I hate VH1

There was a time in my short-lived yet fabulous life when I would tune into VH1 with high expectations. Oh, the Saturdays of watching Jackson 5: The American dream. How you swiftly pass. Michael Jackson blocks of music videos were carted off to subsidiary channels (think VH1 soul which I pay an extra $10/month for, thank you very much) and we were left with the atrocity that is...


Dum Dum DUUUUUUUMMM!!!




Ugh.

Now, someone please clue me into the purpose of this show. Scantily dressed women with lisps got naked with Flaaaava Flav!, former part of one of the most notorious and political rap groups to ever accomplish the task of mediating without assimilating into mainstream pop culture. In other words, Flava Flav was someone.

And now, after playing court jester in a surreal house and documented trysts with Brigitte Neilson that made us cringe, you now bring other women into the fold. Fighting, spitting (well, sisters didn't spit, thank God.), loud, weave-slinging, finger-snapping, chicken-neck wielding women, the vast majority of whom were of the diaspora and didn't care how they looked on national television. As long as, in the end, they would have a chance with a man who openly admitted that he did not, and would never want, a wife.

Now, I am not one to blame the medium and not the participants. The ladies, those of you who accepted your typecasting and lived up to it, are to blame as much as the producers who casted you are. Actually, you hold more of the blame. Producers do their job when they cast people like you. It is the Buckeys, Boots, and Notorious New Yorks of the world have let us down. You have chosen to become our faces, the reference point for the world of Black women who struggle to find men who are their equals and have made us ridiculous looking Jezebels. You have trivialized our struggle to become working, professional women who are viewed as intellectuals. (Sidebar: Isn't it strange to anyone else that these women had about 5 weeks of vacation time? I can't rack up that much vacation in a year, ok?) You have made it acceptable for America to typecast our men as brutal bucks who can do little more than satiate in bed and play the predictable "Black" sports (because Flav cannot excel in tennis, can he Ms. New York's Mother?).

So, here is my reprimand to you both. VH1, I admit openly that I find a strange vindication as I watch Rock of Love. At least I know that you have little to no moral decorum. It's not a racist thing. Because now, you are exploiting the majority and they look like crazy, bipolar, weave-slinging women. VH1, go back to playing the Jackson 5 movie. I remember those days fondly. Now, I won't let my little sister watch you.

Ladies, the price of your stardom was high. There is one New York. Boots, as you go on your college tour and proclaim your metamorphosis, turn to VH1 and see how they exploited you. How they turned this beautiful, young lady into an entity. Something to be laughed at. And, hopefully we can all learn a lesson from this. Earn your stardom with intellect.

Two fingers like a playa!

Peace.