Monroe Anderson

Throw Back Thursday--Candidate Obama in New Hampshire

January 2008

    I shot this photograph while I was covering the New Hampshire primary election as a freelance journalist working for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper. I was on the Obama press bus when we made an impromptu stop at Jack's Coffee Shop in New London, New Hampshire. There were more reporters and photogs than Jack's could hold. And, there was a pecking order as to who was positioned where. TV cameras and their reporters were up front. Still photographers were stationed behind them. Bringing up the back of the shop were print reporters like me.

    As we waited for Sen. Barack Obama to get off his campaign bus for the photo op, I exited through a rear door to the coffee shop, which was on a strip mall, to check out Vessels & Jewels, a quaint gift shop adjoining Jack's. When the candidate appeared, rather than heading straight for the coffee shop and the awaiting journalists, he came into the gift store and began shopping for gifts for Michelle, Natasha and Malia. Candidate Obama and I exchanged greetings as he looked at jewelry in the store.

    I was the only journalist in the shop so I pulled out my camera, popping off a few shots that became my exclusive photos. Obama paid for his purchase then left Jack's to enter the front of the coffee shop and the rest of the media from his two press buses. As I stood outside watching him head for the coffee shop, Michelle and her security got off the bus. She waved at me, then walked over and gave me a hug. I've known her since I spoke to Public Allies, a civic group she headed up back in 1993. She then joined her husband and I returned to my position with the press corps at the back of the coffee shop. Obama shook hands with the customers in the show, ordered a cup of tea and answered a few questions before we all got back on our respective buses and headed on to the next campaign stop.

What would Allah say about Chick-Fil-A?

    I’d heard about Chick-Fil-A long before I tasted it. It was being touted by a few of my friends as so good it would make you want to slap your momma.
    Last year, while driving out east,  my wife, Joyce Owens, and I stopped at one of its franchises and much to my surprise, I discovered Chick-Fil-A tasted like, well, it tasted like....chicken.
    It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t special either. Harold’s Chicken Shack on the South Side or Marcello’s chicken on the North Side both serve a tastier bird.
    So when I noticed that a Chick-Fil-A had opened a couple of blocks off the Mag Mile, I made no beeline to grab a bite. And, when there was a call to boycott the fast food chicken chain because its CEO, Dan Cathy, exposed himself as being anti-gay, it was as easy for me to ignore as to not vote for Mitt Romney.
    But when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Alderman Joe Moreno started making noises about cancelling Chick-Fil-A’s order for a second restaurant in Chicago, my interest was piqued.
    The two Chicago pols took it beyond the boycott to the political stage. Should a restaurant be barred from doing business in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood because Cathy--who takes prides himself in being a good Christian and family man--is a bigot?
    There would be no easy answer if Cathy’s bigotry was just a matter of religious belief. But this man puts his money where his mouth is. In 2010, the fast food chain donated nearly $2 million to anti-gay groups.   
    The bottom line: Cathy’s nearly 2,000 restaurant chain is funding bias against gays.
    And while there is no proof that any Chick-Fil-A has refused to take money from homosexuals, the contributions speak volumes in and of themselves.

All you have to do is look at it a little differently.

Instead of Chick-Fil-A CEO being a family man and a Christian, let’s imagine that he was a family man and a Muslim. As a good Muslim, let’s say he bragged about being anti-Israel, rather than anti-gay. Let’s think of what the reaction would be when it was discovered that he contributed money to anti-Israeli groups. Not terrorists groups but pro-Palistinian groups.

I wonder how important it’d be that Chick-Fil-A had no record of discriminating against Jews. And I wonder if the same people who flocked into the Chick-Fil-A Appreciate Day would be lining up to show their support and contributing to record sales.

There’s that old axiom about not discussing religion or politics at the dinner table. Dan Cathy might want to make it his food for thought.