Foolish: Shawty Lo and His New Reality Show
In 2008, Atlanta rapper Shawty Lo released Units In The City, which featured plenty of hood classic songs that still rock to this day. When hearing this CD, I never once thought that he was a man of high moral standards or sound judgment, in fact when you actually listen to his lyrics (which are entertaining in of itself), your expectations of him become that much lower. So hearing that he has new reality show due out on Oxygen in the coming months which documents his life and family is no surprise, however, what does set his show apart from the rest is that it will also feature his 11 children and 10 different children’s mothers aptly named “All my Babies’ Mamas.”
Many social commentators are outraged by the apparent stereotyping and exploitations of black women as jealous, untrustworthy, children-having leaches that the show is advertised to portray and these commentators are calling for the show to be pulled before it even airs. My question is where have these people been? Is this show any worse than Flavor of Love, who singlehandedly began this whirlwind of stereotypical “reality” television programming. “All my Babies’ Mamas” is just another show that black people will be portrayed negatively in but in no way is this more of an outrage than the garbage on Vh1, BET, Oxygen, TVOne, and others that give black people a platform and paycheck  to act as reckless as humanly possible.  There is no doubt than when people see this show, there will be a consensus based on the hook in his “Foolish” track on Units In the City: “and they like, boy, you a fool;” but in no way is this anything new or worth watching.
