A few days ago I am watching the 5
o’clock news on WNBC in New York, then later Fox and I am sure everyone saw who
was watching this story about the young girls from Brooklyn, New York get into
a huge brawl of about 20 teenage girls in a local McDonald’s. This is not the
first time a fight has been caught on video with the girls fighting each other.
It seems like people have become comfortable with this image. They are
capturing it on their cell phones and watching it like its supposed to be a live
boxing match or fight. I remember when there was a time when young people have
rites of passage. Bar mitzvah, Bat mitzvah, Quinceaneras, Sweet Sixteen’s,
Cotillions, going to high school, all of these are rites of passage for
teenagers. Now when did it become a rite of passage to beat a girl down with a
large group in the middle of a restaurant, school, or park and it’s
acceptable. It broke my heart I
couldn’t stop thinking about it cause I kept trying to imagine me having a
daughter or son and I get a phone call about my child getting into a fight from
a principal or a parent. That bothers me when you have to watch kids fight for
a senseless reason. Its different whether the girls fight because someone was touched or hit
first. However, they need to have a real reason to fight like a boy they may
all have a crush on, competing in class against grades, or attention. These are
pretty logical reasons to fight with a girl I get it you want to argue and blow
off some steam.
Now
there’s a process to a fight, it happens for whatever reason, then there’s it
actually happening, the witnesses involved, and then the aftermath the
screaming and fighting come to a cease and now you have to calm the girls or
boys down to make sense of the situation. In this case the reason the fight
happened is still being investigated. However, the story really hit me cause I
was just praising women the other day about Women’s History Month. How can we
all be so proud after I see this ugly display and it made me cringe. It’s one
of the ugliest things to see your child with a group of girls who join in and
pounce on a girl, causing bruises, blood, scars, hair loss, and possible broken
bones or fractures.
Here’s my message to young ladies
as a young woman who attended two all-girl high schools, I had my little fair
share of arguments, I was teased or bullied a bit in junior high too. I get it
I can relate to you. Here’s how you fight and do it wisely young ladies. Use
your brain; use your intelligence, wit, and power. I will never forget a quote
I heard a long time ago about “Women represent how our society should be, they
display how we should conduct themselves”. I know it’s a lot of pressure to hear that but it can be
done. Our ancestors laid down the cement let’s walk along smoothly and make a
good choice. Basically they are saying in this quote how every woman once she
steps foot, she has an obligation to make good choices in the world, she has
the right to decide how she will conduct herself, to use wise judgment, and to
make a choice of will I be bullied, will I be judged, ostracized, critiqued.
No! I will be smart and back away. I will back away from non-violence. When did
it become all right for us to teach young women it’s all right to practice
violence in America. That’s what
we are really saying when you are capturing a video of over 20 girls jumping,
fighting, and squabbling. Now when I say violence, I know it occurs in the
world of course in many forms fighting in a war or even domestic violence.
However when it’s girls I think it takes on a whole different meaning.
Young women need to remind
themselves we need to develop sisterhood, friendship, a bond to get through
tough situations, not beat each other to a pulp. You know I realized something
for the last few months. I used to watch these shows, “The Real
Housewives…franchise”, “Bad Girls Club”, and “Love & Hip Hop” now in the
beginning I thought wow the shows are fun, exciting, entertaining, the girls
are cool, stylish, strong, and beautiful.
Sometimes I wonder is it because of the images they see on television is
making them want to display violence in public. That it’s all right to pull
another’s hair. A girl/woman’s hair is her crown and glory. She works so hard
to eat and feed her scalp the proper nutrients to be full, long, thick, curly,
wavy, blonde, red, brunette, pink, or green whatever color she chooses to dye
her hair. The fact that women are throwing glass at each other, women are
punching, scratching, and most of all destroying one another. It’s
unacceptable. This is not what we should teach young ladies. We should be
teaching them self-worth, pride, humility, confidence, respect for themselves,
for others, and especially their elders. It is disappointing to know that young
women feel this way to hurt one another. I hope and pray that maybe television
producers will re-think their synopsis of their programs, their approach for
ratings. We are teaching girls young ladies the wrong thing. They are supposed
to be the apple of eye, not walking around giving people black eyes. I hope for
all of you out there the parents, friends, guardians, teachers, educators, and
relatives raising and educating these young women can sit down with their
daughters, talk to them cause they obviously need you more than you realize
now. It make take some time, I know its never easy to approach a teenager, I
have been there and I have seen it first hand as well. However, it is better to
show you care and love your child. We have to do so much to protect our
children and teens from that we need to be smart and continue to protect your
child. I am going to add a few
websites and ideas for young girls and women that maybe will promote growth and
help young ladies to go in a more positive and uplifting direction.
1.
Girl Scouts of America http://www.girlscouts.org
2.
Volunteer Programs-Boys & Girls Clubs http://www.bgca.org
3.
Any non-profit organizations
4.
Tutoring programs
5.
Activities that uplift them and make them happy.
6.
Now if girls do like active activities where
they can join the football team, cheerleading, gymnastics, the basketball team,
soccer, fencing, bowling. All of these sports activities require physical and
mental competition.
7.
Helping your local community with animals.
8.
Starting your own business for young ladies with
that entrepreneurial spirit
9.
Check in on your neighbors and helping people.
10. Having sleepovers, slumber parties, make
up parties, maybe “Make a Difference party” where one girl does something for
another girl that will help her it could be help with homework, a small
problem, something to be learned and developed. This is something that will
teach and help kids pay it forward.
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