I read this over before posting today and realize this analysis is only the tip of the iceberg. I need to process more and delve deeper, but this is a decent place to start.
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Because I enjoy hearing about the raggedy lives of other people, I listen to the Steve Harvey Morning Show on a fairly regular basis. At 8:05am I try to make sure I’m turned into WDAS Philly through iHeartRadio so I can satiate my thirst for moral superiority by absorbing the tales of love and life woes written so terribly by random listeners. Yesterday a woman wrote in and the subject of her letter was “14 Grandkids in Less Than One Year”. Excerpts are as follows:
“I’m a 41 year old woman...with a 19 year old son. who just graduated high school last year and seems like ever since he graduated he’s been making babies. I started hearing about more grandkids and i started getting worried so i sat my son down and asked my son how many kids he had. 5. He was 18. But in March of this year i had girls come by saying that their kids are my grandkids too. So i got all the girls together and it was a total of 17 girls. I had all babies tested within 3 months and it turns out only 14 of the babies are his. I’ve spent thousands on DNA tests and I’m tired. I raised my son the best i can and he does try to help these girls out. I love being a grandparent but i just don’t know how to love them all the same without showing favoritism. please help.”
Now. The advice given by Shirley Strawberry and Steve Harvey was pretty on point. Shirley pointed out that granny should be less concerned with showing favoritism and more concerned about how the FUCK her 19 year old son has 14 kids within a 12 month time frame. Steve chimed in, getting angrier as he spoke, about how this boy has learned from somewhere that manhood is about how many women you can sleep with and how many babies you can spawn and that, unfortunately, he never learned that real men take care of their kids, etc, etc. Obviously this woman’s predicament is tragic. being 41 with a 19 year old, she was pretty young when she had him (22) and the letter does not mention, even in the slightest, the presence (or absence) of the boy’s father.
But I digress. Steve Harvey made excellent points, all of which focused on the need for this boy to understand the gravity of the situation he put himself in. He also mentioned that people know how to get pregnant and how NOT to get pregnant and talked about the health dangers of having wildly rampant and apparently indiscriminate unprotected sex. He recommended that the mom have the son tested for STDs and that the mom get in touch with the parents of these 14 girls to brainstorm ways to educate these children in such a way as to give the innocent babies the best chances in life they can possibly have.
What was absent, however, was Steve’s analysis of WHERE this boy learned such destructive behavior. There was a guess/assumption that this boy grew up without a strong, male guiding presence in his life; I think that’s probably true. But, let’s look closer. Who told him having unprotected sex was the thing to do? Who told him that having 17 potential babymamas was the business? From whom was he getting his behavioral cues? What mores told these girls - who had to know about each other on some level before the “Come to Jesus” meeting at mama’s house - that sharing this 18/19 year old boy was cute? This idea that bedding as many women as possible is not a new school of thought. The adage, and double standard, is age old; I wish, however, that it was as antiquated a notion as, I don’t know, T-Model Fords and phonographs.
You see, just as young women these days are bombarded with notions of how they should look and dress via multitudinous media outlets, boys are also being bombarded with ill informed messages. Where do these messages come from? Movies, TV shows, commercials, and, perhaps most influential, music. More specifically? Radio promoted, commercial rap. Commercial rap has, legit, ruined a generation. It has debased our people and, most tragically, our children in such a catastrophic way that their entire self-concept, from the moment they’re first put into social situations without their parents, has been warped. Things like accountability and responsibility are frowned upon in commercial rap; just look at the fact that NO RAPPER who has contributed to the destructive diaspora has admitted any wrongdoing and, in fact, flips the argument onto any and everyone else.
Lil’ Wayne, I’m talking directly to your stankin’ ass. Punk. I hate you and everything you stand for.
But I digress.
Commercial rap and its pervasive messages, encouragement, and celebration of of misogyny, violence, degradation, materialism, greed, illegal activity, and other manifestations of base human behavior has remained, for the better part of the last two decades, a decidedly prolific part of mainstream culture. Hip hop, as an art form, has unwittingly transformed into something uglier than I can describe. It disgusts me.
Let me also disclose that I own some of it! I know, I know I need to negotiate how this anger toward this situation meshes with the fact that every workout playlist has songs with the word “bitch” and “ho” and “suck my dick”. I can say, while in no way excusing my selection, that all of this was purchased when I was an adult - well, legally so. I was definitely 18 when Columbia House first brought me down the path of destruction LOL! By that time, the self I’d grown to know had been etched into being by the people I chose to be my family and friends. It was also inspired by weekends in Brooklyn singing old Temptations songs with my aunts and dancing in the living room on Lexington Avenue wishing, even at 13, that there was more music like them and the O’Jays still around. Alas, that was not meant to be. I grew into Bad Boy and Death Row and all that shit. But I never, at any point, thought I needed to degrade myself in any way to get or keep a boy. Foxy Brown was fun to listen to, but that chick was crazy. Lil Kim had hot beats and sounded tough and all that, but she was crazy too. And, yes, she’s “...still the same bitch from the escalator”.
Glad you’ve grown, Kim, glad you’ve grown.
I guess it’s that distance that’s allowed me to enjoy the music when I need it, and indulge and be satisfied by real hip hop or classic old school. My soul is vintage in many ways.
Damn, these digressions are a mess!
