Sunday, March 8, 2009

Them Belly Full BBQ Co.

We are in the presence of the most culturally insensitive artifact we have ever uncovered.

Take a bow, barbekooks. You've really outdone yourselves this time.

When a music legend's plea for racial justice and the acknowledgment of our shared humanity becomes another lamebrain barbecue slogan… Well, it tries one's faith.

We are all accustomed by now to the coarsening of our culture, the cheapening of our history, the defiling of our profoundest yearnings. It has happened so often, many of us no longer know the difference between authentic lives lived and the greasy speeches and grimy lies of the advertisers, the hypnotizers, and the bamboozlers.

Charlatans show us a warped mirror of ourselves and mesmerize us with voices we take to be our own. They do this to sell us things we don't want, need, or even understand. They do it to prevent us from feeling our own power.

Which brings us back to Bob Marley's anthem of despair "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)."
Cost of livin' gets so high.
Rich and poor they start to cry.
Now the weak must get strong.
They say, "Oh, what a tribulation!"
Them belly full, but we hungry.
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
A rain is fall, but the dirt it tough.
A pot is cook, but the food no 'nough.
Food is not enough. The spirit must be nourished. The thirst for mercy must be slaked!

Only… not in Suicidefoodistan. Everything there is just an excuse for mocking the animals sold down the river. So the "hungry, angry mob" is just that: No longer a metaphor for the multitudes who would be free, now it is only a problem to be solved by suicidal animals marching to their besotted deaths. "Hungry, you say? Here."

The animals (including a pig, whose flesh is abjured by many Rastas) wear dreadlocks and bear all the telltale signs of ganja use. Their flag is the distasteful bastard child of the Rasta and Texas flags.

Is nothing sacred? Can you really wonder?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

looks like the pig is chugging barbeque sauce (?)

Erika said...

Wow, it's like every time I think it's offended me in every way possible I realize another way in which it's offensive. This is just an explosion of poor judgment.

Anonymous said...

Wow, um. Wow. Yeah.

complete with cuteness said...

wow - there are some offensive things on this blog - but this one might take the cake! Materialism instead of spirituality! Racial Stereotyping! Disturbing Animals Happy to March to their Death!

This one has it all....

ugh.

Anonymous said...

Are you aware that most actual Rastas are vegetarian or even vegan?

And while we're on it, has anyone noticed how Reggae music, one of the most blatantly revolutionary and political musical genres in history, has been reformatted as a soundtrack for white frat boys having fun in the sun?

Anonymous said...

I think it's fucking awsome! Jerk chicken, whole hog and every delicious part of cow. Where is this place?