It should come as no surprise that some business establishments--like the fried chicken restaurants--would use Barack Obama's name for commercial purposes. This is America, where just about everything's a candidate for the bottom line, including Christmas and Thanksgiving.
I was in the Times Square area last weekend and saw a guy selling Obama Condoms--one for five dollars and three for ten dollars. Talk about bad taste.
AMNew York, the free daily paper ("Finger-lickin' debate," April 3-5), quoted a 16-year-old boy who thought that changing the name of a restaurant in Brownsville, Brooklyn to Obama Fried Chicken was "showing respect" for "Obama's name in the community."
This is a comment from a young person who probably thinks the word "nigga" is a show of respect by his peers.
A better show of respect would be to have a wall mural of the president painted or having a window display of print media about Obama's election put up, like the one inside my local public library branch. Anything else is just about the dollar.
Although local black politicians like city councilman Charles Barrone of Brooklyn have expressed outrage at the misuse of Obama's name, there is very little that can be done about it, except mount a campaign of shame, which seems to be working. A couple of the restaurants have taken down or altered their signs.
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