Anyway, so little 19 year old has 14 kids, likely no job, and I’m gonna put it on the table that there are more on the way. The messages he’s been receiving about the link between manhood and sexuality have been given, reinforced, and encouraged most likely by the music to which he often listens and the friends he has who ALSO subscribe to the same awful formula put out by commercial rap. Just sad all the way around.
So fast forward from yesterday to today. Today, Friday, is Freedom Friday on the Steve Harvey show but I had to make sure I tuned in for the Strawberry Letter. I HOPED it would be something funny that Steve would joke about and make everybody laugh. Nope. It was Take 2 of the Strawberry Letter from yesterday! WTF?! Now Steve was taking callers and everyone was making the same valid, legit points form yesterday. Bravo, callers, good for you.
Once the letter and phone calls were done, Steve brought a guest onto the phone. His name is Steve Stoute. Steve, an extremely successful marketer, recently had his first book published. "The Tanning of America" (http://tanningofamerica.com/) talks about many things, I'm sure. My issue came with Stoute's morning summary and his belief that “‘hip hop culture’ has done more for race relations than anything since Martin Luther King, Jr.” Stoute also posited, on air, that he is not concerned (as in this part would negate his entire thesis) with the content of the music or whether or not someone “likes” it; the fact is that it has changed the texture, and color, of mainstream America (as evidenced by the fact that at a Jay-Z concert he went to, 75% of the audience was non-Black). Now, thanks to commercial rap videos, people no longer have to be afraid of a young man “just because he wears his hat a certain way”. Commercial rap celebrates being poor and says, “Hey, it’s ok” and can maybe speak to that young man or woman who is also poor and let them know that they, too, can reach their dreams.
Exhale. As an educator, I am ALL FOR talking to, mentoring, and educating children and young adults about the endless possibilities of your dreams when you combine them with ambition, perserverence, and hard work. However, when these poverty celebrations appear on the TV screen, very rarely are they accompanied by the downtrodden welfare recipient who works hard in school, gets a full scholarship to college, graduates at the top of the class, and goes on to a successful, professional, and LEGAL career. That sounds too much like a Common video. No. Instead, these poverty celebrations consist of women shaking their asses for champagne and singles, young Black men dressed in red or blue and claiming gang affiliations with their hands, and plentiful references to buying, selling, and using illegal substances. These poverty celebrations glorify prison life, endorse violence, and encourage young folks to spend their ill gotten gains on the latest fashions.
This is the music that has changed the color of a generation.
Every generation needs to rebel; I get it. But my God today, this is the most destructive rebellion I have ever seen. This isn’t “I’m protesting the Vietnam War” rebellion; this isn’t even “I’m turning the other cheek so the dog can bite it and the water from the hose can hit it” rebellion. This isn’t “I’m gonna get a tattoo because my parents will freak out” rebellion, nor is it “Let try a sip of my parent’s alcohol to see what the big deal is about” rebellion. This indoctrination of self-hatred has become germane to many young people between the ages of 5-21 and it’s crippling the fiber of whatever community you wish to claim. It is this indoctrination, this brainwashing, that motivated a 19 year old to have sex with at LEAST 17 women within 6-12 months and have, as a result, 14 children for which he will never be able to provide.
Stoute markets for a culture that has destroyed our babies. People have done far worse, I know. But damn, Steve, could you NOT see the reality of the situation? Harvey, in his infinite wisdom, cosigned this cooneration with “Hip hop has made more millionaires than ever before!” Seriously? How many millionaires have been made between the legs of our young women at the expense of the children to whom they give birth? How many millionaires have been made in the Child Support offices worldwide at the expense of babies whose custodial parent is struggling because the non-custodial parent is too busy trying to “floss” or “be fly” or whatever bullshit? How many millionaires have been made at the expense of millions of lives lost (whether in prison or dead) far too soon? How many millionaires have been made at the expense, my God, of our children? None of this should be worth it.
Further, if, form an economic standpoint, Harvey’s comment is accurate, how many of these hoodrats will STAY millionaires? Didn’t Harvey JUST have MC Hammer perform at the Hoodie Awards? Did we learn no lesson from him? How many young men and women, trying to get into the “rap game”, have any clue about investments, branding, and business ethics? How many young men and women, trying to get into the “rap game”, have any clue about the amount of time it takes to record quality material: how much time it takes to shop your stuff around and get noticed by a legit company: how much of your soul you have to sign away to be famous? The moguls in rap, and hip hop, have become that way because they have learned to, on some level, rise above the frivolities, focus on diverse ventures, and broaden their portfolios. Do I think Jay-Z could stand to maybe not call Beyonce (yes, his wife and the mother of his unborn child) a bitch in a song? I think he might should think about that. But what I can say about Mr. Carter is that he’s managed to parlay his early life misadventures and dalliances with narcotics into legit business.
That shit takes time. And work. You don’t just wake up and all of a sudden you’re CEO.
But that hard work, that process, is not shown in the poverty celebrations that are easily accessible, through excellent marketing by people like Stoute, to a generation focused on immediate gratification illustrated by materialistic desires. Without a concept of process, protocol, internal motivation, and the importance of failure as well as success, we’re bound to continue to see situations like the 19 year old with a gaggle of kids he can’t help raise, even if he tried.
And when we have celebrities both denouncing and celebrating, within the time frame of 10 minutes, one of the major causes of this tomfoolery, it’s not hard to see why we’re fucking doomed.
