to grandparents.

"What you mean, 'Nana?' " answered Bartels, 55, who has no grandchildren -- or children, for that matter. Her husband lives overseas. She thought the call was a prank.

The 90-year-old king of Otuam, a town of 7,000 residents an hour's drive from Ghana's capital, had just died, the caller said. The king, as it happened, was Bartels's uncle. The town elders had performed a ritual to choose his successor, praying and pouring schnapps on the ground and waiting for steam to rise as they announced the names of 25 relatives. The steam would signify which name the ancestors had blessed as the new king.

Bartels, the caller said, was Otuam's new Nana, with power to resolve disputes, appoint elders and manage more than 1,000 acres of family-owned land.

"Oh, please don't play games with me," Bartels replied, reminding the caller that she was a woman, making her more fit for the title of queen. The caller replied that the kingship was the post that was open.

"Things are changing," she recalls him saying; women can now hold many more positions, even king. "You have to accept it.'"

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Bartels endured three months of sleepless nights as she weighed whether to take the throne. She asked herself, "Why me?" The turning point occurred one morning as she drove to work through Rock Creek Park. A voice inside her pronounced: "You can't escape it. It's yours."

"Not everyone gets to become king," she said. "Perhaps it is my destiny."

click here to read full story at the Washington Post

Go ON Diana Ross

An Urban Chameleon moment

What Would Thembi Do just put me on to this 1968 clip (the year that Martin Luther King was assassinated) of a twenty-four year old Diana Ross rocking out with some African Interpretive Dance on national television while she was still part of The Supremes. Can we say, Urban Chameleon moment?



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