Source: beaumontenterprise.com

We love watching fights. Whether it be Tami Roman on “Basketball Wives” or someone fighting on World Star Hip Hop, our culture thrives on viewing a beat down. Sometimes these fights get too graphic, even for our numbed out minds, and petitions are drawn up and a channel like CNN reports on it. But sooner or later, we are right back to where we started, supporting the violence; using something so alarming as a form of entertainment.

Most who use these television shows and viral videos for escapism will admit that they are having profound negative effects on our youth. It’s common knowledge that high school and middle school students are notorious for filming schoolyard and neighborhood fights just for a little cyber fame. But a few weeks back, I realized just how dark this new found culture has gotten. Flipping through news channels, I stopped to watch a news reporter on Headline News where they discussed a YouTube video of a young mother cheering on the physical altercation of two toddlers. My heart sank for about five minutes as I watched the news segment in disbelief.

It was reported that the mother filming the ordeal is from St. Louis. She can be heard in the background egging on the inappropriate behavior with exclamations such as, “Y’all better ball up some fists!” A friend of the mother reported the video to their local television station, and Social Services got involved. As I shook myself out of my state of shock, my mind began to race with thoughts of how much we have embraced barbaric physical acts as a norm. We fight over comments on social media, celebrities fight over the women they’re sleeping with, and every reality show gains viewers by allowing cast members to haul off and slap the crap out of one another. The culture of fighting is being embraced on these shows, and it’s not only making young men and women think that getting violent to solve disputes is cool, but it’s painting us all in a horrible light. It’s bad enough we have Erica scrapping in a parking lot with her man Lil Scrappy, but to have a real-time video of a black mother urging two babies to fight? What is the world coming to when your thirst for entertainment and fame allows you to go so far?

I know that reality shows with violence aren’t going to go anywhere anytime soon. Petitions will be drawn up, people will protest, but these programs will be here to stay as long as there is an audience that desires them. What I am concerned about is how much of these shows we have internalized. This video of the two babies fighting screams that our appetite for violence and using it as a way to settle issues is bigger and more complex than we ever imagined. I can say, with a heavy heart, that common sense, tact and maturity for many has flown completely out the window, and the more we say this ratchet behavior is just “entertainment,” the more we can expect scenarios like this to happen again. We’ve become too desensitized to the violence, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is not a good thing.

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