Role Models, by definition, are people that are examples of an "ideal" end result a person wants to reach. For example: a child might aspire to be a police officer, so they look up to their local police. However, in this century there are few children that want to be everyday heroes--but want to be rappers, singers, vixens, drug dealers, players and models.
The idea of children and teens wanting to be these new "occupations" are scary!!! The idea of a young girls wanting to be a "vixen" dancers or video "models" and mimicking the dancer's movements leads me to believe there is no hope for our future black citizens.
Many of you may balk at the above statement saying that these kids will grow out of these aspirations or someone will tell them not to be like those girls. But do you really believe that?
It has been proven that children mimic what they see parents and adults do. Young, Black parents are known for sitting their children in front of the T.V. and letting the child digest harmful and negative images, so the parent can have peace. The channel may be stuck on BET or MTV, where there is a video with semi-naked women shacking and jiggling everything in the camera, crawling around on the floor or sprawled over the body of a rapper. That one video can plant an idea or set a role for both genders.
To the Female/girl watching the video it shows that to get attention you must dress in as little as possible and shake and jiggle your booty. Which can turn into the occupation of being a Stripper- don't even dress it up with the "Exotic Dancer" title, just call it what it is!
To Male/boys watching the same video it shows that to be "the man", you must have semi-naked women dancing around or on you. It can also give the impression that all women are sexual objects and not an actual person, that ideology then manifest itself into boys wanting to "pimp" girls or to become players.
The ideas of what a women or a man is, is construed through music videos and songs. The more children and teens are exposed to these images/videos and people--the more they look up to them.
For this purpose we are going to use
Beyonce Knowles and 50 Cent to prove a point.
Beyonce Knowles is an international superstar and has millions of fans. She has become a "role model" for young girls everywhere, but what exactly are the young girls aspiring to be?
The image of
Beyonce has been sexed up over her decade long career. In the beginning it was all about being glamorous so they can stand out from the sea of other girl groups. But as soon as Destiny's Child became a household name the hemlines began to rise, breast became more exposed and midriffs showing. When
Beyonce struck out on her own--her first video showed her in a short pink sparkly dress with garter hooks and hosiery showing with flowing
blonde hair. I am going to stop there and point out what is wrong with that picture:
1. There are few black people that have flowing, straight
BLONDE hair! We do not have that in our genetic make up, unless you are mixed and even then you will not get
STRAIGHT BLONDE HAIR.
2.
Beyonce Knowles uses sex to sell her image and music. Her popularity is based off of her looks and her party music
3. Destiny's Child and
Beyonce Knowles only used sexy image after they became popular.
Lastly, when
Beyonce became more popular--she became more naked and her dances became more sexual. Does anybody else see a stereotype going on?
So is this model lady/women behavior? Is being semi-naked and crawling on the floor with
BLONDE HAIR a positive message for our young ladies? I don't think so--but some want to aspire to be that image.
50 cent in his prime was what every black male wanted to be. He was the dude that had beautiful naked women winding and grinding around him and on him, while tossing up money making it "rain". The image of a strong, muscle heavy black man having all these women around him and tossing money up like used paper, makes him appear to be "the man". So to young men, to be the man you must have lots of disposable income and beautiful, half dressed women. The idea of lots of women, extinguishes the actions of having a meaningful relationship.
Sidenote: In most rap videos, the rapper usually is wearing an urban label--if not their own label-- that is suppose to express the "vibe" of Hip Hop or it's swagger. In turn, young boys want to look fly and have "the man" swagger. They may turn to "get-rich-quick" occupations, i.e. Drug Dealers and Pimps.
Based off the 50 cents images alone--looking thuggish is cool. We send this message to our young men that wearing "thuggish" clothes is
ok and will make him more desirable to young women. Do we really need our young, black men to be
thugs? Do we want them to resort to violent behavior and being brutes? Is being educated and a business savvy man not cool ? But this is the type of role models we have for our young men of color. Does anybody see a set stereotypes in this image?
Artist never want to be labeled as "Role Models". They don't want the responsibility of being held to a high standard and keeping positivity in all of their ventures; it is easier to know that they can create sexual images of themselves for money and not deal with the backlash of having put out negative messages. To me they are accepting the role of being well paid whores, than being a positive force. But they do feel flattered when you tell them that people look up to them.
I know there are positive black role models out in the world, but why are they not given the limelight like black celebrities?
Many may point out that we have the highest black role model, i.e. President Obama. But he is but one positive black role model among the thousands of damaging role models. Is it a planned scheme to shut out positive black people/ images and pump in negative ones? I know many of you are saying the media is racist and love seeing black people being stereotypical. But they are not the only ones to blame-- searching and publishing positive role models is also the job of the black community. Essence and Ebony magazine can not do it alone, we must demand positivity for our future seeds, so they will stop being targets.
We must go out and research positive role models for our children, BET will not show all positive images of black people-- they are owned by Viacom, the same company that owns MTV and
VH1. Viacom is ran by a group of old white men, they don't understand the impact of positive images on black children/teens or maybe they do!
Young Black people we must search out positive role model and mentors for both our children and for us. We must learn about our past and so we can become a better future. Black women we must understand the images of half-naked women and celebrities only sets us back as a group.
We must teach the younger girls that having 2 or 3 kids or baby daddies is not acceptable anymore.We must help our immediate future and self before we rise and become positive black role models. We can not depend on media or music to do it for us--positivity does not move units in music, sex and degradation for self and women do.
Love it or Leave It
