Not everyone is meant to be a Martin Luther King Jr. type or have the impact of Rose Parks. I can admit that. But when African American publications like VIBE magazine, a publication that is supposed to be about uplifting the African American’s in the entertainment business, choose to put people like Amber Rose on the cover and then label her as an ICON during the interview; they lose the little bit of credibility that they had left.

AMBER ON BEING ICONIC:

“Kanye would always tell be how beautiful I was and that I was going to be iconic. He always said that, ‘Baby, you are iconic. You don’t understand what you have.’ I didn’t. I didn’t understand it.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I am happy that Amber Rose was given an opportunity to change her life. She literally hoped off the stripper pole unto Kanye West’s…lap, and manifested herself a semi-relevant career. If that’s not hustle mixed with a little bit of luck, I don’t know what is. It is the way she did it that bothers me and the impact that her slutty behavior has on young girls that concerns me even more. Do we really want their ultimate dream to be a rapper’s arm piece?

What also worries me is the direction that Black entertainment blogs and magazines are going into. They put people like her on pedestals. They devote more blog space unto slapping pictures of her walking down the street than they do to individuals with identifiable talent. Let’s be real. She is a person who has no recognizable talent, is openly trashy, and lacks education. Now, we not only place people like her on proverbial pedestals but we also refer to them as “Icons”. Really?

Are African American blogs and magazines so desperate for the clicks and sales that we have deduced ourselves to celebrating anyone? Even a person whose only claim to fame is showing her body, being overtly sexual and going from one Black male entertainer to another? Diana Ross is an icon. Mrs. Obama is an icon. Tina Turner is an icon. Oprah is an icon. Hell, I will even go as far as saying that Beyonce is approaching icon status. These are women who worked their ass off on the stage. People who devoted their entire lives to entertainment and perfecting their craft. Have we finally came to a point in African Amrican entertainment where a woman can literally sell her a** for the cover of a magazine? Having absolutely nothing more to offer. Amber Rose is not an icon. A hustler? Yes. A lucky woman? Yes. An opportunist? Yes. An icon? Hell no.

Vibe’s downward spiral upsets me because I can remember a time, long ago, when I would actually be excited about the newest issue of Vibe. I would almost piss my pants if I came home and there was an issue of Vibe in the mailbox. They were one of the first magazines that were ran by majority African Americans, written by African American journalists and focused on African American entertainers and other movers and shakers that did not get any recognition from the White magazines. These were people who deserved the hype but did not receive it mainly because of their race. Not because they lacked talent, ambition or drive.

It seems that now Vibe and other African American entertainment outlets will slap a crack head from down the block on the cover of their publications if it means that they will get a little buzz. Where are the standards? The sad thing is that there are teenage girls who see people like Amber Rose being celebrated by our community and accruing fame from doing virtually nothing. A little sleeping with him, a little sleeping with her, spreading their legs here, maybe there, taking a few slutty pictures, but no real substance. They then see Vibe labeling her an “Icon” and think to themselves “I wanna be like her”. Yes, don’t think your daughters aren’t watching the attention and semi-fame this woman and women like her receive from their behavior.

Understand that I am not knocking the girl’s hustle. Who in their right mind would turn down free money because they know that it is unwarranted? I am knocking Vibe’s lack of growth and seemingly regressive state from once being a meaningful outlet for Black entertainment into being a stack of papers stapled together and slapped on news stands. I am also knocking the African American blogs who celebrate this woman and women like her daily by repeated posts of nothingness by plastering large photos of her with her legs spread wide open. While only giving a blurb to the more talented, respectable entertainers. I supposed I expected more from them and it is official that those expectations have now died.

Is she really a woman who we want to teach our little Black daughters and teens is a representative of an icon? Is she the type of woman we want the next generation emulating? Again, I am not knocking the girl personally, because she might be a swet girl. I am only going by how she represents herself and asking you is that how you would want your daughter representing herself? Oh to be an icon. Vibe do better.

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