In a blog entry at Madame Noire, Charing Ball looks at the fascination with a viral video of two British girls singing Nicki Minaj's hit single "Super Bass." While she, too, adores the girls, she bemoans the fact that such praise and attention often escapes African-American children.
While everybody is still talking/reeling about Nicki Minaj’s “Hell raising” performance at the Grammys, we totally missed the two little British girls do their thang on the red carpet.
Sophia Grace Brownlee, 8 and her cousin Rosie McClelland, 5 are probably best known for their sickening cute cover of Nicki Minaj’s hit song, “Super Bass” on YouTube. The video of them twirling around in pink tutus and princess crowns was so big that it got the attention of Ellen DeGeneres, who brought the girls on to perform it live with their idol Minaj. Eventually, this led to them being invited back to perform Keri Hilson’s version of “Turn My Swag On,” and a request by Ellen herself to cover the American Music Awards for the show.
On Sunday, the British invasion known as Sophia and her sidekick Rosie glided around the red carpet in gold and pink princess costumes rubbing elbows with Lady Antebellum, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Fergie, and Taylor Swift among others. During the show, Rosie confessed to Ellen that “we weren’t nervous but we were hungry … ” so they even paused for a sandwich and juice box break on the red carpet. I swear children can be so deliciously cute sometimes. It makes me want to have a bunch of them but then I realize that I have to take care of them and go back to playing with my dog …
… Now I don’t say all of this to throw shade at little Rosie and Sophia. I honestly think they are cute as buttons. However I do wish sometimes that we have the same sort of whimsical fascination with little Black girls and boys as we do with them. In many ways, our attempt to shield our children from stereotypes placed upon us as a race has done just as much damage to their self-esteem than the actual stereotype could. If they grow up believing that, because of their color, everything they do is inherently wrong and worthy of added scrutiny and punishment, then can we really blame them when they grow up to be ashamed and distant from identifying with being Black?
Read Charing Ball's entire blog entry at Madame Noire.