Let’s begin with a prayer:
Dear wise and everlasting father,
King of Kings, Lord of Lords, we come to you the only way we know how—with a church organist playing in the background (Everyone knows that boosts the prayer signal by 23 percent). Precious father, we understand that nothing in this world happens without your say-so. It was you who formed Michaela Coel’s cheekbones with your own hands. You inspired your prophet Juvenile to create the negro spiritual warning that old Serpent, the Devil, to Back Dat Asp Up . You are the one who came to Lawrence Frank in a dream in 1938 and gave him the recipe for our eternal salvation—Lawry’s Seasoned Salt.
And now we, your people, who ain’t never done nothing to nobody (except for that MLK “Freedom to Twerk” day party flyer...But we repented for that, right?) ask you for one thing:
Not the chicken wings, Lawd!
Just in case the blue iMessage bubble hasn’t popped up on the Almighty’s phone yet (I’m pretty sure the Bible says that God’s messenger, the archangel Gabriel, uses an iPhone) I’ll let Reuters deliver the bad news:
A sample taken from the surface of frozen chicken wings imported into the southern city of Shenzhen from Brazil, as well as samples of outer packaging of frozen Ecuadorian shrimp sold in the northwestern Xian city, have tested positive for the virus, local authorities said on Thursday.
The discoveries came a day after traces of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 were found on the packaging of frozen shrimp from Ecuador in a city in eastern Anhui province. China has been stepping up screenings at ports amid the concerns over food imports.
Shenzhen’s health authorities traced and tested everyone who might have come into contact with potentially contaminated food products, and all results were negative, the city’s notice said.
While this may just be a case of the Good Lord sending a message to the strip club wing-loving shooting guard Lou Williams (someone please check on Lou) chicken and shrimp is also the official meal of ballers who are on a budget. For black people everywhere, this is the same as white people finding out that kale causes chlamydia or Donald Trump discovering that watching Fox News lowers his IQ by 100 points (It’s actually only 62 points).
Why, lawd, why?
After COVID-19; the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and the protests crippling cities across the country (the white anti-mask protests, not the other ones), the only thing that gave us any joy in 2020 was thinking about lemon pepper wet and WAP. How are we supposed to get through the rest of this confounded year with no chicken wings?
Sure, 99 percent of the chicken bought in America came from the U.S., according to Tom Super, a spokesperson for the National Chicken Council where I just submitted a resume for a part-time job. But if I consume 99 pieces of chicken, what am I supposed to do for the rest of the week?
Scientists say that you probably can’t get COVID-19 from eating chicken but remember they told us we didn’t need masks? Remember way back in the early 2020s when they told us that as long as we washed our hands and didn’t let people cough directly in our mouths, we probably couldn’t get COVID and now we have to walk around in latex suits of armor to go grocery shopping?
As a matter of fact, In June, a person at the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment told reporters that frozen chicken coronavirus might be possible because, even though there’s no evidence showing frozen food has caused COVID-19, according to Reuters, viruses can survive for two years at minus 20 degrees Celsius (which, in Fahrenheit is approximately “cold as -fuck” degrees.)
We have to do something. We need to start a GoFundMe grant for an HBCU to study which hot sauce is more effective at killing the coronavirus. Can COVIDs survive hot grease? What if you fry them in anointing oil? The coronas probably gravitate toward the drum, which is why I always eat flats.
To be fair, I wouldn’t even worry about this if I were you. I’m sure everything will be fine as long as you bless your food. By tomorrow, Whole Foods will probably be selling free-range, organic chicken wings that were raised with a mask over their beak, anyway. In the meantime, I’m moving to the NBA bubble. Lou Williams hasn’t complained about the bubble chickens once, so I defer to the guard almighty.
Please don’t worry. If you are concerned, however, maybe you should start eating at Church’s. I know those cockdeisel wings didn’t come from sickly chickens. Church’s wings come exclusively from chickens who have been incarcerated and do pushups in their cells all day. I’m pretty sure that’s in the Bible, too. The Washington Post already warned us about the Trump administration’s plan to “open up” the poultry economy.
According to CNN, “there is no scientific evidence that meat transmits the virus,” which is from a statement from the Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA). But you know what I call the ABPA?
“The Same Motherfuckers Who Sold the Corona-que Wings.”
Which reminds me, my fellow brothers of Omega Psi Phi must be reeling right now. All we have left is beer. This is so cat.
It’s probably a plot by the Kappas. Or maybe the hand sanitizer industry is trying to move into the dipping sauce market.
Nah, it’s probably the vegans. I never trusted those motherfuckers after my cousin Cicely brought a box of Beyond Meat to my aunt’s cookout. Look, if God didn’t want me to eat burgers, he wouldn’t have made cows out of ground beef. I know that’s in Thessalonians. Or Leviticus. I just know vegans might not catch the coronavirus but they also can’t catch the Holy Ghost.
Anyway, chickens can get coronavirus.
I think that’s what we’ve learned here.
And Amen.