Rocky, save it. Nobody is stupid enoung to not notice that MODERN White men STILL put their women on a pedastal and treat them with more love and respect than ANY Black man treats Black females with.

I am tired of the bullshit. Our young Black girls are in crisis and being destroyed and people are toying aroung with BS excuses trying to save the precious Black man’s ego. This bs must stop NOW if we are going to save our young Black girls!

Focused purpose, you are SO correct, it IS a specifically Black Girl/woman issue. Major props to you, Mary, & CW for speaking the TRUTH. With warriors like you on their side, our precious young Black girls may just have a fighting chance!

The true difference is that black people in general, when they go wild, tend to do so in a more self destructive way. White people in general go very wild, sexually and otherwise, yet will do so in a way that reduces the threat of pregnancy and disease.

But I have seen little evidence that MODERN white men place their women on any significant pedestal any more than black men do.

1. Not acknowledging/supressing our sexuality for fear of being labeled

2. Certain factions making the successful Black women believe that we must save everyone…That if isolated BW are acting out ala Buffy/Corrine , then we have failed…The individual must WANT to live the best life possible…Black women cannot drag anyone into the land of improvement…And anyone who tries to convince you of otherwise is setting the stage for failure

http://dailyrepublic.typepad.com/theotherside/

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_11048218?source=most_viewed

It’s sickening.

Images do affect people, but who’s creating the imagery? I posted a comment a few days ago which for the most point, focused on getting to the ROOT of a problem and being able to sever it. That concept seems to apply here as well.

I live on the outskirts of Manhattan. I’d like to focus on Times Sqaure for a moment which is pretty much at it’s heart. On a busy day (not counting the holidays), If you were to stand on one corner and turn 360 degrees, within that turn you’d be able to see approximately 2,500 to 3,000 people if not more.

If a young Black Woman was asked to strip down to her g-string and dance in the midst of Time Square. Sheer moral value and potential embarrassment may result in “NO” for an answer. If the offer was “sweetened” to $100 to fulfill the request, it’s more than likely the answer would still be “NO”. If the offer was sweetened further, to the tune of $1500, granted a few may consider the offer. However I’m still fairly certain that self respect would prevail. After all, $1500 is not alot of money, but a crowd of 2,500 to 3,000 is alot of people.

I rested my analogy at $1,500, because after a little research I’ve done, that seems to be the average pay for video dancers. So, If we were to take for granted that a young Black Woman would probably not sell her dignity in Times Square in front of 3,000 people, why is it OK to do so if front of millions for the same money on a music video? Dancing isn’t the problem, but dancing while scantily clad is, because it actually creates “imagery”. What happened in the ’90’s with Rwanda is certainly a huge tragedy, but if you look at the situation more closely, it wasn’t the Hutu’s or the Tutsi’s that PROVIDED the negative imagery AT IT’S ROOT. Radio commentary that made claims but had nothing of substance to back up their claims wasn’t the real issue. The point of origin for those claims is the issue. The H’s and T’s definitely had other problems, but that one wasn’t their bag.

In the case of most hip hop music and videos (not pop) these days, the album or videos are already made by the artists or sublabel and the record companies handle little more than distribution and their brand of marketing for the distribution. So In that case, Viacom and Universal are not to blame for imagery. Whatever issues there are have to be dealt with before the distribution stage.

If there are no Black Women “available” to “dance” in such videos:

There’s no argument for or against negative imagery being provided because the imagery doesn’t exist.

There’s no argument for or against what gender is to blame. Blame for what…something that doesn’t exist?

There’s no argument for or against hip hop being still blatantly misogynist because there would (visually) be no current media to prove that statement.

There’s no argument for or against the image of the Black Woman being overly sexualized because…well, you know.

There’s no argument for or against whether certain terms like “video ho” or “video vixen” would magically start to disappear.

There’s no argument for or against whether or not some of the magazines which got their start from glorifying the “video vixen” would also lose subject matter, then popularity, then sales, then distribution and then their existence.

Money for some reason seems to be at THE ROOT of all this mess and many Black Women took the bait and inadvertently started creating alot of negative Black imagery. The problem, like it or not does start with Black Women. The bait is almost a non-issue…just like in the old saying:

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t MAKE him drink.”

For some reason though when this is said, usually its taken as if Black Men are just pointing fingers…placing blame and saying that “it’s your fault, not mine!!” Most of us (Black Men) want the same things you want because we KNOW FOR SURE that other people generally aren’t looking at Black Men and Black Women separately, but looking at Black People as a collective.

(P.S. By the way, I think this is a very interesting and positive direction being taken with the blog as well.)

thanks for this post. i found it very thought provoking.

i don’t remember who said:

“This isn’t a Black issue. This is a societal issue. White girls are selling themselves just as short – sometimes for less reward – Girl’s Gone Wild anyone?”

i simply say:

it IS a black issue. a black woman/girl issue to get specific. when white girls calm down, stop going wild, coif up—unlike black women—they have a nice pedestal their men have provided for them; one that both wm & ww work to maintain for ww to stand on. a pedestal that declares them the epitome of purity and femininity, despite all the “going wild” we see around us. bw/bg have no such thing. how can anyone pretend race is not a factor? i agree that it is ALSO a societal issue. we live in a society where white supremacist constructs are in full effect. that should not be a deterrent nor excuse to not to move forward powerfully.

i co-sign Mary. we can/must/used to control what our children see, hear, learn, etc. there was a time when the parents told the children what to do. the fact that we are engaged in backwards counter-productive thinking and behavior may explain a lot of the mess we see.

the “media” has been sending the message that i am my body parts since i can remember remembering. (that’s when they bothered to acknowledge my existence at all) my rejection of this garbage has been largely because i had parents that were not having it. period. they controlled what i was exposed to as a child. as an adult i have simply continued on that path.

i do believe that we must write our own scripts to replace the “traditional” scripts as well as challenge the media at every turn for their negative depictions—in addition to exercising ALL options when it comes to choosing partners and fathers of our children. those that don’t understand the importance of providing for and protecting their women/children should receive no consideration…

blessings all,
focusedpurpose

http://www.chicagofreedomschool.org