Growing up in the South (Virginia, specifically), Sunday just wasn't Sunday without my grandmother's Southern fried chicken. And I'm here to tell you that it was truly, truly good. Colonel Sanders had nothing on Mattie Winborne. And the only debate that took place around her dinner table was over who would get the breast and who would get the thigh. Today, there is a dichotomy regarding the relationship between African Americans and fried chicken. Let the "right" person crack the "wrong" joke, and we'll get so offended and raise so much hell that you just may lose your high-paying anchor job on a television network. Even beloved, Grammy Award-winning artist Mary J. Blige caught hell just for doing a commercial in which she sang about chicken. But when we go down to the family reunion in North Carolina, there best be some friend chicken or somebody's catching hell. Hell, even cousin Sheila, who's a vegan, will sneak off with a wing. And quiet as it's kept, there are other folks who love fried chicken, too... and you know who you are.
Now, fast-forward to last Friday night, and I'm driving to the Chick-fil-A kiss-in in Hollywood, to cover the LGBT marriage equality demonstration for my webseries, NoMoreDownLow.TV. I didn't think there would be any black folks there. But as I just explained, we have a love affair with chicken. And much to my surprise, they were there, and raising hell, but it had nothing to do with chicken wings. Some were there in favor of Chick-fil-A, while others were there to boycott the fast-food chain and deny themselves not only a chicken sandwich but the waffle fries, too! Funny, once again, black folks were standing on oppositie sides of their chicken, which has become a metaphor for the debate over gay marriage.
In this NoMoreDownLow.TV Newsbreak, correspondent Mark Noble reports from Hollywood's "ground zero" of the marriage equality debate, at the Chick-fil-A located at Sunset and Highland:
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