I know the Olympics are over, but let’s chat about it for a smidge. The other day a friend sent over a new meme featuring Gabby Douglas. Here it is:
I wasn’t 16 and pregnant, I was 15 and pregnant. Without the TV cameras. The person who made this is a moron. Why? Because you don’t uplift one group at the expense of another. Plus, Gabby Douglas doesn’t care about your cause. She is 16 and an African American Olympian. She is not a representation for anything except those two things.
Because I am white, I won’t comment on the hair conversation. It’s not my cross to bear, but it is equally ridiculous and infuriating given the long history of hair politics for black women and girls.
I also get the real feeling that this meme furthers the idea that black girls disproportionately find themselves 16 and pregnant. Riight and abortion causes cancer.
From the Centers for Disease Control:
Race, then, doesn’t predict differences in rates of teen pregnancy all by itself. In fact, White teenagers are more likely to get pregnant in some states than Black and Latina teenagers in others.
Being 15 or 16 and pregnant is hard. Everyone knows that. If you can graduate college – like I did – you are a champion. Only 2% of teen mothers graduate before they turn 30.
Just so we’re clear, being a parent at any age is also hard. But at any other age, you don’t have the very real social stigma and absolute bullshit like this meme to make you feel even worse.
Shaming people? That NEVER – let me repeat myself – NEVER changes behavior. It never pushes people to do more, to be better, to strive for the best, to dream and conquer. Shaming, well, shames. It belittles, it causes violence within.
Why would anyone take the very real achievement of this amazing and beautiful athlete and turn it into a public shaming of a very specific group of girls who already have enough hurdles?
Ah, so someone can get a laugh? Maybe feel all high and mighty?
It’s. Not. Even. Funny.
And it’s not uplifting in the least.
It’s not as if Gabby Douglas was up on that beam thinking: good thing I’m not pregnant right now. If someone else was thinking it? Shame on that asshole. Because pregnancy has nothing to do with the Olympics. Unless you ARE a mother. Or just had a baby and, wow, let’s talk about the fact that my knees get creaky when, every so often, I leave this kitchen chair. I popped out my last kid ten years ago. So, if you are a mom AND an Olympian, all the more power.
Every day a teen mom gets up on a beam just like Gabby. She twists, she turns, she jumps, she back peddles, and then dismounts. You know what she’s doing? Just trying to make it through another day without a comment, a stare, or a meme letting her know EXACTLY what other people think.
If you just so happen to be a teen mom reading this: the “older” parents don’t have it all together. Hold your head up. Be a champion.
Oh and I made my own.
Because of course the only alternative to being an Olympic gold medalist is to be pregnant at 16. Which, based on that logical fallacy (I’m probably using that phrase wrong) means that essentially 99.8 percent of the world’s population were pregnant at 16, as the vast majority of us were not winning medals, to my knowledge. I know I wasn’t.
This is just dumb and wrong. I wish the keyboards of people who make stuff like this would magically disappear.
(I know this was not your point at all, but do you see her LEG? Good lord.)
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I know! Like I said, my legs get creaky when I get up from this chair. I think it anyone bent it beyond to pick up something I dropped, it would break off.
And ditto on the alternative to being an Olympian at 16.
Damn! This was awesome! Well said Liz!
Thanks, Jeanne! This meme needed a kick to the pants.
Excellent post Liz.
And while we’re at it, was there a 16-year-old boy champion? Why’s there not a meme with him & the script, “16 and not a baby daddy.” Gender & race politics are bullshit.
I couldn’t agree with you more. BS.
I totally agree with you. People need to pay attention to what they are really saying and no not everything is funny. Sometimes when people laugh it isn’t because they found what you said humorous its because they can’t believe you just said something that stupid. My pet pieve is that T-Shirt you see guys wear that has a picture of a stripper on a pole and says “I Support Single Mothers”…. gag!
I’m a nervous laugher. Which means I laugh when something is hilarious, I laugh when I’m nervous, I laugh when I can’t hear, basically, you get the point. So, when someone says or does something at the expense of others, I am dead silent. Never a good thing.
Thank you for this. You found the words to my thoughts as I watched this going around.
