Mama, I wanna sang!

The "surprise" impromptu performance by the minor children of rappers Lil Wayne and T.I. at the 2009 BET awards has caused an uproar all over the internet. Many viewers were disgusted by the tween girls (part of an all girl singing group) shaking their "thangs" on stage to a song called "Every Girl" in which one of the lines is "I wish I could f*ck every girl in the world!"

Now, I am not going to reiterate what a bastion of crap BET has become. There have been too many articles and blogs incessantly ranting about the poor quality of shows on the network. And personally, I do not watch a lot of television and I think that black people as a whole watch TOO much TV. We can focus on the "quality" of programming when we get down to watching a reasonable number of hours per week - not twice the rate of whites. Perhaps folks wouldn't be so offended by BET if it wasn't on all the damn time. But I digress...

Most of the "shade" thrown around after the debacle was aimed at BET and its President Debra Lee, Lil' Wayne and rapper Drake. I found that odd considering...

The mothers and primary caregivers of two of those children were at the event as well.

Many BW empowerment bloggers claim that BM are pretty much worthless in the community because they do not protect black women and children from harm. In their eyes, the violence and despair that many black women and children encounter in "all black constructs"could be avoided if black men "stepped up" and handled their business. Let's take this idea and apply it to something like what happened at the BET awards...

The biological father of one of the girls is currently in prison. The other child's biological father is part of the performance. The mothers of the children are in the audience and have been part of the show. They have not protested their children going on stage. Let's say that a concerned black man was in the audience or back stage and was disgusted at seeing the underage girls dancing to a vulgar song on national television. Let's take it further and say that he felt compelled to run on stage and snatch the girls off to protect them from embarrassment and humiliation.

Now, knowing the "type" of people Lil Wayne, Tiny, Toya and T.I. are how do you think this brave man's actions would have been received? What do YOU think Lil Wayne would have done if someone tried to protect his child from harm?

My point is, women and children that are victimized tend to be victimized by those closest to them, not strangers. A man is going to protect those he knows he can protect with the least amount of resistance from others. It is not worth it for ANY man to potentially lose his life or freedom to protect those that are not "his own". It is unfortunate that many black women are entangled with men (boyfriends, relatives, friends) who will not protect them but many of these women have put these men IN THEIR LIVES. And their children are suffering because of their choices, NOT the choices of other black men.

It is unfair to saddle a group of good men with the responsibility of protecting ALL women and children from the bad men. Bad men don't protect anyone but themselves so they are not even part of the equation. What the empowerment bloggers would ideally like to see is a bunch of good black men sweeping in and wiping out all the DBRs. White men are NOT expected to do this. They are only expected to protect THEIR wives and children and the few people they CHOOSE to protect that are outside of their circle.

In an ideal world all the successful, educated, caring black men would take up arms and run into the ghettos knocking down all the thugs and child rapists and drug dealers and carry out black women and their children and take them to a safe place. LOL. This is not the movies, this is REAL LIFE. In the REAL WORLD men protect THEIR OWN.

My husband's loyalty is to me FIRST and he is not going to go out on the limb for any other woman - except his mother. All other women he knows rely on the POSSIBILITY of him protecting them. They rely on his KINDNESS and GENEROSITY. But he still is going to think of ME and how his actions could affect ME. This is what sensible black men have been doing for decades. This is why they are not in the hood still. This is why they find their wife and move to a safe place and never look back because now they have to focus on protecting THEIR OWN.

If Lil Wayne cannot protect his own child, his child will suffer because of it. If T.I. is in prison and cannot protect his child, his child will suffer. If Tiny and Toya want to pimp out their daughters, those kids will get pimped. God provides a mother and a father, not a community of concerned men.