Does This Coffin Make Me Look Thin?

I just finished reading an article on Reuters.com about a beauty contestant in Australia being criticized by the media and the general public for being too thin in a pageant promoting "healthy, proportioned bodies". Now, I understand that there are people out there who are naturally thin, I actually know a few of them (granted, the majority of the ones I'm acquainted with are men, but, I digress) and they truly can't do much of anything about their weight. But the young woman in question, a model, is 5'11" and 108lbs.!! Her body mass index is 15.1. 18 is considered malnutrition. The pageant director said that the contestant's corpse-like, I mean, svelte body, is due to her Macedonian heritage.

"They have long, lithe bodies and small bones. It is their body type, just like Asian girls tend to be small," [Pageant director Deborah]Miller said.

Wow. Is this person serious? Three points below what's considered malnutrition and it's her ancestry that's to blame? Come on. The thin people I know look thin, not like they're going to collapse at any given moment! Even models from Ethiopia, who are notorious for their lean bodies, still manage to look like they aren't going to break if you breathe on them. This woman looks like there is an effort being made to be that thin and I would want to see medical documentation that she is healthy before I would even consider that it's just genetics to blame.

The first thing I thought when I read this article and saw the accompanying picture, was, Holy Cow! That girl is a skeleton with the skin still on! I must have actually said something to this effect out loud, because my seven year old daughter said, "What? I wanna see!" Which then led me to my second thought, which was, Do I really want to let my impressionable child see this? It took me a minute before I decided to show her, and then proceeded to explain that the young lady in the picture was in a beauty contest, but people were concerned for her because she looked way too thin. The people in that country were trying to decide if they should make a rule that contestants had to be at least a certain BMI (yes, I had to explain that too) in order to participate in the contest from now on. My daughter looked at the picture again and said "She's too skinny. Why do people like that?" to which I answered that some people think that THAT is what's pretty. "Her face is pretty, but her body looks scary." was her retort, and then she went off to find something else to do. From the mouths of babes...

I know that the world of modeling had a very similar debate when a model ended up dead from complications of her eating disorder. Many European runways have a BMI cutoff to hopefully curb the onslaught of emaciated models. They don't want to have that kind of stigma hanging over them.

When will we decide that beauty isn't worth anything if you're dead or in a hospital. As far as I know, there isn't a competition for prettiest cadaver. The only thing I feel I can do about it is to keep voicing my opinion that this "dying to be prettiest" mindset is wrong and to keep telling my kids to find their own definitions of what beauty really is.

Keepin It Real

Let me start out by saying that, although I'm not a gangsta or a thug, I enjoy listening to rap and hip hop every now and then. That being said...

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO RAP MUSIC?!?

I mean I can't stand rap music now. And apparently, a lot of people agree with me. As of 2005, hip hop sales were falling so much that TIME magazine felt compelled to ask the question of whether or not hip hop was "dying". Some of the theories floating around are: that some young people are tired of the violence, degrading imagery and lyrics.(not likely) Another theory is that falling sales are due to illegal downloading and P2P networks.(that's possible) Or perhaps it's because of the lack of lyrical content and "sampling" by newer artists.(maybe)
However, I don't subscribe to any of those theories. They all seem to have a hint of truth to them, but I think that the people who came up with those theories have overlooked one monumental idea that links them all together.

Today's rappers have SOLD OUT!!!!

There I said it.
Now before anyone decides to pop a cap in my, well, you know...let me just explain what I mean. When rap began back in the 1970's, all the way up until the late 1990's, people loved it because they could relate to it somehow. It spoke of poverty, crime, hard times, difficult situations, hopelessness and hope; it told the life stories of those who felt like no one ever listened or cared. Sometimes it was humorous, oftentimes it was violent, but it always seemed to SAY something, even if not everyone liked what they heard. The "old skool" rap could be thought of as an anthem for a whole group of people who needed an outlet; a voice.

The rappers of today still hold true to certain aspects of the "old skool": they still speak of "smackin' their b@*ch up" and other acts of violence; they still grossly overuse profanity. The difference seems to be that their target audience is no longer the disenfranchised masses, it's themselves. Or the upper classes.

Put away the gat, I'm still explaining!

Almost anytime you hear a hip hop song on the radio today, it's like listening to someone read the store directory out of VOGUE magazine. Lyrics are inundated with references to Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, and countless others. Most of which are spelled wrong in the lyrics! These people are shopping for jewelry and bling at places like Tiffany and Cartier. While drinking Courvoisier and Cristal.
What regular person can do that? I can't. The people in my neighborhood can't and I would like to think that my neighborhood is a step or two above the ghetto and they certainly can't unless they're doing something shady on the side. How are the rest of us listening to these rappers supposed to make any kind of connection to what they're talking about? That was the beauty of rap to begin with! That the person in front of the beat knew where you were coming from. can they really do that from Rodeo Drive?

So, the next time one of you "new skool" rappers are rolling down the street in your pimped-out Escalade, wearing your yearly salary's worth of ice around your neck or on your teeth, and your D&G clothes and Prada shoes, listening to the radio and hear your new track drop, when you turn your Gucci sunglasses to look around you, know this:
The people in the minivan behind you and the beat up Toyota next to you, just turned off that same station and are now listening to someone who really understood us. Someone who kept it real. Kept it simple. Like Run DMC. Or Vanilla Ice.
Peace, I'm out!