Amber Cole and Hip Hop's Reflection

Like many of you on twitter, I woke up to Amber Cole trending very high. My first response was that this was another video vixen who wrote a book slamming all the rappers she slept with. But I was horrified when I saw the video. A 14yr old girl giving oral sex to a fellow student on school grounds. No, I will not share the link here. But, what disappointed me more were the comments about her. I do not condone what she did but dismissing her as a whore doesn't help anything. She's not an adult people. Neither are the boys involved. They all learned it from somewhere.

Hip Hop has a history of glorifying women who are willing to do anything and everything to garner the attention of the artists in their videos. And as silly as it might sound to some of us out there, some women out there think this is the only way to get their attention; and worse nothing wrong with it. Superhead-like video vixens have made careers by glorifying this behavior and truly believe that they are taking the power back from the sometimes misogynistic industry. But oftentimes it has the reverse effect and continues to perpetuate the stereotype.

Rappers, as well as we the consumers, have a responsibility to lessen the emphasis on this aspect of hip hop. Yes attractive women in videos help get others to watch, but only describing them as sex objects can backfire albeit Amber Cole. Those kids thought it was cool to film a girl doing what they wanted because they had power over her. Like the rappers they see in videos. And she let them because she wanted attention and to prove that she is worth something. I'm sure there are more factors involving why this happened, but it's worth thinking about. The most surprising thing about all this is not that it happened but how we all reacted, including myself.  We didn't ask why it happened. Most of us didn't even question double-standard of not judging the boys involved. But that's a topic for another time.

We have to be more responsible with the images we put out there, especially in the black community. Because believe it or not, many people out there think that the images in hip hop are all black people are.  I know that young kids who love hip hop just want to have fun and not take life too seriously. But remember, eventually you grow up and have to deal with the world, its issues, and the consequences of doing dumb things when you were young. Amber Cole (if that is her name or really her in the video) is finding that out the hard way.