Stereotypes

"What a skank."

That was my first thought when I saw a picture in our local fishwrap that accompanied a review of Ashanti's latest CD.

Now I don't listen to Ashanti or any other musician these days. Once in a while I'll find an oldies station but not too often. My hearing sucks so trying to decipher new stuff isn't worth the bother. But I do read the entertainment section of the paper so thats how I saw the photo of her.

She had less on than a lot of hookers I've seen over the years. And this was a CD cover that would be viewed by the general public.

Having said all that I'll make the observation that a lot of R&B/Hiphop/rap has a large fan base of white kids. Most of this music is made by blacks (Eminem and his ilk excepted).

So a racial group that has the stereotypes of the males being thugs and the females as oversexed f******* machines perpetuates those myths with their white fans for a few more dollars.

The white kids grow up with these images firmly in their minds and nothing to counter them. Then in later years the cries of racial profiling will continue to echo through society because of it.

Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?

FWIW, during a few years in my life I found myself spending more time with blacks than anybody else. It's a long story. But what I quickly discovered was that once you take away the skin color they're no different than us white folk. Not any more athletic, not any tougher when they get hit, not any better in bed, not any dumber and certainly not any less likely to buy into stereotypes about other racial groups. So I kind of wonder where the brains in the black community are with crap like this being constantly perpetuated.

Bill Cosby and his like keep trying but they seem to be voices in the wilderness.

Nuts.