by Hollis Wormsby, Jr.
The Queen Latifah Show is Being Cancelled RHOA is Expanding
(Lord Have Mercy)
I am a big fan of the Queen Latifah show even though I don’t get to see it that often. I love the realness of her show, and the way that she offers perspectives on issues that challenge me to see things differently than I did before watching her show. I love the energy of the show and the way she is able to so engage her audience and get them up and dancing and shouting. I love the lack of low class bs. So I hated to hear that the show was being cancelled. Funny thing is on the same website where I read about the Queen Latifah Show being cancelled there was a story about yet another expansion of the Real Housewives of Atlanta franchise.
I think the Queen Latifah Show is a show that should be worth fighting for. I can give you an example of just one interview on the show that shows how valuable it can be. I was watching the show recently when the featured guest was Snoop Dogg, a guest that Latifah has a long and personal history with. Of course I am familiar with Snoop at a surface level because of hits like Gin and Juice and Drop It Like It’s Hot, and I am familiar with the media persona of him as just some pot head, who can spit urban style, but on Queen Latifah I saw a different perspective on Snoop and it really made me think of how we let the media define folks and perspectives for us.
When Latifah interviewed Snoop he became a father and a man who was making a difference in the lives of hundreds if not thousands of Black youth. In one part of the interview Latifah asked Snoop what it was like for his daughter, having such a famous father. Snoop told her he didn’t know about the famous part but that his daughter would probably like her to know what it was like living with someone who thinks she shouldn’t start dating until she is like 47 or so. In that moment he was not a hip hop star, he was a proud daddy, and that was so much more real to me. Later in the interview she talked to Snoop about his involvement with his youth football league. I knew Snoop had a football league for urban youth, but there was a part of me that imagined him out there hitting blunts with his charges. In this interview he revealed that he took his work with the youth seriously; that it was not just a financial investment and it was definitely not a publicity stunt. He told her that several hundred youth from his program had already earned NCAA scholarships; that about 30 kids from his program were now NFL players and that his goal was to help more kids in the future. I don’t think I would have seen that perspective on an interview by David Letterman or even Tom Joyner for that matter.
That is a good example of why it is so frustrating to me to see the show being cancelled, especially while RHOA and Sorority are going strong while putting out every negative stereotype of our community possible.
The Queen Latifah Show airs on the Fox Network. Let me encourage you to go to their website, www.fox.com and voice your support for the show. Even better, bring this up as a topic at your church and get the church to launch a campaign to get the whole congregation to get behind this effort. It is simply wrong that the mainstream media can find every negative image of the community possible to exploit for its financial and entertainment value, and yet cannot leave one decent show that shows the community in a positive light and offers perspectives that make you think, on the air for more than one season. Or at least that’s the way I see it.
(Do you have a question or comment on this column? Look me up on Facebook/HollisWormsby or email me at hjwormsby@aol.com.)
