When is Being Yourself a Bad Thing?

The other day my cousin came to visit me, and the first thing I wanted to do is slap the crap out of her. She had black and red lace front weave, a pink, low cut shirt that said “Barbie”, which would even make a nun blush, with booty shorts on (mind you it’s 30 degrees outside) and a fake black fur coat. She became a damn Barbie, a person of the Nicki Minaj army of clones, and girl that in my book is a cheap as hell. I have taught her better than that!! Instead of preaching from jump, I have decided to let it go, until she opened her mouth. We were talking being a diva and she smacks her lips and said

“I’m a Diva, and I’m only 20, I demand respect, and I get it!”

Huh?! Respect?! Dressed like a Barbie?! No ma’am! So I went off, I had to, my brain couldn’t take her fakeness anymore, and this is what I said:

Being something that is a trend doesn’t automat ally gain you a “diva” status, this is earned, I’m not even in that status yet. Being a diva to me is someone that has been though the world; ups and downs without letting it get to you. That means you don’t hide yourself in a different face like a “Barbie” to deal with your troubles, you deal with your troubles and overcome it with a positive outlook.

My cousin rolled her eyes and said:

“Girl, please, being proud of your body like me, isn’t negative, its positive, that’s why I get attention. I’m not hiding from no one, I’m gaining a lot. That’s why I know I’m a diva, I’m proud of myself”

Me, being, me, laughed at the comment, and said:

Being proud of yourself, means that you show yourself and others that you feel this way. Wearing slutty clothes, and bouncing around in the middle of club doesn’t give you positive attention, it gives you’re the ‘she is just an easy fuck’ attention. See men doesn’t just see you and say “Hey behind that Barbie clothes and makeup, she will be the mother of my children” They will see you as “a easy lay, or a one date at the soul food restaurant and then back seat action” Men doesn’t have that power to see your soul, men just sees your appearance and go from there. That’s why I know for a fact that you don’t have pride for yourself, because if you did, you wouldn’t put yourself in that version.

My cousin didn’t like that statement and needed to find something to say back to shut me up, ah how about the fact that since I wasn’t raised in the hood, I’m not real enough speech. I won’t go to details about the speech, because every time I hear it, I lose brain cells, but the short version of it is: since I’m not from the hood, I wouldn’t understand that its different to find a man there and that she was raised to be like this, so she has to do what she can to gain this respect to get what she wants.

I hate this speech, because it hurts me in a different way than she thinks. It hurts me because she was taught that being a slut, dressing like a slut, or even being a slut sometimes will get you far in this world, and that what she is doing isn’t being a slut. Her role models are the females on TV that are getting the most attention at the time like Ms. Minaj, or the females around the block, that get men to play for their light bill that month. But you have to understand that Nicki Minaj is selling sex right now to get more records sold, and your friend around the block at to screw that man a lot to the point of trapping him to pay for that bill. But later on in life, when Ms. Minaj turns 40, no one wants to see her tits anymore, and may see her in a Young Money reunion on BET, and that female on the block, well either she will live off warfare, too lazy to get a job, wonder why her life is hard, and blame everyone else but yourself. Being these so called “Role Models” because you say it’s the only way to get attention from the men in your hood, then you need to get out of your hood, so you can grow. If they only respect you because of your sexual ways then you need to quit hanging out with those people. They get the word respect mixed up with the word easy. They don’t want to please someone that takes hard work to be with, and being with an easy girl, means easy way to keep, which means they can treat you any kind of way. That’s why I would never make it in her world, and it hurts me because she really believes in this.

Here is the thing ladies and gentlemen, being someone in the entertainment world, isn’t going to get you far in the real world. You have to be YOURSELF! Going on the internet and showing off your tits because you want that attention high, well bite you in the ass later on in life. Use that COMMON SENSE that is in your mind to be a better you. You can’t be someone else to gain something better, that’s life. And if you need to follow someone in your life, find a classy, well rounded person that didn’t need to throw sex at someone to gain ground. I follow Sade sometimes because she never had to be crazy, or a stereotypical person to get far in life. She was Sade, and she never changed to gain more people to love her, she was, well, herself.

My cousin after we had our talk, she walked out of my house pissed because from just her outfit, I went off. Maybe because I’m tired of seeing our women going down the toilet because they feel they can’t get by without being something negative. That by just wearing a Barbie shirt, or having “five star chick” tatted on their chest would somehow get them far, rather than being their selves. My mother always told me that if you’re being someone else, how someone would even know the true you. I rather have people know that I’m an ‘anime loving, football crazy, sushi martini adoring, and true hip hop listening’ nerd any day. Have a good day everyone!


P.S. Nicki Minaj is a pretty good rapper, so I’m not dissing her. I’m just upset that she helping women become something that they shouldn’t.