I read your article last week entitled “Nudity, Money and the Absence of Art” and I must admit, I felt bloated after reading. The article mentioned that an apology was owed for witnessing Erykah Badu stripping nude while filming her video “Window Seat.”
After reading that I came to my own conclusion that America has a problem with nudity.Example: A lady breastfed a child in a public place and everyone got offended. Breastfeeding is something natural that God blessed women with in order to raise our children. Would you have been offended?
The point of the video was to show America what we have become. You can’t turn on the radio without someone shoving sex in your ear, you can’t go to a concert without some random girl bearing it all for the world to see, you can walk across Grambling State University without seeing some random “boy” sagging his pants displaying his under clothes. Should these people be citationed?
How offended are you, voice it?
Nonetheless, please don’t attempt to be offended just for the sake of being offended. There is more to life than nudity. We have been led to believe many things. We have been censored, we have been slaved, we have been lied to, we have been ridiculed.
So if Erykah Badu has to apologize to the “witnesses” who saw her so-called “raunchy” work art, then we should make our government apologize for leading us into a hole that we cant dig ourselves out of.
Also, you said that Erykah did the publicity stunt for album sale records. Can you prove this? I don’t believe it was album sales that propelled this decision for her to go in that direction for her music video. It was her willingness to make people pay attention to a message she was conveying.
Erykah has mentioned many times (even more lately) that artist make hardly any money selling albums anymore and that she is a performance artist by doing concerts and venues. Album sales ONLY make the record label money unless you an artist that either owns the label or very high profile which Badu isn’t either.
It’s always nice to see how our people mind operates. Everything is either about money, sex or drugs. It’s all we seem to understand as Americans. What ever happened to freedom?
Case in point, there are many other things to be offended by other Badu’s artistic expressions. If people took just half the energy they put into bashing Ms. Badu, maybe our country wouldn’t be considered an epic failure, maybe our children would have brighter futures and just maybe “WE” would be able to embrace our souls for who they really are.
Though your opinion is your opinion, sometimes we need to search a little deeper than expecting this to be so concrete.
Concluding. Props to Ms. Badu for taking one for the team.
Props to JFK for serving as the beacon of light in the video to remind us of what real change could be like. WE can’t forget the videographers who were prepared to pay bail to get Ms. Badu out of prison if need be. And last but not least, the witnesses who wait 2-3 weeks after seeing this woman film this video in order to feel offended because the media shoved it down their throats.
Remember, we are continuing to follow a leader…Although, many don’t even know who the leader is.
DeEric M. Henry is a former editor in chief of The Gramblinite who now resides in Dallas.