Reality TV shows like Basketball Wives, Love & Hip Hop, Real Housewives & Mob Wives have been the center of blame every time a fight between women shows up on Twitter or World Star Hip Hop. Erica Mena recently wrote a blog on Vibe Vixen explaining why you shouldn’t blame Reality Stars the next time a video is recorded of a girl dragging another girl down her patio stairs or beating her head against the pavement.
On April 18, 2012, Vixen raised an interesting and insightful debate regarding a video that surfaced of Tashay D. Edwards brutally assaulting another young woman over a situation that happened on Twitter. The video of the incident received millions of views in a short-time span and gained instant popularity all over the country. Fast forward to the middle of May, and yet another incident was filmed and recorded – all due to a disagreement that took place over Twitter.
In this most recent incident, one female posted an obscene and explicit picture of another on the popular social networking site. Once Twitter started to feed into the altercation and instigate it, one of the girls flew into the other one’s town and brutally attacked her…on camera. Since the brutal attack (which mirrored the April 18 incident), reality TV has been named as one of its influencers. These two incidents are not the only ones to analyze, but also the hundred that are posted to blogs/sites such as WorldStarHipHop daily. Media outlets are saying that young kids are watching these reality splats, see how participants are gaining fame, fortune and notoriety, and believe that they will get the same praise as we do.
One should assume both aggressors in the attacks have parents or were raised by someone who should have provided them with some sort of foundation to begin with. As a child, I grew up watchingScarface and Goodfellas, but never once did I have the urge or audacity to kill someone or get involved in drugs. Why? Because my parents and older siblings taught me how to distinguish right from wrong, and how to make accurate choices when it comes to my life and livelihood.
I know I was in a vicious fight onscreen, and even though I publicly apologized, I can say that the fight was not scripted or done out of a cry for attention. When asked to join the cast of VH1’s Love & Hip Hop, my intentions were to make a point to some of the other girls who I felt were killing an already-dying industry. When I brought up my point, things became violent…but only after I escaped a glass that was being tossed directly at me
At the end of the day, people will believe what they want to believe, but I have a child at home, who is very impressionable right now at his young age. When he finally sees my fight on camera for the first time, I will have a lot of explaining to do, to provide the same foundation that I believe the two “twitter beef” girls lacked. We all have screw-ups and can get taken out of character. The difference between you and I is that my moments are documented on camera and broadcasted to millions. When I have my moments, I should not be judged and used as a scapegoat for unnecessary violence amongst kids and young adults.
There is nothing classy about fighting onscreen, but we all make mistakes. And parents everywhere should make an attempt to help these kids make the right decisions when viewing violent movies, listening to aggressive hip-hop lyrics or watching us have cat fight on TV on Monday nights.
So do you agree with Erica or should television bear some blame for our violent young women?
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