Last year, you’ll recall, there was a big scandal involving Abercrombie & Fitch and their marketing of padded and push up bras and bikini tops to little girls as young as 7 years old.
Well, unfortunately, there’s another scandal involving sexualizing our children.
By now, many of us have either viewed or at least heard of the quote-unquote “Booty Pop” video that recently went viral where six-year-old Florida rapper, Albert Roundtree Jr., sings about how he can make women’s bottoms do just that…”Pop!”
The raunchy video is an online hit in spite of the fact that its child star is too young to watch it himself. YouTube has flagged it as inappropriate for its sexual references as its almost naked female participants pop their bottoms on both sides of Little Albert.
Amazing, as you all know, the ‘over-sexualization’ of children is a subject I take very seriously.
Children should be able to enjoy both their childhoods and their innocence without being preyed upon by aggressive marketers aimed at exploiting them, or even by greedy parents. According to a story in The Miami New Times, the director of the video claims Little Albert's parents paid for the video in the hopes that their son would become a famous rapper.
Let’s just stop and think about this for a second. Not only is it now okay in our society to publicly exploit six-year-old children on video for the world to see, but apparently, it’s also okay for the parents to be the source of such exploitation.
Answer this: What choice could a six-year-old possibly have in this process? He can’t tell the adults around him, “Well, I don’t think it is appropriate for me, at my tender age, to sing "Booty Pop" in a pool with a bunch of gyrating, half-dressed women for millions to see.”
This child is now being branded as the "Booty Pop Kid." How do you think that’s gonna look on a resume when he grows up?
And imagine the impact on his future of him being a one-hit viral wonder forever haunted by three minutes of this kind of childhood fame.
How many child stars have we seen go on to disturbing futures after not being able to deal with their rapid rise and brutal fall into oblivion?
Again, this young child did not have a choice. The adults around him are responsible for this nonsense and trust me, one day when Li’l Albert is all grown up, rap star or not, he’s going to hold them accountable for it.
But that’s just my opinion. Text us at 64-64-64 and let me know how you feel about it and if you think I’m on point or overreacting to this.
I’ll close with these words from Nelson Mandela:
“There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
Until next time, this is Stephanie in love and hope.
