In the current age of multimedia, any marketing executive knows that teenagers rule the market. Television shows, music videos, movies, and clothing lines all market to teens, with the recognition that teens drive the biggest revenue within the market. In spite of that, all too often what sells isn't always what's in the best interest of our teens.
This is particularly true for the African-American teenaged girl. Unfortunately, in an age where all teens, particularly young women, and most especially young black women, are seeking prominent and respectable role models, the entertainment industry once again disappoints, and terribly so.
The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s a thing of the past, racism is unfortunately alive and well in the teen and young adult African-American entertainment market. While we like to deceive ourselves that racism is a thing of the past, our current media proves that this isn't so. In the midst of an outcry against such blatant displays of racism, young African-Americans were recently called upon to boycott several American television shows, and with good reason.
The current selection of entertainment venues for African-American teens and young adults is rife with unflattering, stereotyped images. Instead of honoring the African- American woman as the strong, multi-faceted and vibrant person she is, current entertainment venues rely upon hollow stereotyping that in essence belittles and simplifies the complicated African-American woman.
Historically, it is the African-American woman who has been the rock of the family. Strong both in emotion and in honor, she has kept the family together through hardship and poverty, persevering in the most difficult of times. With a combination of love, moxy, faith, strong principles, and hard work, the African American woman has protected and raised her family for generations, in the worst of circumstances.
It is the African-American woman who so often is responsible for the successes of the children, as well as the grandchildren. By enforcing the structure, discipline, and sense of history needed to ensure the successful continuation of the family, black women for generations have been the glue that has cemented the family together and ensured their success.
But this is not the African-American woman we see so often on television and in the movies. The woman we see in the entertainment industry bears little resemblance to the honorable African-American woman who dominates the real world.
All too often "reality" shows portray young African-American women as simply objects of sexual desire, promiscuous to the extreme, and aggressive beyond reason. "Flavor of Love," a reality show designed around rapper Flavor Flav from the group "Public Enemy" has insulted and aroused many in the African-American community, for several reasons.
In the show, Flavor Flav is presented with 20 different women, all vying for his attention and hoping to be chosen as his love. Unfolding over several episodes, many of the women are shown displaying traits that play into the stereotype of the young black woman as angry, vindictive, promiscuous, and aggressive.
While this is true of many reality shows in the 21st century, it is especially damaging to the African-American woman. When consumers across America, and indeed, even beyond, tune in to see African-American women behaving promiscuously and aggressively, that perception is solidified across the nation and the world, unjustly so.
Gone is the keeper of the family, the strong, decisive, loving, and dedicated family woman. Gone is the intelligent, educated, progressive woman leading her generation out of poverty and despair.
Instead, she is replaced by the very stereotype she seeks to escape, the very stereotype against which she has fought for generations.
For those African-American women to whom such behavior would never occur, the stereotype is difficult to live down.
BET, or Black Entertainment Television, is a television station featuring music videos that is seen around the world. One of the first television stations aimed primarily at the African-American population, it held a lot of promise for black Americans.
But when citizens of the United States and other nations see many of these videos featuring young, beautiful black women scantily clad, posed with sexual connotations, the stereotype is fed yet again.
What of the millions of African-American women who find this display insulting, even repulsive? Those voices are quickly silenced as the stereotype is once again fed to the masses in the name of marketing.
The problem is that those persons and industries marketing and selling such products have little understanding of the long-term effects such stereotyping has on young African-American women. Constantly bombarded with such images, young black women are sadly fed the message that this is what they're supposed to be.
How can such massive media marketing be countered? By telling our young African-American women that they are worthy, not simply as sexual symbols but as strong, competent women.
We need to help our young black women to understand that their strength lies not in their physical beauty, but in their strong spirit. It lies in their intelligence, and in their ambition.
The beauty of the African-American woman, while physical, is also and most importantly mental. Our young black women have to understand that knowledge is their most powerful weapon against poverty and despair.
Instead of acclimating to the stereotype, our young black women must force the world to recognize them for what they are: beautiful, strong, intelligent women. Women of substance, and women of integrity.
Our young African-American women don't need to rely on what the world tells them they have to be. They need to rely on what their history tells them they are.
They're the keeper of the family, the wisdom of the ages. They're the strength that carried generations through persecution, and the intelligence that ensured survival. Our young black women are the hope of the future.
They're the definition of beautiful, from the inside out.