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J-GIRL IS SMART

May 24, 2006 | Family & Life

Today, The Chicago Sun Times ran an article entitled, “Where Have The Smart Girls Gone?” Pink, the singer, has a song out called, “Stupid Girls”. In the music video, Pink makes fun of Paris Hilton, the Olsen Twins, and Jessica Simpson. Pink has a point, a very valid point. People, mothers especially when J-Girl was growing up, were amazed I didn’t allow her to see Cinderella, Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. First of all, the witch in Sleeping Beauty caused me many sleepless nights when I saw the movie as a small child. Second, all the heroines were white, we’re black. Third, where were the mothers of these young, abused girls? Dead. Okay, Sleeping Beauty had a mom, but she didn’t have many lines in the movie. My final major problem with the movies was the theory that one day, a prince would come along on a white horse, slay the evil witch, or dragon, rescue the girl, and they’d live happily ever after. Yes, I know we write romance, but the hero doesn’t just ‘rescue the heroine’, he romances her as well. The heroine isn’t sitting on her pampered/in peril butt waiting for him. In today’s romance, she might slay the dragon herself, or help the hero kill it, tell her stepsisters to get out her face and get a life, or tell the wicked witch her face is green and she needs a facial. J-Girl had to go to a friends’ house to watch the Disney videos.

I told J-Girl, not to wait for some man to rescue her. She and her female friends are smart enough, attractive enough, to provide their own wayin their lives. As young black educated women, the statistics aren’t good she’ll find a young college or post college educated black male, not on the down low, doesn’t have children, doesn’t have a drug addiction, and my favorite, DOES has a JOB. However, I was amazed and pleasantly shocked, to see all the Brothers she hung around in college and has met. They’re the opposite of all the above and have jobs. But, the numbers are few, the women are many. Marriage is difficult today, it’s too easy to dump a relationhips and move on.

Pink sings, “Whatever happened to the dreams of a girl president? She’s dancing in the video next to 50 cent.” Pink states, she doesn’t think girls are stupid, they just ‘act stupid’, because that’s what they see. What the hell happened to Lindsay Lohan? Girls with money to burn, wearing shoes that would feed a family of twelve for months, tight outfits evidently three sizes too small, with a price tag, eight times too high, bumping and grinding in some overweight dude’s lap, or against a car, or against another girl. This is what today’s ‘real’ girl has to deal with.

One time, J-Girl and her friends decided they wanted to date gangstas. Not real gangstas. I’m talking the ‘wanna be’ gangstas. She discovered, they didn’t have any money like the ones in the videos, no real car, at least one that wasn’t about to be repossessed and no job. I called these guys, Cinderfellas. Guys looking for girls like J-Girl who have the means to provide them with the material goods. When J-Girls’ ex-boyfriend, asked her why she’d held the same job for three years, when he couldn’t stay at one for three months, I thought I’d kill him. Since when did job stability and a positive employment history be a bad thing? Luckily, she grew out of this phase. The spoiled brat that she is, couldn’t deal with visiting an apartment with no heat in the middle of a Chicago winter. Plus, she grew into herself and realized she was smart, she was talented, she was beautiful and damnit, she could do better! Blew his mind!

Young ‘real’ African American females have to contend with the hootchy mamas shaking their butts and weaves in music videos and think they have to act like them to get a guy. They try to wear the same outfits, but when you’re sixteen years old and a size eighteen, you can’t squeeze into a pair of fourteen jeans. But, they do.

Karrine Steffans, a hip hop dancer, has appeared in numerous music videos. She earned the nickname, Superhead. I ain’t even gonna explain that one. What a name to put on your resume. Karrine was on Oprah, crying about how she was done wrong by the rappers she worked and slept with. Her book, Confessions of a Video Vixen, was a hit, and now she’s gonna do porn. What a step in the right direction.

Men want smart women. They may date, sleep with and talk about the ‘hot women’. But they want a smart woman they can have an intelligent conversation with. Yes, they want her to be attractive, but as I’ve lived and seen, what’s beauty to one person, may not be to another. Usher, sang, “We want a lady on the streets, but a freak in the bed.” That’s nice honey. But what do women want? I’m hoping J-Girl and her friends continue to ask and get the answers they want to that question.

Thankfully, J-Girl and her friends, listen to Mary J Blige. Mary thought she was ugly, but she’s absolutely black and beautiful to me. She’s found her soul mate and she sings about finding love, not allowing yourself to be hurt and abused because you think you won’t find anyone else. Mary’s been there, done that, and come out better for it.

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  1. Yasmine, I think the lessons your daughter is learning are good for all young women, regardless of color. Both of my nieces (20 and 23 years old) have their mother’s shape–long waist, huge hips. Not conducive to wearing what other 20 to 23 year olds are wearing, yet they insist on doing so. Rather than dressing in a way that would accentuate their positive attributes, they end up calling attention to the negative ones. At least they have enough self-worth with the boys they date. If the young men don’t treat them right, they’re done. 🙂

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  2. Supposedly, the low hip hugging jeans are on their way out. If worn and the middle hangs over the waist, it’s called a muffin or dunlap (dun lapped over the top) Now miniskirts are back! Here goes the, how to sit down with showing everything again. I’m glad your neices show respect for themselves. It has to start with the girls, otherwise the guys never will.

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  3. Dorothy: I wanted to cheer as I read your blog. I was in graduate school when “Pretty Woman” came out. I HATED that movie for exactly the same reasons you kept J-Girl from watching Disney videos. Prostitute who had to wait for a “prince” to rescue her.

    I listen to interviews of teenagers today where they readily admit to oral sex, saying “But it’s not really sex.” I strongly suspect this is a one-way street with girls going down on guys, and not getting reciprocity. It’s just another version of the line we all heard: “If you loved me, you would…”

    We may have “come a long way, baby,” but we still have a long way to go.

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  4. Maya, I so agree. Young girls look for acceptance in the eyes of a male who doesn’t care about her, only what she can provide for him.

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  5. Great commentary! My daughter (13) asked for the Pink CD for her birthday. I was SO happy when I heard that song.
    Thank goodness her skinny little butt doesn’t care about fashion or anything else (yet!) and she’s not a “girly” girl.
    As far as the sex thing goes, my 15-year-old son finally had a girlfriend . . . so I had a little talk with him. Friends with benefits, rainbows, oral sex IS sex and it CAN KILL YOU. I have him the best advice I could (because his father didn’t know what to say): KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS.

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