Black America is not Shawty Lo
Sometime this spring, the Oxygen network will air a program called All My Babies’ Mamas, featuring someone called Shawty Lo. You probably already know this because a press release and video leak last week (video since removed) caused the heads of good black folk to explode all over the interwebs. You could hear the pop from space. The one-hour special documents Shawty, 31, whose mama named him Carlos Walker, and his relationships with his 11 children, their 10 mothers, and his newest, a 19-year-old girlfriend. Oh, and in the spirit of Flavor of Love, the women on the show will have their identities erased in favor of nicknames like “Fighter Baby Mama,” “First Lady,” and “Bougie Baby Mama.”
Lord, pass me my smelling salts.
The impending debut of All My Babies’ Mamas has been met with some predictable responses: A petition urging Oxygen to shelve the special and a whole lot of people vowing never, ever to let their eyeballs see this shitshow. But two reactions I find troubling: black shame and a heap of demeaning talk about single-parent and nontraditional families.
The “Ban All My Babies’ Mamas” petition, which, as I’m writing, has 73 signatures on Change.org, calls for the Oxygen show to be canceled for demeaning black women, girls, and children and stereotyping black men. I have no doubt the show will do all these things. And — make no mistake — the show’s creative team, Liz Gateley and Tony DiSanto, mean for this to be so. Nearly every reality show, from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo to Love & Hip-Hop, is built on the exploitation and promotion of bias and stereotype.
A few months ago, when I spoke to author and media analyst Jennifer Pozner about Honey Boo Boo, she said, “You can almost hear TLC saying, ‘Step right up to the Poverty Voyeurism Comedy Tour!’.” In this case, the message is undoubtedly, “Come see a dysfunctional, black family up close!” Or maybe, “Live, unmarried, over-sexed black women!” Or, “In this ring: triflin’, black sperm donors!” And we know — because racism works this way — that Oxygen’s stereotype-pimping will make black lives just that much harder, as we are judged by the actions of a man and women that have nothing at all to do with the rest of us.
But that doesn’t mean that we have to accept the stigmas that racism foist upon us. A commenter named Tay on Shadow and Act wrote:
This IS an unacceptable embarrassment to the black community, not to mention for women in general. We need to STOP acting like this – and we for damn sure need to STOP acting like this IN PUBLIC. We need to stop condoning this type of behavior with our financial support AND/OR with our silence. We complain about white people treating us like we are all lazy and ignorant and violent and on welfare and constantly out there making babies, etc… BUT THAT IS ALL THAT THEY SEE IN THE MEDIA. And we the black community continue to pour our money into supporting the very idiots (like this moron, and Chris Brown, OJ, pretty much the entire NBA….) who constantly throw us under the bus. The media-driven minstrel show needs. to. stop!!!!
There is a lot wrong with this comment, but let me focus on the idea that black Americans should be embarrassed by this show, that All My Babies’ Mamas is an illustration that African-Americans need to “do better.”
No.
Stop owning the idea of black dysfunction. Stop repeating that “we” act this or that way. Stop believing that every ill-advised or socially unacceptable act of an individual black person (or 20 black people or 1,000) is a blight on the whole of the black community or YOU personally. Stop pretending that all black behavior is endorsed by the black collective. That racist America thinks this way is no endorsement. But taking to comments sections to proclaim loudly your disgrace at how other black people are living is an endorsement of credit-to-your-race type thinking as well as the idea that the caricatures the media treat us to really are representative of our race.
Stop it with the black shame. Shawty Lo is not the black community. If the white guys over on Gawker aren’t hanging their heads over Mick Jagger, his many children, and their mothers, then you can still hold your head high in a world where Shawty Lo and “Fighter Baby Mama” exist.
I know what you’re about to say: “But … but … but … 72 percent of black children born out of wedlock!” Right. The face of family is evolving all over the world — not just in America and not just among black people. Marriage rates are at an all-time low in the United States and across Europe. Rates of cohabitation and children born to unmarried parents are up. And these combined statistics don’t always add up to economic and social decay. (Hello, Sweden!) We need to begin figuring out how to adapt to these changes. And if you want to, you can lament that the changes are occurring. But here’s what you can’t do: pretend that Shawty Lo and his family are representative of single-parent or nontraditional black families. Because you know damn well they are not.
