In defense of Shawty Lo and his ratchet (CANCELED?!!) reality show
What’s the world coming to when a man can’t choose to exploit himself and his nontraditional family in the privacy of his own home on national TV?
- Oxygen
Poor Shawty Lo.
What’s the world coming to when a man can’t choose to exploit himself and his nontraditional family in the privacy of his own home on national TV? So what if the former drug trafficker turned Atlanta rapper wanted to traffic in gross racial stereotypes for all to see. To each his own, right?
Well, if the rumors are true good ol’ Lo may have to devise a new family hustle. According to Newsweek/The Daily Beast’s Allison Samuels, the Oxygen network is on the verge of announcing the cancellation of “All My Babies’ Mamas,” the scheduled reality show starring Shawty Lo, the 10 women with whom he’s procreated, and their 11 offspring.
If true, it’s a victory for the countless critics, armchair activists and raging commenters who launched attacks, threatened boycotts, and signed a Change.org petition against the show since Oxygen previewed the pilot episode on the web last December. And after a year of protracted complaints over the tragic proliferation of highly rated, one-dimensional reality shows (“Basketball Wives,” “Love & Hip-Hop”) that debase black women, it may be the first sign that the old-school boycott is still a relevant form of political action in the information age. But for some reason, this still doesn’t feel like a win.
Sabrina Lamb would probably beg to differ. She’s the one who started the Change.org boycott petition which amassed over 30,000 signatures in 10 days to abort the Oxygen show before it was scheduled to air later this year. Entitled “Shawty Lo Must Go,” the open letter Lamb wrote to Oxygen Media CEO Jason Klarman helped kick up a righteous ruckus over the show.
Oxygen attempted to defend the show, claiming it “was not meant to be a stereotypical representation of everyday life for any one demographic or cross section of society.” But when the plea for black people to stop taking everything so personally fell on mostly deaf ears, Shawty Lo was forced to defend his own reality.
In a candid interview with MTV last week, Lo told the story of a disadvantaged upbringing which led to him becoming a Bankhead drug kingpin and convicted felon before he parlayed his criminal lifestyle into his D4L rap label/group and short-lived solo success (“Dunn Dunn,” “Dey Know”).
“You can hate all you want to, I didn’t ask for it. It just happened. Now that it happened, I’m supposed to turn my back against it?” Shawty Lo told MTV News regarding his 11 children, all of whom were born before his came about his career in rap. “If I wasn’t taking care of my kids then you would really dog me out, but I’m taking care of my kids, providing for my family. I don’t know what else to say.”