Imagine this.

Standing on the corner of Malcolm X Blvd. and 125th St. and seeing four corner establishments lit up in bright lights.

“Charles Rangel’s Chitlin’ Stop”
“Malcolm Smith’s Big Blunts”
“Yvette Clarke’s Pigfeet Kitchen”
“Obama’s Red Drink and Refreshments”

Could you imagine?

If the description of these fictitious store names, which feed off negative stereotypes of American Blacks, caught the ire of your attention then the recent naming of a chicken establishment after President Barack Obama should do just the same.

Led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Brooklyn Councilman Charles Barron, a group of protesters rallied outside the establishment “Obama Fried Chicken” in Brownsville last week saying the name taunts of racism. In fact – the name smacks.

Despite this, the group is not asking for the store to close – simply to change the name of the sign. And, according to protesters the manager of the store had considered changing the sign.

But, that was before customers apparently started flowing in to the establishment.

The store’s owner Mohammad Jabbar, who had once considered using the name Popular Fried Chicken, said, “We are not changing the sign … everyone is coming and saying they love the sign.”

This leads me to ask the question – how hungry does a Black person have to be to bend toward losing his or her own pride for a leg and a thigh?

Sure, we could say the establishment’s name may have been crafted, because it evokes a sense of pride in Obama as our nation’s first Black president.

But the fact of using his name with an item that has long been synonymous in describing the poor living conditions of African Americans is no laughing matter. The positive in Obama’s name here is immediately altered by the negative and borders on condescending.

Why couldn’t we have been inspired to immediately build schools, banks or institutions of self-worth in our communities and name them after Obama – rather than fried chicken?

Trust: Had an establishment been named “Bush’s Peckerwood Pizza” or “Clinton’s Crackerbox” we would not have heard the end of it. The Feds would have closed those operations down before anyone of us would have had the chance to buy a slice of anything.

That’s reason why chicken-hungry people in Brooklyn should pass up in being patrons to this establishment and join Sharpton’s cause in changing the store’s name.

If you’re that hungry for fried chicken keep walking an extra block or two – don’t sell your self short for a two-piece.