Black Girls Rock while Black Boys are Rocked
Black girls rock, what an elegant affair. I will preface this article with one important point. I truly do believe thatBlack women andBlack girls should be applauded for the great works that they do. I deeply love them, and appreciate them for their efforts. There is nothing more sexy then a woman and nothing more adorable than a young lady who handles life with dignity and class. Many kudos go out to Ms. Beverely Bond and her foundation.
Sadly while watching the elegant affair something pressing kept coming to my mind. A question kept repeating itself, "Do black boys not rock." So like the Social Media conversationalist I took to Facebook and I took to Twitter and posed the all important question, "What is the importance of Black Girls Rock?" Unsuspecting to many of the people joining the dialogue, I had planted a very loaded question. Before the conversation began I knew the route I was going to take, and I even knew the route that they were going to take. A part of me hoped that things would go differently, but I knew that this question would not be recieved very well.
What happened? 100 FB comments later and several angry text messages I see that the community is just where I thought it was. I find it very appalling that we as a people can stand and watch Black Girls Rock while Black Boys are Rocked. The argument thatBlack women and black girls need uplifting is not falling on deaf ears, but the sad part is when I ask doBlack men and blackBlack boys need it most people argued no. I would rather see us begin focusing on theBlack family and the community. Not just the women/girls, not just the men/boys, but the people. The old addage states, "it takes a village to raise a child," but how can we have a village whenBlack Women andBlack Men can't come together to form a village filled with love, truth, peace, freedom, and justice. What kind of village can we have when Dope Dealers, Strippers, and hasbends are the stewards?
I applaud sisters like author of the New Jim Crow,Michelle Alexander. Now that is aBlack woman who rocks because she gets it. She sees the fact thatBlack boys are being railroaded into the prison system. She recognizes the fact that we as a people have to come together to solve our problems. We don't have time to uplift women while black men are expendable. In that exact same argument brothers, we don't have time to chest bump each other while our women are needing us to protect them and support them.
Let's be honest, Black people resemble Nino Brown and the homeys in New Jack City, WE ARE ALL WE GOT. If you can't see that, was Trayvon Martin not enough, is Kendrick Johnson not enough, what about missing white girl syndrome? Sadly I couldn't even find a name to say for a beautiful black woman because they don't the media coverage white girls get when they go missing.
Brothers and sisters we are doing an injustice to ourselves and I hope you hear the love and the passion in my words. I want to see us come together. Yes Black Girls Rock, but does it matter when the Black Boys are being Rocked? I think the show could be so much better if we would applaud each other. Sadly the show just looked like a bunch of women tooting their own horns, but on a major scale who really cares? I will leave you all with a question. What if white women decided to create a white girls rock? Would you be offended? If so why? After you think about that maybe you will understand why I have a problem with sayingBlack Girls Rock while Black Boys are Rocked.
