Taking It Too Far?

Just when it seemed like "Obama-mania" had finally come to an end, a recent article in the City section of the New York Times caught my eye. A fried-chicken resteraunt in Brownsville is taking a lot of heat over it's recent name change. Once called, "Royal Fried Chicken," the owner thought that substituting Royal with Obama would attract more customers. Instead what was attracted was a lot of angry constituents who demanded the name be switched back, citing the use of a black man's name in a stereotypical context.

Honestly I think it was the angry constituents who took it too far. There's plenty of buisness' named after presidents assumably without prior consent (JFK Fried Chicken to name a similar one, Roosevelt Field Mall etc). The simple fact that Obama is black seems to be the deciding factor between offensive and not offensive. In my opinion, seeking out sterotypes where they aren't blatantly obvious enough to be intentional is just as bad as supporting the steretype itself. Brownsville is a section of Brooklyn with a high-population of African Americans -- the owner, Mr.Jabbar, is of Indian heritage so to make a statement that his decision to rename his store was racially charged seems a little farfetched to me. Shouldn't we not be trying to remind everyone of the racist connotation of fried chicken is to African-American's? If not, then black people everywhere might as well just stop eating fried chicken to prove everyone wrong.