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From: For Harriet "We Need to Stop Sharing Videos of Black Girls In Fights"
******Posted in the African American Group******Note: For Harriet is an online community contributor ezine whose target demo is black women.
I grabbed the second half of this fairly brief opinion piece. The focus of the first half is the case of the young girl beat in Baltimore late last year. I think they may have pushed this op ed back up to the top of their feed in light of the well publicized case in Brooklyn.
My point in sharing this - is that it starts within the community. Not just the behavior but the sharing of the behavior. Once again we have become the focus of a group of people who know very little about us.
Now once again - This is all they know. This case and the Baltimore case. So they are going to jump on this opportunity (the Brooklyn case) to show some sort of 'concern' that I *think* (only think until proven wrong) they wouldn't be concerned about if it had been several white folks either beating on a black girl or a white girl.
Notice, in the same weekend I saw a dehumanizing of the young women who beat the young lady in Brooklyn - I saw this extreme empathy for two white female tweeners in the midwest who had actually stabbed someone (google Slender Man Stabbing) because they will be tried as adults.
Google Brooklyn McDonalds Beating and Google Slender Man Stabbing - read the comments.
And I disagree with Tyga (who as I understand it upon research is a rapper dating an underage girl) - as did the author of the OP ED. We are there - we exist as role models . . . but it's hard to get America to view us as such - and the media to prop us up as such.
The issue here is that while it’s idiotic to fight, the thousands of videos adorning Black girls throwing bows or beating another girl down feed the idea that we’re violent, aggressive, and angry. Worse, watching one (or more) video automatically breeds another because in a teenager’s mind, having Internet fame is everything. Additionally, enough consumption of violence desensitizes one to it, making it easy to watch, or worse, reenact.
Studies have shown that “exposure to violent media results in a blunting of emotional responses, which in turn may prevent the connection of consequences of aggression with an appropriate emotional response, and therefore may increase the likelihood that aggression is seen as acceptable behavior.”
When Black girls see variations of themselves in a less than positive light, i.e. fight videos, it can be easy for them to have a poor self-image and set lower standards for themselves. They can be confused about how they should act, especially when it comes to tense, stressful, or confrontational situations. And while it may seem fun and harmless at the time, being recorded while viciously beating the life out of someone else – while solo or in a group – could warrant years of unwanted attention, unemployment, and possible jail time. Five of the girls involved in the attack, whose names were not released, have been arrested.
Tyga had the nerve to say that there aren’t a lot of real role models for Black “females” to look up to. He’s wrong. There’s a plethora of Black women out here consciously serving as healthy examples for our daughters. But these videos circulating the web make it harder for teenagers to look up to them.
Please, stop sharing fight videos. Instead, share positive representations of Black women, so our girls can aspire to someone more worthy of their respect than the likes of Sharkeisha.
Studies have shown that “exposure to violent media results in a blunting of emotional responses, which in turn may prevent the connection of consequences of aggression with an appropriate emotional response, and therefore may increase the likelihood that aggression is seen as acceptable behavior.”
When Black girls see variations of themselves in a less than positive light, i.e. fight videos, it can be easy for them to have a poor self-image and set lower standards for themselves. They can be confused about how they should act, especially when it comes to tense, stressful, or confrontational situations. And while it may seem fun and harmless at the time, being recorded while viciously beating the life out of someone else – while solo or in a group – could warrant years of unwanted attention, unemployment, and possible jail time. Five of the girls involved in the attack, whose names were not released, have been arrested.
Tyga had the nerve to say that there aren’t a lot of real role models for Black “females” to look up to. He’s wrong. There’s a plethora of Black women out here consciously serving as healthy examples for our daughters. But these videos circulating the web make it harder for teenagers to look up to them.
Please, stop sharing fight videos. Instead, share positive representations of Black women, so our girls can aspire to someone more worthy of their respect than the likes of Sharkeisha.
Read more: http://www.forharriet.com/2014/11/why-we-need-to-stop-sharing-videos-of.html#ixzz3UfY0cKPM
Follow us: @ForHarriet on Twitter | forharriet on Facebook
What we did get - was yet another White Male Right Wing Talking Head spouting off nonsense about us. Probably has never even had a black person into his home for dinner - yet has all kinds of nonsense to talk - becaus it's ALL he knows. . .
http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/03/16/white-texas-talk-show-host-uses-brooklyn-mcdonalds-beating-as-opportunity-to-say-nasty-things-about-black-people/
White Texas Talk Show Host Uses Brooklyn McDonald’s Beating As Opportunity to Say Nasty Things About Black People
“We have people living in our country who are savages. Absolutely, positively savages, to engage in this kind of behavior,” Berry said, making it clear he’s talking about Black people. “The whole McDonald’s is full, they’re loving it.”
Berry’s comments came as the girls who were allegedly involved in the beating and apparent robbery surrendered to authorities one-by-one over the weekend. New York police said yesterday only one of the six teenage girls who took part in the attack is still at large. The beating has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times after being posted to YouTube.
Berry’s comments came as the girls who were allegedly involved in the beating and apparent robbery surrendered to authorities one-by-one over the weekend. New York police said yesterday only one of the six teenage girls who took part in the attack is still at large. The beating has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times after being posted to YouTube.
Savages - absolute savages.
You shouldn't need to google too far to find that word/those words being used to describe black suspects on a regular basis.
Another snippet from the Atlanta Black Star Article:
One of the girls, who is just 14, was removed from an airplane at an international terminal at Atlanta’s airport, reportedly on a plane bound for her native Jamaica. Bail for the purported leader of the attack, Aniah Ferguson, 16, who was arrested on Thursday on charges of robbery and assault in the second degree, was set at $500,000, according to local media.
With the regularity of a clock, you can predict that some white conservative will use the occasion of a Black person committing a crime against another Black person to loudly cry about Black-on-Black crime. They reach for it with obvious glee, claiming that it’s a more serious matter in America than crimes committed against Black people by white racists or white police officers targeting young Black males. This is a favorite tactic of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani,
With the regularity of a clock, you can predict that some white conservative will use the occasion of a Black person committing a crime against another Black person to loudly cry about Black-on-Black crime. They reach for it with obvious glee, claiming that it’s a more serious matter in America than crimes committed against Black people by white racists or white police officers targeting young Black males. This is a favorite tactic of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani,
Funny that. . .
Hey I'm all for free speech - but what can we do to squash:
The behavior.
The recording of the behavior.
The posting of the behavior.
The attention paid to bad behavior.
I truly believe America is an extremely violent country.It's how we started and it's how we'll always be. However - what can we do bring some connections between young black woman - the softness they all hold within - nurture it - and get them to connect? And does our behavior as adults and mentors both in real life and in online environments - how does it prop them up? How can we prop them up?
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And you've been fighting some good fights out there. 
And of course conservatives will cry that this is proof of the "animal nature" of black folks as they ignore and whitesplain the hell out of the serial killers and school shooters, the vast majority of whom are white, as mentally ill or "anomalies" and not representative of white people in any way.
And the next step - the media - all of it - not just 'news sites' then runs with it.
And the gio showed me that article yesterday - re the ten year old little girl. And now he wonders is she going to 'wince' a lot in her life.
The fight video comments are so disgusting it's like they try to say all PoC are like that. When drunk rednecks fight they don't call all white folks savages.
