Jack & Jill Politics

Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is….

Wait, that doesn’t ENTIRELY work because my name is Fredric and I’m the furthest thing from the top emcee. Regardless, I’m happy to introduce myself to the Jack and Jill Politics family and want to personally thank Cheryl and Baratunde for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you lovely folk.

I wandered over here from my now retired blog, the Young Black Professional Guide, and just felt the writing bug creeping up on me as our boy Barry pushes through his first six months as President. I’ve been stalking JJP since the days they were on Blogspot and had that brown and orange layout and have been admirers of their work, thoughts, and progress ever since!

While I see that many of the authors are holding down keeping the community informed, I’ll go ahead and excuse myself for the many impending soap boxes to come.

If you REALLY want to keep up with what’s going on my head, you can follow me on Twitter as well.

Ok, enough of the plugs and intros….a couple of ideas that have been circling.

On Dr. Gates being arrested IN HIS HOUSE…

Dr. Henry Louis Gates

Damn that. This is 2009 with Barry (yes, I keep calling him that because he’s my homie) in the office.

If there was ever a person who deserves the benefit of the doubt from stupid-ass police officers, it’s a scholar, writer, historian, and prestigous Harvard professor. I don’t care what it may have looked like. The police officers, whether white, Black, Latino, or intellectually challenged, should have used their ‘my bad’ card and turned right around after my man showed him his ID.

There is absolutely no reason, whether you’re screaming at the top of your lungs or dancing a jig for a police officer to arrest you IN YOUR OWN DAMN HOUSE. And to the neighbor across the street who ‘reported’ that she thought he was a burglar, mind your own damn business and ask the person ‘Can I help you?’ from the comfort of your side of the street like any normal human-being.

Come on people. We are NOT afraid of our own damn neighbors that much. And if you are, you need to get involved in your community, interact with people who live on your block, or step your salary up and move. We gotsta’ do better.

On Funding our crazy Health Care System…

Flaming Hot Cheetos

As I tweeted to Ms. JJP when she asked for questions to ping off Barry regarding the health care situation, I honestly believe we need to tax the hell out of Flaming Hot Cheetos and R/C Cola.

SERIOUSLY!

I, for one, am willing to pay more money for my Big Mac, 40 ounce Coke, and super-sized fries if I knew it meant that the dough help make it too expensive to put these diabetes machines in my poor communities. My thought is that if we can get Mrs. Sebellius to channel those funds into programs like my man Will Allen, we can make it cheaper for people to snack on home-grown apples, carrots, and grilled peppers than red fingers covered in Trans Fat crumbs.

If that means that I can’t have my Mickey D’s more than once a month, then that is the sacrifice I am willing to make.

Say it with me: If the meal has a higher than 50x the calories than its weight in ounces, it needs to be taxed twice as much. For comparison, a Big Mac has 576 calories (w/o cheese) and weights 7.5 ounces. Do the math.

Am I wrong?

That’s it for now. I don’t want to burn myself out on the first post.