What's right is right

Mutha is all down for getting your hustle on. If you can make it across the border and take a job that no one else seems to want then so be it. But do so knowing that you are breaking the law and if you get caught, take your punishment like a man or woman.

Here in DC, some former Chipotle employees are up in arms because they were taken into a break room during lunch and replaced, allegedly for immigration violations, i.e., not being in the country legally. Predictably, tree-hugging hippies are mounting an online protest demanding that Chipotle "apologize, change its mass firing practices, and pay employees what they are owed. In short: demand Chipotle treat workers with integrity!" (their angry intensity, not mine)

Slow down!

Now, let's be real. The fucked up part of what Chipotle did was not give the workers a chance to prove their innocence in the form of papers proving they were here legally. That's a matter for the courts to determine. Let's assume that all the workers WERE here legally. In that case, they should have had no problem proving such. Even if they were in the middle of some sort of "process" of legalization, papers showing they are in the middle of such a "process" should be sufficient enough to delay action.

If they weren't, then Chipotle had every right to do what they did, which, in the words of the online protesters, was tossed them "out in the cold. They received no warning and no respect. They huddled together to comfort each other, thinking of how they would feed their families and pay the rent." In other words, they were summarily fired for submitting false immigration status on their employment applications and they got what they deserved. They were here illegally and they got caught.

Side note, other than getting Betty White to appear on SNL, when have these online petitions ever worked?

PS, RIP Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky!

I love an Angry Bottom

This picture of Chris Brown turns me on waaaay more than this picture does...

The idea of breaking a brotha down and converting that anger into sexual energy. You know he would resist at first but he would be quickly cowed and before long, he would be begging for the dick or the paddle or the wax or whatever. Plus I like the blond hair!

Racist?

This ad went up about a half-mile from a Planned Parenthood facility on Bleecker Street, o the corner of Watts and 6th Avenue in NYC.

NYC City Council Member Letitia James says, "It is misguided to use Black History Month as a tool to promote this message. Every woman has the right to make personal choices in regards to her body, and I respect many different points of view, but to compare abortion to terrorism and genocide is highly offensive."

The billboard is sponsored by a group called Life Always. Their press release states, " There is a battle being waged in the United States that has taken more lives than any foreign war or act of terrorism. The enemy is abortion." Life Always board member Pastor Stephen Broden added, "During Black History Month, we celebrate our history, but our future is in jeopardy as a genocidal plot is carried out through abortion."

In response to the ad, a group called Trust Black Women posted this on Facebook: "Yesterday, racist billboards went up in Soho attacking black women and our human rights by claiming “the most dangerous place for an African American child is in the womb.” SisterSong, a coalition of 80 women of color and Indigenous women’s organizations, denounces this cynical attempt to use race during Black History Month as an excuse to assault women’s rights. Black women are not the pawns of these white people who erect such billboards. We find them offensive, racist, sexist and – most of all – disrespectful of our decision making, our 400-year history of raising and caring for black children, and our human right to make health care choices for ourselves."

Statistics from the NYC Health Department show that Blacks had the highest number of abortions in 2009, with 40,798. (Hispanics had the second highest at 28,364.) NYC's abortion rate was almost 40% that year, and the three Planned Parenthood facilities nearest the billboard reported nearly 17,000 abortions in 2010.

So...

I ask again, is the ad racist?

Well, it's definitely provocative, but racist? Not to me, but then again, I am one of those black people who don't see racism in every situation. To me, this ad shows the inflamed rhetoric on both sides that makes it nearly impossible to reach common ground.

Is any conversation on abortion about anything other than free and unfettered access an assault on women's rights? The author from SisterSong assumes the billboard's sponsors are white, when actually two are black. Is anything that paints black people or other minorities in a negative light racist, even if it is true?

On the flip side, do you know the agony that some women go through in making the decision to terminate the pregnancy? Do you have a plan to support those babies who come into the world either unwanted, or whose families cannot support them? Do you have any answers to abortion other than abstinence?

Lastly.

Black people, yes slavery was awful. I read the journals about the biggest bucks being forced to breed in order to insure a strong "crop" of new slaves. I read about women who were raped by their masters and then had their bellies cut open to kill the bastard child. I know we have a history of Jim Crow oppression and racisim and that serious inequities and worse still exist in this country,

BUT,

at what point are we, as a people responsible for our own choices. When is it no longer directly or indirectly, the fault of The Man?