'Love & Hip Hop Atlanta': Is black female producer Mona Scott-Young accountable for its stereotypes?
OPINION - By lending her name to a show full of negative black female portrayals, does executive producer Mona Scott-Young empower white men to exploit our image?
Viewers love to attack the cast members for their antics, but we shouldn’t be angry at them for their “ratchet” behavior. They chose to put their lives on public display and they’re the ones who have to live with the consequences. We accuse the producers of being parasites for creating these shows, but in a capitalistic society, everyone is allowed to make a buck. Businesswomen like Basketball Wives’ creator and executive producer Shaunie O’Neal and Mona Scott-Young are just exploiting their opportunity to make some serious cash at the expense of their own people. We should slam VH1 for airing these shows, but it’s a given that a media conglomerate will do anything for a profit, even if it means setting the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements back 200 years. Who is really to blame?
As far as I’m concerned, the reality (pardon the pun) is that the problem isn’t VH1, Mona Scott-Young, Shaunie O’Neal, Evelyn Lozada, or even silly little Stevie J. Instead of pointing a finger at “the man” or “the system,” we need to look at ourselves – the black women who are actually WATCHING the show. There are far too many of us who are oh-so-willing to enthusiastically embrace a minstrel show about black women struggling with various levels of economic disempowerment while simultaneously being sexually exploited, and emotionally and physically abused by the men in their lives – all in the name of “entertainment.” As tragic as the L&HH storylines are, what is sadder is the mindset of its viewers, women who’ve been brainwashed into believing that there is no damage being done to our people.
Jewish Americans would never allow a reality show featuring selfish, whiny “Jewish American Princesses” who love to shop, nag their banker husbands, and guilt trip their yarmulke wearing, dreidel playing children to make it to television. Chinese Americans would never support a reality show revolving around seductive “Dragon Ladies” who play chess, iron shirts and unravel calculus equations with equal skill while running around in cheongsam dresses.
How is it that this is the “entertainment” we’ve chosen to embrace after so many of our people have died and been imprisoned in the fight to give us racial equality and opportunity for economic advancement? Why in the world are we helping the networks get rich by using our women as fodder for real-life Blaxpoitation lacking in any sort of artistic or social benefit? I don’t know what it’s going to take to wake us up, but eventually the “Crazy Black Reality Show Chick” will find its place in the destructive pantheon of black female memes, right next to the seemingly immortal “Mammy”, “Jezebel,” “Welfare Queen,” and “Angry Black Woman.”
Even though ultimately viewers are to blame, Mona Scott-Young and VH1 have played their part in adding another dehumanizing layer to the discrimination black women face every day through these shows. Does the world need yet another tool in the arsenal of racist projection? And because Scott-Young is a black woman, this should make black women everywhere more angry. If we can’t be accountable to each other, who else will?
Am I angry? Hell yeah. And this Angry Black Woman is wondering why more black women aren’t.
Sil Lai Abrams is a writer, inspirational speaker, domestic violence awareness advocate, Ebony.com’s relationship expert, and author of ‘No More Drama.’ Follow her on Twitter at @Sil_Lai.
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