“Read a book” video

The other day I got an email from a fellow church member (and possible relative) about a video that was (and maybe still is) being shown on BET called “Read a book”. Now when I read the email I was kind of thrown because I hadn’t seen the video but after seeing it I was actually 50/50 on all the noise being made. Let me give a short description of the video. It takes place in a school in the ghetto (or hood) and it is about reading books. Now the music is set to Beethovan’s 5th Symphony with a hip-hop beat. The main line is “Read a book ya’ll, read a Motherf*ckin book”.

The video is an animation that has booty shakin’, gun clappin and all that stuff that mainstream america identifies with as well as what most of our younger african american rappers talk about. But I could not help but to think about a couple of weeks ago while watching TLC, Discovery or one of those stations a commercial came on for rap videos on On-Demand on Comcast. That video has no faces but the characters are all draped in flashy jewlery and the letters have jewels in them. I mean you have to see it. When I did the first thing out of my mouth was “That is sad”. I thought to myself…this is how they see us? This is how we want to be seen? Now in my mind I was thinking it had to be a white person that though of that but then I wouldn’t be surprised if a black person was behind it.

Now after seeing this “Read a book” video I thought this is the image that is mainstream today. But today while discussing the long email string about this video I could help but to think about some of the videos in my teen years that was so big for us. Videos like Rump Shaker or Bump & Grind

Now here is the video that I first got introduced to the grinding and butt shaking was Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up”. I will never forget the part of the video when she dropped down and flapped (or shall I say spreaded) her legs. Here I am in the eatery with all these other GI’s and every last guy in the place screamed. Check it out:

So in a way the video didn’t really upset me but it made me realize that I have a job to do. And that job is share my story and empower our children to realize that there is more to life than the images that they see today. Help them to understand that what they do today will follow them tomorrow. Show them that I do LOVE them and I do care. Give them a shoulder to cry on and a ear to listen when they need to talk.

Here is the “Read a book” video…judge for yourself….

~ by The Black Warrior on September 6, 2007.