VH1’s Love and Hip Hop “Reality TV Stars” have an adverse group of issues surrounding the Hip Hop culture.  On this upcoming season, a single mom Mimi Faust, decides to become active in the porn industry.  As one can imagine, money played a huge role in her making that career decision but I think many would agree that the negative impacts of her decision on certain crucial aspects of her life should hold greater significance when compared to money. The opportunities for her to obtain a career in a more conservative field will now be impacted by her decision because her reputation will never be the same.  Not to mention, even her daughter’s reputation will also be affected. Unfortunately, it is becoming more common for “Reality TV Stars” to engage in pornographic acts. Other examples include reality star Kim Kardashian and MTV’s Teen Mom star Farrah Abraham.  This is what our young people are viewing today.

Moreover, a better example is Mary Jane Paul –“a news reporter who takes care of her family, is successful in her career, has a lovely home, has relationship issues, has a deep connection to her brother, posts daily affirmations all over her house, and is searching for happiness…..”  Mary Jane has a much esteemed career and she’s very real.  BET Network produced a show that portrayed an African-American woman in the news media industry that faces all sorts of adversities.  They even created a social media campaign entitled, “I am Mary Jane” to make women think about the different aspects of their lives.

Overall, it was a crowd grabbing social media campaign that really exposed the ins and outs of one woman with an esteemed career.   Through the campaign, women explored questions such as “What makes me similar to Mary Jane?  What are my own successes and accomplishments I can be proud of?  What career experiences do I have that make me unique?”  This television show in particular gives a positive example of careers thus proven by the success of the “I am Mary Jane” Social Media Campaign.  Women everywhere were telling why they were Mary Jane on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.  Many don’t realize how much television has an influence on what an individual wants to do in life.  So, publicizing an array of career choices for young people to aspire to via this outlet is important.

VH1’s the “Family Hustle” with rapper, T.I., his wife Tiny and their blended family mimics the world’s most famous, fictional family: “The Huxtables”.  Or, at least that’s what they are trying to accomplish.  However, we recall Bill Cosby being an obstetrician which provided a different career perspective –hence the purpose of this blog.  The simple question I want to pose is “why aren’t other careers such as traveling nurses or neurosurgeon’s or chemist’s or digital director’s to the president spotlighted on television?  Does this spark your curiosity?  Don’t our youth deserve to be exposed to the real lives of these individuals to perhaps embark on their same paths and not the secular styles of some, not all, reality television shows?”  Seeing these examples can help them realize a more productive path to sustainable careers and healthy lifestyles. 

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With this generation of young people, artists in particular, there seems to be a huge level of disregard and disrespect of history. There seems to be a widespread sense of entitlement to so many things — as if no rules apply. While we have become accustomed to (but not at all tolerant of) the misogynistic nature of much of today’s music, this disrespectful, egregious, deprecating reference to African-American history is not only disturbing, but is in my opinion a form of “lynching our own legacy”.

Remixing ‘massa’ who now looks like us. WE have in many ways become our own “slave masters.” However, society disguises these ill acts under the First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech or with the slapping on of labels marked “explicit lyrics”, or “parental advisory”. These terms do not at all justify, indemnify or exculpate the foul use of this reference to one of our ancestors be it by name, or erroneous placement and misuse of our beautiful images. This is not art! This is not clever! This is not “dope!” Nor, is it “fly!” This is a form of “New Millennium Willie Lynchism” that needs to be called out and I am doing it here. I am doing it now!

The “William Lynch Letter”, noted by some African scholars as a false document and urban legend, is an address purportedly delivered by a William (Willie) Lynch to an audience on the bank of the James River in Virginia in 1712 regarding control of slaves within the colony. The letter is said to be a verbatim account of a short speech given by the slave owner, in which he tells other slave masters that he has discovered the “secret” to controlling black slaves by “setting them against one another.”

According to a book by Manfred and Wendt (2011), Globalizing Lynching History: Vigilantism and Extralegal Punishment from an International Perspective lynching is defined as, an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that arise in communities. Bottom line, lynching is murder, plain and simple.

The majority of us in 2013 would not consider what these rappers did as “lynch mob” behavior. Nor, by today’s uninformed and fragmented definition would we call it murder. After all, lynching is a felony in all states of the United States, defined by some codes of law as, “any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person which results in the death of the person,” with a “mob” being defined as “the assemblage of two or more persons, without color or authority of law, for the premeditated purpose and with the premeditated intent of committing an act of violence upon the person of another.” Lynching in the second degree is defined as “any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person and from which death does not result.” However, I submit that what these rappers did was a verbally violent, premeditated, form of social control, intimidation and MANipulation! No disrespect to my brothers. I celebrate you. Nevertheless, even if only theoretically, debatably spiritually and emotionally, a form of killing and slaying has (re)occurred here.

Although, no hands were laid on anyone in this latest situation against Brother Emmett or his living family members, “words” were. In the black community, we all know these words to be more powerful than those “sticks and stones” from days of old. Words can lead to fights and death. After all, look at what an alleged “whistle” from a 14 year old boy led to. While we have already lain to rest our beloved Brother Emmett, his cousin, Airicka Gordon-Taylor, founding director of the Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation continues to give voice to his legacy. It must be revered, protected, honored and respected. Never abused, misused or altered.

What has and is happening in the “new” hip-hop generation and let me include all reality television featuring “us”, is at the core an ongoing assault on black America. A media assassination where we are handing main stream media the rope and in many cases helping them pull the trigger.

We have and are in essence contributing to own demise by preying on our own legacy. It is a form of unconscious, and perhaps subconscious (internal) social intimidation, social control and social manipulation OF us, ON us, BY us. If we are not careful, if we are not more tolerating of self, more self-celebratory this will continue, not only in the music we make, but in the lives that we live and this generation’s legacies will never be lived or remembered as honorable, but lost and never realized.

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