A News One commenter wrote:
I am glad this is coming on. Like it or not that is a pretty accurate portrayal of black ghetto family life. How many articles have we seen black women say a man is not needed in the home and marriage is not important? This show is the end result of that logic and mindset.
As long as men and women remain silent and black women celebrate baby mama ideology this will continue. “I don’t [need] no man” … the black community is lost.
Society has been branding black families dysfunctional since the days of Django Unchained on through Lincoln and — boosted by the much-maligned Moynihan Report — all the way up to today. And people like the commenter above, KIR12 on News One, are ever-eager to believe we are what they say we are — no matter how many times all those stories about “welfare queens” and the like get debunked. The media and conservative propagandists (of all races, because we have some black ones, too) constantly serve up aberrations like Shawty Lo’s situation as illustrations of dysfunction and then sit back and say, “I told you so.” That’s some sleight of hand, for sure.
But neither impersonal statistics nor reality TV shows have anything to do with the lives of actual black parents, single or married, co-parenting, or going it alone. It obscures the real discussions we need to have about marriage and poverty and policy and instead taints black mothers, fathers, and their offspring.
For the last year, I have been interviewing black women for a book on marriage and relationships. One participant, raised by a single mother following divorce, told me:
“I am a college grad and am currently working on my master’s. [When people] hear my story about being raised by a single mom, I get all these sympathizing looks and ‘Oh wow, you made it!” pats on the back. It is aggravating. Why would I not make it? … My childhood was excellent and not being raised by both parents did not ruin my existence.”
Another sistah, a never-married 40-something who raised three children as a single mother and has recently joyously welcomed her fourth, says, “Life is what you make it. I am just a regular ol’ sister with kids, making it in today’s world. And I have never been anybody’s ‘baby mama’.”
These are real black women, with authentic and specific family lives and experiences. To erase those real stories — and my story as a married black woman, a proud stepmother to two, and a product of generations of married couples — in favor of a racist reality-show caricature is a bigger sin and a shame than Shawty Lo will ever be. (I have to add that I doubt this show will fairly and accurately portray the actual people involved … but, hey, they signed up for it.)
I’m not going to watch All My Babies’ Mamas because it looks like a hot-buttered racist and sexist mess. (Have I used the word “shitshow” yet?) But my aversion won’t be driven by manipulated embarrassment or a belief in the inherent wrongness of black families of any type.
First she writes…
“…pretend that Shawty Lo and his family are representative of single-parent or nontraditional black families. Because you know damn well they are not.”
Then she writes…
“Like it or not that is a pretty accurate portrayal of black ghetto family life.”
I don’t get it. Either they represent Black family life or they don’t. Maybe someone can explain?
I’m not sure, but I think she is saying the show is accurate in terms of “black ghetto life” but not representative of single-parent or nontraditional black families. The former being a small subset of the latter.
This article still dosent make any sense because she says,
“How many articles have we seen black women say a man is not needed in the home and marriage is not important? This show is the end result of that logic and mindset.
As long as men and women remain silent and black women celebrate baby mama ideology this will continue. “I don’t [need] no man” … the black community is lost.”
But then she basically says there is nothing wrong with being a baby mama by quoting people and using Sweden as an example of how a country can be stable without marriage.
I didn’t say I understood the whole article; I was just answering a specific question about what she might have meant.
Although I’m not quite sure what you are claiming doesn’t make sense either. What exactly doesn’t make sense?
@…. Exactly. As my grandmother used to say, she’s talking out of both sides of her mouth.
I also wonder if people who actually live(d) in the “black ghetto” would agree that a show about a guy with 10 baby mamas is accurate.
Anyone, anyone?
@myblackfriendsays,
Living in the ghetto does not mean having/adopting a substandard mentality! It just means living in an impoverished geographic location! One person comes to mind, Dr. Benny Carson one of the nations leading neurosurgeons, known the world over! He grew up in the mean streets of Detroit, but his mother raised him with a can do mentality. Living in the ghetto is not an excuse to endorse this STUPIDITY! In life, we all have choices, albeit some with more leeway than others.
@Ravi I was responding to Yvette.But to answer ur question it dosent make sense bcuz one minute she makrs ot seem as if theres nothing wrong with being a baby mama and then says that the baby mama mindset is hurting the black community…which is it?
But when she says “How many …. the black community is lost”, that’s a quote from someone else, and the point is that Tami (the author of this piece) *disagrees* with that perspective. So it’s not contradictory at all. She is quoting those paragraphs in order to argue *against* that sort of thinking. She isn’t talking out of both side of her mouth at all. Her position is consistent throughout.
