Monday, July 7, 2008

The Swagger Phenomenon

"Swagger" seems to be the new buzz word in our community when a black female refers to a male who has arrogance, confidence or the "it" factor. Swagger has become the new term of endearment when a black woman now refers to a black male. Is it me, or are we becoming very shallow.

On the surface, there's really not a problem with someone having swagger, except that in many cases it's only referring to someone who is prominent in the hip hop culture. Lil Wayne is a recent addition to the swagger list. Diddy, Jeezy, Kanye, David Banner, Rick Ross all would be considered to have swagger. Barack Obama has swagger in some female circles, but not in all. Is it because he wears a suit everyday, and speaks with proper diction? We're in a pretty tough place when a young male who may be the next business leader, doctor, lawyer or just a productive citizen has no chance of having the "swagger" tag associated with him because of stereotypes.

The choices for black females are already slim, since in present day statistics, 50 percent of black males don't even graduate from high school. The choices become even slimmer when we begin stereotyping what's cool down to anyone associated only with the hip hop community. It's amazing that while all of these images are being perpetuated by music videos and supported by BET, that young black woman are readily accepting of these images as potential "baby daddies". By contrast, while a black male may view a scantily clad video vixen as sexually appealing, you can bet that he would not take the vixen home to Mommy.

Swagger is not a negative attribute by any stretch of the imagination, but black women need to look way beyond the swagger phenomenon and into the depths of the man's soul, and make sure that Mom's OK with you bringing him home.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think black women are becoming/have been very shallow. SWAGGER is not the first thing I look for when I look for a potential companion. I think it is being blown WAAAAAYYYY outta line. I look at how a guy treats his mother, sisters and yes me. I want him to have self confidence, yes!!! But that is not and would never be my determining factor.