This is just bad all the way around.
Aargh!
First let me say I do not think this show is racist, so I don’t point blame at The Oxygen Network for airing it. But I do have to say I am appalled that the show is on the air, or going to be. It just highlights the worst part of our society. And yes it does play into stereotypes. But Oxygen is not making up that the people in the show all participate in this “baby mama” crap. I just wish it didn’t get highlighted and give anyone the impression that this is even remotely OK.
“All My Babies’ Mamas,” a one-hour reality special slated to air in the spring of 2013, features Carlos “Shawty Lo” Walker, an Atlanta-based hip-hop artist with 11 children by 10 different women. Oh, he’s also got a 19-year-old girlfriend, who’s a year shy of his oldest child.
By the looks of the leaked sneak peak and an early press release, the show’s take on this challenging family dynamic is more “Brady Bunch” than “An American Family.”
“As the household grows, sometimes so does the dysfunction, leaving the man of the house to split his affection multiple ways while trying to create order,” reads the goofy-sitcom-style description, in a press release posted the Oxygen’s website late December. “Will there be a conflict over a family holiday, who needs school supplies and who holds the household finance purse strings, or can these feisty babies’ mamas band together and live peacefully as one family unit?”
Since the show was publicized, the conflict has been primarily off-camera. Calls for a boycott of the network and a petition to pull the special from the network’s lineup have risen to a fever pitch in the past week.
“By pushing these degrading images, your company seeks to profit from the humiliation of girls and women and the blatant stereotyping of African-Americans,” writes, Sabrina Lamb, the woman behind the petition.
Well there is a show I won’t be watching. Here is a link to the full article.
Isn’t this absolutely ridiculous? I actually planned on writing about this as well.
it seems to me that the goal here is to capture attention and focus on ignorant black folks. This saddens me because we (at least some of us) do not fit into the stereotypes that we have been labeled with. And now with this show, that will most likely only show those who do indeed fully represent sterotypes, it’s going to be harder to crawl out of the hole that we are already in! What happened to The Cosby Show? That’s what we should be watching. A black family that has education, common sense, love and a genuine bond. All My Babies’ Mamas is NOT a good representation of any of that. Unfortunately, people will watch it because its entertainment for them, but a reality for those on the other side of the camera. Smh.
Totally agree. Frankly I try not to be embarrassed by the behavior of some of my folks, since they don’t represent who I am. But you can’t help it sometimes. You are right, whether we like it or not, people like this and shows like this, do impact other blacks who are nothing like this. It a sad reality but it is also true.
I won’t be watching that. I don’t like watching shows where people of any race are a stereotype.
I’m with you on that.
1. Some people will do anything to get on TV, and there are plenty of stations willing to film it.
2. This show is horrible because it plays to people’s confirmation bias. That is, if you think “X type of person always commits Y type of behavior,” then you only notice those few times when your prejudices are confirmed, not the majority of the times when they are refuted. This network is exploiting people, the situation, and the resultant controversy for cash, with no regard for consequences.
So true my friend. But I also “hate” that people choose to live like this. The exploitation is an added strike though.
This is why I hate this country sometimes…