Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

[rah]

I guess that's better than a Black Sale.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

My daughters school didn't give the kids the day off. Instead the kids were required to participate in a day of community service instead.

[rah]

Yes, picking cotton would have been quite appropriate.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Out of season unfortunately.

[rah]

I'm sure they could have found a suitable substitute.

[Barnabas]

If Nike offered money to some famous Gangsta Rappers so that they would stop using their shoes because they don't want Nike to be associated with Gangsta Rap, would you consider that racist?

Something like that just happened in Argentina with Lacoste

[giblets]

There is only one civil rights movement today. It is the movement to restore to potheads the right to hold honest jobs, to live peaceably without threat of prosecution, and to raise their children free of government propaganda and lies. Gays face none of these problems, and I'm getting sick of your *****ing.

Considering that blacks are far more likely to get arrested for marijuana possession, pot has at least as much to do with civil rights for black people as homosexuality does. I'm guessing the real reason Kidicious supports prohibition is because it gets black people in jail and kills Mexicans but Kidicious won't admit it.

[Elok]

If Nike offered money to some famous Gangsta Rappers so that they would stop using their shoes because they don't want Nike to be associated with Gangsta Rap, would you consider that racist?

Not at all. Gangsta Rap is, thankfully, far from the sum total of black culture. It's just one rather unsavory and ill-reputed facet of it.

[molly bloom]

There is only one civil rights movement today.... to live peaceably without threat of prosecution, and to raise their children free of government propaganda and lies. Gays face none of these problems...

How very true.

Gay men and lesbians face no prejudice at all from politicians looking for votes from the Christian Right in the United States.

And certainly none from employers.

Or neighbours or landlords.


Lay off the mind altering substances....

[Tupac Shakur]

Not at all. Gangsta Rap is, thankfully, far from the sum total of black culture. It's just one rather unsavory and ill-reputed facet of it.

There's nothing unsavory about "gangsta" rap, which was great in the '90s and hasn't been a vital genre in a decade.

[Felch]

How very true.

Gay men and lesbians face no prejudice at all from politicians looking for votes from the Christian Right in the United States.

And certainly none from employers.

Or neighbours or landlords.


Lay off the mind altering substances....

Are gays given pre-employemnt medical tests to see if they're gay? How many people are in prison for being gay? Are kids being sent home from school, taught that being gay is a crime, and that they should say no to homosexuality?

Of course not. Gays haven't been treated like potheads are for decades. The worst they can come up with is "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." If the military didn't ask me about marijuana use, and just asked me to keep quiet, I'd be stoked. Instead I was rejected because I had been arrested, not convicted, arrested, years earlier. Just about everybody I know that smokes pot regularly has been jailed for it at least once, and one of my old smoking buddies is serving a ten year stretch in federal prison for crossing state lines with about 10 kilos. Poor Danny doesn't even get a chance for parole until 8 1/2 years into his sentence. He'll serve more time behind bars than many violent offenders.

Gays deal with negativity, and small-mindedness, but so does everybody. What they don't deal with is a life of legal discrimination and prosecution.

[Elok]

There's nothing unsavory about "gangsta" rap, which was great in the '90s and hasn't been a vital genre in a decade.

I guess it's still going strong in Argentina. And there's something distinctly unsavory about gangsta rap. I recall one song, popular when I was in high school, included the line "I got blood on my dick since I ****ed a corpse." If I ran Nike, I wouldn't want my shoes associated with that.

[onodera]

Martin Luther > Martin Luther King

[MrFun]

Gays deal with negativity, and small-mindedness, but so does everybody. What they don't deal with is a life of legal discrimination and prosecution.

We do face legal discrimination here in United States.

[MrFun]

Er, no, they're not the same. There are parallels, of course, but that doesn't mean you can say they're "the same," and I can understand why some black people would be upset that gay people are taking the memory of what they went through and retooling it for their own PR without acknowledging the differences.

Where did I say that they're exactly the same? What's wrong with acknowledging the involvement of gay activists in the civil rights movement of black people?