Thanks, Kelly. Jasmine from the http://www.thebrokins.com sent it to me and asked if I had seen it. Living in the bubble that I did, I hadn’t. Obviously she knew I would be pissed. Feel free to send me things that will make me pissed. =)
It’s so easy to grab an image and turn the perception of that image using typography. This is the new plagiarism. This is the new way of changing perceptions in a way that is negative and inaccurate. Thank you for calling this out. It’s destructive and it doesn’t move us forward.
Becca!
Yes and yes. There is nothing to add because you have said it all. In a way more “profesh” way than me.
I really enjoyed reading your take on this. Well said.
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Thanks, Beth!
Really great post, Liz.
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Thanks, Jen!
I saw this and I was all: PIWTPITT? What in THE?! But then was all: OOOH.
Back to being serious…
I love this and could use it every single day about something: “The person who made this is a moron. Why? Because you don’t uplift one group at the expense of another.”
Bravo Liz, bravo!
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Hey you, thanks for sharing this. And I’ll pat myself on the back for that very true statement. When we uplift one at the expense of another both lose.
I love it when I stumble across something that makes me want to stand up and yell to everyone else that this person has something worth hearing. Gold medal to you on this post!
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Thanks Des for finding me and commenting! We get uppity around these parts. Make sure to come back.
Well said, as usual. I don’t know why I don’t know why I don’t read this blog more often than I do, because it’s always thought-provoking. Even when I don’t agree with you (which is pretty rare), I still think you make your points in a skilled way. Today, I could not agree more.
Sean: I don’t know either. Maybe we can work on that? #JustSaying But even a pop in works for me. As long as you’re feeling something – whether agree or disagree – that’s the goal. But thank you for coming back. By the way, over there —– >
is an email signup form to get my posts in your inbox. My emails are a pretty stellar way to greet the day (they look pretty awesome too because I change them every month).
While I understand your anger at this meme, I have a slightly different take on it. When I read that, I interpreted it as being against the show “16 and Pregnant” and what that whole series has done to damage our teen girls, not anything else. Because you were a teen mom and made the heart-wrenching decision to give your daughter up for adoption, this cuts very close to the bone for you.
I see “look what you can accomplish if you work hard and don’t give in to peer pressure”, not “black teen girls are usually pregnant by this age”. But I’ve always been the odd one out.
Teens here think that getting on a reality show for any reason makes them famous. They don’t understand the full ramifications of being a mom at such a young age. They see fame and money. The girls on that show do get paid. Then they become fodder for the tabloid grist mill. It’s a vicious cycle perpetuated by the former cutting edge MTV. They just go for headlines, good or bad and caring about what the filming of their lives does to these young girls is inconsequential. It’s all about the bottom line.
And you are right that “you don’t uplift one group at the expense of another.” However, showing what one’s life could be like if the vicious cycle is broken is never a bad thing. That gives hope and hope is always good.
The vast majority of teen pregnancies in my area are white or Hispanic. I don’t know what the statistics are for each group, so don’t quote me. I’m just stating what I observe in my region. I have a seven year old daughter and I want her to go to college and fulfill her dreams, not end up a teen mom because of one careless decision. Should it happen, we’ll deal with it. But I still feel that babies having babies benefits no one. The mother must grow up far too quickly and the child gets raised by a mom who is still growing up herself. Then the whole cycle of poverty and lack of education begins again. No one wins in that scenario.
Gabby Douglas is an inspiration to all young girls. She could have become a statistic, just like any other teen in this country regardless of race, but she had a dream and the support to help it come true. I see an amazingly talented girl who achieved the ultimate reward for any athlete. I don’t see her color. I don’t see anything but an Olympic Gold Medal Winner.
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Hi Shan!
I’ve watched my fair share of 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. I think the show does more good than harm and I believe it portrays to, the best of its ability, the realities of young motherhood. It is a given that a lot of 16 and Pregnant follows the same story line: girl gets pregnant, boyfriend bailes, girl is left to figure it out and finds it overwhelming. But doesn’t Behind the Music ALSO follow the same arc time and time again? It doesn’t make the story and struggle any less significant. I don’t think either glamorizes addiction or teen pregnancy. If a girl watches Teen Mom or 16 and Pregnant and even remotely sees an opportunity, that girl needs help immediately.
Gabby Douglas is an inspiration to everyone especially girls and her image and achievements should not be used to put down another group. What would work better here – if the person who made this had a clue – is “champion.” Or “setting the bar” or “rise to new heights.” Those are uplifting messages that empower EVERYONE at the expense of NO ONE. These types of phrases lead the viewer to associate whatever it is that’s important to them.
