One of the latest reality stars to captivate the interest of reality television audiences is Chrissy Lampkin , a young woman involved with a rapper Jim Jones, who has his own solo career, manages other artists, and is part of the rap group The Diplomats. The appeal of these shows is that audiences get to see young women fight with each other over successful men in the entertainment industry, with the obvious implications that these women slept with men to get where they are in the industry, as opposed to getting ahead off of their own talent. Many times the answer is somewhere in between; the entertainment value is found in the character assassination of each participants character onscreen. The only difference between girls on shows like Love and Hip-Hop, Basketball Wives, and other shows where young Black and Latina women fight over men and privileged women like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian is that they came into the entertainment industry with more money and deal with men that have more money than these young women do.
I honestly do not know how this passes for entertainment when any poor person that grew up in the neighborhood knows more women like the type of women we see on these reality shows fighting over men than they have fingers on both of their hands to count with. The differences of the way in which women of color are portrayed on television in comparison to the way in which other women are portrayed would leave most with the impression that the only way in which a poor Black girl can get ahead is by hooking herself up with a successful man. A show about a poor girl that is intelligent, that graduates from college that is not busy fighting over a man or living with him because he is paying her bills would never be successful. Instead we are treated with shows like Teen Mom that exploit poor White women, or Love and Hip-Hop that exploit poor Black and Latina women.
Chrissy Lampkin isn’t doing anything that Karrine Steffans, or Kat Stacks, or any of these other women in the media have not done. That is why I cannot understand why people seem to hate her so much. Some of these women can climb out of the gutter and make a name for themselves. Some of these women do not have a name for themselves outside of the gutter; it is the same difference. Chances are you read their book, or watched their movie, or watched one of their videos, because it was a guilty pleasure, and you shouldn’t like them, but you can respect the fact that they got paid to do what they did, however it was done. These women are just taking advantage of the opportunities in life that are made available to them, like any other woman would do.