To be clear, that is not my writing:
“I am glad this is coming on. Like it or not that is a pretty accurate portrayal of black ghetto family life. How many articles have we seen black women say a man is not needed in the home and marriage is not important? This show is the end result of that logic and mindset.
As long as men and women remain silent and black women celebrate baby mama ideology this will continue. “I don’t [need] no man” … the black community is lost”.
That is a quote from News One. I have asked Deanna to fix the formatting to make this clear.
thank you for the clarification. it makes a big difference.
I think it’s pretty obvious there’s been a copy-editing error and that the “Like it or not…” part is a quote (it’s formatted like one), and NOT the author’s own argument. The sentence to contextualize it is missing.
Man, I was about to say the same damn thing.
She was quoting someone else in the second quote. So there is no contradiction in her thesis.
” My childhood was excellent and not being raised by both parents did not ruin my existence.”
Of course it didnt ruin her existence but that isnt the point. she doesnt know who she would be if she were raised by two parents. but its about probabilities. You can have a relatively good life with one leg but I bet you would choose to have both. The most incidious thing about what she said is this idea that two parents or rather a father is icing on the cake. Good if he is there but just fine if he isn’t. Notice no one would say children are ok with just dad around. Some how mothers are non negotiables.
Anyway , I don’t like petitions. People can vote with their feet and not watch it. That sends an even stronger message than 74 signatures.
I love everything about your comment. It’s easy to hop on the internet and sign a petition showing you’re anti- whatever BUT it in my opinion it is much easier to downright cancel cable/ unsubscribe to that channel or not watch…or it could be more difficult depending on who you are talking to.
I think it is disgusting for people who regard a father being in the home as a negotiable/ nonessential. My father has been there from day one and I could not ever ever imagine my life without him. He is not a negotiable. Neither is my mother. I cannot even fathom how anyone could regard a parent being in the home as negotiable but I imagine it is easier to say this when you “turn out fine” as a result of being raised by only one parent. Or when you have no father figure at all however I bet people whose mothers had to work 2-4 jobs to keep the lights on and put food on the table and keep the lights on or had a revolving door of men through their lives would not be singing the same tune. There are problems in every home and yes there are people who were raised in two parent homes whose lives turned out to be miserable BUT like I stated in my comment below, to be a product of a one parent home and turn out “fine” is not the norm. Fathers contribute so much to the life of a child and I’m not only looking at this from a financial perspective but an emotional health perspective as well.
Children need loving parents–the more the better. Your comment assumes that 1) every father not married to the mother of his children is absent from his child’s life; 2) gay couples cannot be functional parents; 3) children aren’t left without one parent for a host of reasons other than being born our of wedlock. If a child’s mother or father dies, is that child doomed to a second class life? My parents have been married for 45 years, I cannot imagine having grown up without either of them. That doesn’t mean that women who grew up in other situations are irretrievably broken. How insulting to them to imply that they are.
But you’re lumping all variations of “single motherhood” into one pile, and I believe that is part of the problem.
Do you think that children raised within a household where their parents were happily married for 12 years and the father suddenly passes away, have the same household and emotional experiences as children where a never-married mother has four children by four different males?
I work in education, and I witness every single day the outcome differences in between communities where the majority of children are raised with both of their parents living with them, and the dysfunctional areas where the majority of children are living with single mothers, single grandmothers, or are in foster care. It is not even close.
Wanda, how is Tami lumping all variations of single motherhood into one pile? Where did she do that?
@Tami
I’ve been reading you for years before you ever started writing here, and while I appreciate the effort, this is more of a CFC/Racialicious/ Ta-Nehisi Coates blog piece. On this forum, themes about racial stereotyping and non-traditional families are more likely to get lost in the shuffle the minute you utter the words “single” and “mother.” From what I’ve seen (and I could be mistaken) this site doesn’t run a lot of pieces on non-traditional families that are positive or non-hetero-normative. Usually, to me anyway, it feels like the stories about single mothers revolve around poverty and despair or how it’s an affront to men everywhere to give single mothers father’s day cards. I mean I’m sure there are great black gay and lesbian couples raising awesome kids, but we don’t really hear about them here. I bet you or Renee from Womanist Musings would know who to recommend to expound on these perspectives, if you haven’t already done so yourselves.