I was a young mother and so was my mother. My grandmother was not. My sister has bypassed motherhood altogether. We know that teen motherhood, unfortunately, is a cycle. I will work incredibly hard to give my daughter the right tools to avoid teen pregnancy. But if it happens, I will not shame her. I will love her just as I do now.
Thank you for the comment and speaking your mind. All opinions are welcome even if we don’t agree.
Shan said what I felt. This meme is more about setting goals in my opinion. I didn’t see it putting down a group, but moreso saying that you can be something different than that group. It is a lot easier to be 16 and pregnant than it is to be an Olympic Gold Medalist, but you CAN be one. I didn’t see it as putting anyone down.
And the funny thing is Gabby Douglas could fall flat on her face (in life…not on that beam) just like anyone else. The girls on 16 and pregnant can use that situation to boost themselves into all kinds of power positions…we just don’t know. (http://goodenoughmother.com/2012/01/how-losing-puts-me-on-a-winning-path/) And for the record I really think Gabby is well on her way to doing some great things.
Your post kind of bothered me, but I respect that you put it out there. Thanks for making me a little more sensitive to what I say when I’m trying to make a point.
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Hi Ella!
Like I said above to Shan, completely okay to disagree and thank you for speaking your mind. While responding to comments I thought of examples that would be infuriating memes that follow the same vain: a picture of President Obama that says: President, Not in Jail or a white woman with a child breastfeeding and Mom Enough splashed nearby.
The mock Obama one is exactly what this Gabby Douglas meme is saying. It’s wrong. The Mom Enough, well, we know how that went.
The examples do not further any discussion. They don’t uplift anyone. They aren’t inspirational, they are stereotypical with racial politics. And it shames.
“Because you don’t uplift one group at the expense of another.” God, if people would just get THAT — I think 99% of the bullshit rhetoric floating around would be completely eliminated.
You nailed that. BOOM!
By the way, I am trying to work in BOOM wherever I can. You were the unsuspecting boom victim for my quota.
Totally agree with you, having had my son at 19, I still was a teen mom (strange since 18 is considered a legal adult) and I don’t think this meme is appropriate at all. I think this is nothing but shaming and the reasons why teen moms exists is as vast and varied as the teens themselves. I don’t like that Gabby’s achievements are being used to down someone else.
I admit that like you I do think that the show 16 and Pregnant shows a lot of real life. My track was slightly different in that I married at 18 and had a baby at 19 and quickly realized whoa! This is hard!
As a Black woman I think I am even more against Gabby’s image being used because it plays into the assumptions that young Black women don’t succeed and nothing could be further from the truth.
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Nothing more true than this right here: “the reasons why teen moms exists is as vast and varied as the teens themselves.”
All of this discussion about Gabby it’s not even about her. That pains me. All of this bullshit that OTHER people put around and on her. It’s wrong as the day is long.
I get what they were trying to do here. And I think it IS important to encourage young girls to think about the consequences of their decisions. I know that at 16 I most certainly didn’t have the maturity required to either care for a baby, or make the impossible decision to let someone else do it in my place. So I am thankful for all the conversations I had with my mother about it, not all girls have that, or really even listen to what they’re being told if they do. So again, I get what they thought they were doing. But they went about it in such a cruel, senseless manner. I completely agree, it isn’t okay to lift one group of people by shaming another. And I do also agree with what you said in a comment, about those shows doing more good than bad. I think they show girls the real struggle of being a parent. At least I’m hoping that’s the message they’re taking from it.
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Hey Michele!
I’m going to put my optimistic hat on (it pains me to do this) and say that maybe this person thought they were being clever and wanted to see something they “created” splash around the Internet. If that WAS the case, this person is clearly privileged and really did not understand the conflicting messages. And, probably, could care less because they were making a meme. But Holy Loaded Meme, do not do that!
Meme creators, in my opinion, are looking for that one fire starter that will send their meme to all 4 corners of the earth and back. Except they keep forgetting one important detail… the earth is round.
Hugs and Mocha,
Stesha
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I LOVE THIS! You are so right! As a former teen mom-15 and pregnant- I can say ALL young PARENTS rock! As a young mom in college, working and interning I am constantly on a high beam.
Thank you for writing this!
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