Rap sensation Cardi B is pregnant and Americans, in 2018, are asking why she would throw away her career by getting pregnant/having a baby… Check Twitter… Check Google… Check yourselves.
What is going on people? What’s really sad is that we, as a society at large, still view this as the norm. Women should choose career or family. Not both. No one is asking Offset, rapper and father of Cardi B’s soon to be born child, how his career is going to be derailed by this baby. Nor did they ask this with his existing three children.
We live in a country where we would rather vote for an outright racist than a woman. Forget that people hate Hillary. The large majority of voters are uninformed and don’t really know what horrors HRC has committed around the globe. Women and men alike didn’t vote for her because she’s a woman. This is plain and simple.
So let’s forget that it was Hillary. No woman stood a chance against any man… In 2016. When HRC couldn’t win against a relatively unknown Black man in 2008, we should have known that the glass ceiling would not be broken just 8 short years later.
No matter how far we think we’ve come we need to understand that most gains are superficial. Most chauvinism is unspoken. This is a patriarchal society. Pink hats won’t change things.
I may sound pessimistic. But I am a Black woman, born in the 70’s. The Civil Rights Movement ended just a few short years before my birth. Yet, just over a decade after I was born, teachers, in the NYC public school system were teaching kids that the Civil Rights Movement was “ancient history.” That wasn’t even remotely true.
I’ve been lucky enough to escape all manner of police brutality. But I can’t escape the reality that most Black men that I know have been harassed by police. Regardless of their station in life. So forgive me if I understand that many of the gains during the Civil Rights Movement were largely superficial.
So when I look at the #MeToo movement, I literally shake my head. I kept waiting for executives of these big corporations to be outed, Followed by the smaller management and associates of literally every company, run by men. This isn’t happening. No matter how much we want to deny the existence of class in this country, it exists. The working woman can’t afford to fight harassment in her office the way established Hollywood women can. “Sexual harassment will not be taken lightly”… IF proven. The road to proving sexual harassment in the workplace is long and arduous. I won’t even tackle rape and sexual assault.
These “women’s issues” are societal issues and they are all interconnected. Rapper Cardi B is expected to take time off from her busy schedule and booming career even though she’s engaged to Offset and he is in the same position as Cardi. I don’t think so. Paternity leave is a thing.
Think back to your first reaction to hearing of Cardi’s pregnancy. Did you support her or were you perplexed? Think about it.
ADRIAN MARIE JONES 