If that father is not in your home – that father is only in your life to a point. My father had 2 children before he married my mom and me and my brother and sister. The other 2 got financial support and whatever he had left after he took care of us. Yes he was in their life but only to a point. When raising kids, it takes more than being there to a point – it means fully committed in every way. So don’t kid yourself. If a father does not make a commitment to marry and stay – you end up with a part time parent.
@SL, some people end up with part-time parents, even when raised in a two-parent, married household.
The most important thing that’s often overlooked in a discussion like this is the importance of having appropriate representation of loving parents — even if they’re in different homes. And a supportive, loving community. I believe those two things — along with the drug epidemic, welfare requiring a male not be present in order for women to receive aid and black people disuse of common sense — are the top contributors to what’s deemed the black race’s decline over the past 40- 45 years.
@MJ
Yes totally true – many of my friends and sometimes even I have echoed that sentiment about our marriages cause a lot of the responsibility in raising children can fall to one partner.
However, my daughter sees her daddy everyday. If she wants to she can crawl into our bed in the middle of the night, everyday he sees her everyday….he’s there she learns the subtle things just by seeing us interact – she sees his committment to me and thus never ever needs to question his committment to her. She never has to schedule who she is going to spend this weekend with or this holiday with or have a room here and one over there. He’s here even if I am the one doing her hair or making her take a bath or making her clean her room. If we dont agree – her time with him or me is not jepoardized because we are together.
Author quote” How many articles have we seen black women say a man is not needed in the home and marriage is not important? This show is the end result of that logic and mindset.”
I think that a lot of men, a lot of black man that many women on clutch claim to be trolls were saying the very same thing these men have been saying for the longest. This notion of not needing a man for the household with children is toxic. You need men regardless, and your right, with this kind of mindset that is indeed the end result. I mean look at the dude, the man doesn’t even dress like a man to begin with, 31-32 years old or whatever still dresses like a boy and many mature black men well to do upwardly black men in the community knows these are the kind of men many of the black women in the community like to deal with thus these men will steer clear from women, not only black women, but any women who deals with these kind of men.
To then get pregnant by these sorry excuse for a black man just decrease your chances even more like 80% decrease of ever getting married to a black man that is about something. In many cases many of you women bring about your own social ill and self infliction by dealing with these kind of black men, and you continue dealing with these kind of black men you will always lose. These men know nothing about building up a community, building clinics, banks, nothing! The black men that knows how to do such many of you women steer clear from these men for what ever reason it makes no sense as to why do you women avoid these black men? Why, like what is the real reason? Well for the past 40 years we have seen black woman leadership in the black community and not too many ppl are willing to continue to stay.
It have gotten so bad that white media and others will continue to making shows like this because that is what many of the ppl in the black community endorse. If black women do not want to be seen as over sexed baby mothers that deal with thugs and drug dealers and child like men then you as a black woman stop dealing with those types because you nowadays trying to talk any sense to many of you women is a lost cause. Long gone of the image of a black woman as the Queen and mother of the earth foolishness, this is how America and other parts of the world view you. Your image is nothing good to look at, but hey, continue being strong and independent and all this other foolishness, shows like this will not stop being produced because many of you women will not stop dealing with these kind of men. Simple! Like black women in America is the only race of woman that I know of that rather live under other people and another race of ppl rule than to uplift the very same men that are in their community that can bring about change, responsibility and put us in a better light, but you women only want these kind of black men when your all used up, have 1-2 baby fathers, or other kids out of wedlock suddenly these kind of black men are more attractive suddenly, but guess what, these black men know the b.s. that many of you women are on and are no longer dealing with the foolishness, or black women all together because of this idiotic mindset many of you harbor. At the rate things are going you women are not going to change n e time soon and the well to do black men are not holding their breath either.
He is 36!
First, I should point out that what you describe as an “author quote” is not my quote at all, but a quote from a commenter on News One. My problem is that you are using the logic that racists do: Because these 10 women will date men like Shawty Lo, you write: “If black women do not want to be seen as over sexed baby mothers that deal with thugs and drug dealers and child like men then you as a black woman stop dealing with those types because you nowadays trying to talk any sense to many of you women is a lost cause.” So, you honestly believe that all or even most black women date thugs and drug dealers? And you believe that all or most black women endorse these partnerships? If so, I pity your view of our people.