THE PUBLIC INSULT THAT SHOULD MAKE US THINK

There comes a time when we have to stop looking at public humiliation as entertainment and start asking what it reveals about the society we live in. When a powerful political figure makes a sexualized comment about a Black woman’s body in front of an audience, and the crowd responds with applause and laughter, we have to look beyond the moment itself. We have to ask what kind of thinking makes that moment acceptable, who benefits from it, and what it says about the dignity of the woman standing in the middle of it all. This isn’t simply about one woman, one politician, or one embarrassing exchange. It’s about the deeper question of whether Black women are respected as complete human beings or reduced to the physical features that other people find entertaining.

What disturbed me most about the incident being discussed wasn’t only the comment itself, but the reaction that followed. Imagine being in a room where a person’s body becomes the subject of public entertainment, and instead of hearing discomfort or objection, you hear applause. What does that applause communicate? Does it suggest that the audience sees nothing wrong with the remark? Does it suggest that the woman’s dignity matters less than the entertainment value of the moment? Or does it reveal a culture in which certain people can cross personal boundaries and still receive approval because of their position, popularity, or power? Those are the questions we should be asking instead of treating everything as another viral moment to laugh about and forget.

I’ve spent decades observing human behavior, racial attitudes, relationships, and the games people play when they believe nobody is paying attention. I’ve seen how people can smile in public while revealing a completely different attitude through their words, jokes, private conversations, and treatment of others. Sometimes the most revealing moment isn’t the insult itself, but the way everyone around it responds. A person can tell you that they respect you, but their behavior may expose a different truth. And when we see a Black woman’s body becoming a subject of public amusement, we need to understand why this particular form of disrespect has such a long history and why it continues to find an audience.

Let me make something clear from the beginning. Appreciating the beauty of a Black woman isn’t the problem. Attraction isn’t the problem. Desire isn’t the problem. I’m a man, and I understand physical attraction just as any other man does. But there’s a world of difference between appreciating a woman and reducing her to a body part. There’s a difference between loving a woman’s beauty and acting as though her appearance gives you permission to humiliate her. A woman can be beautiful, sensual, intelligent, nurturing, ambitious, creative, and powerful all at once. Her body doesn’t cancel out her mind, her history, her accomplishments, or her right to determine how she deserves to be treated.

What we’re witnessing is bigger than a political controversy, and that’s why I refuse to dismiss it as another passing argument between people who support different sides. When we allow celebrity, money, political influence, and access to power to become more important than dignity, we create a dangerous standard for the next generation. We teach young people that humiliation is acceptable when it comes from somebody important, that disrespect can be mistaken for recognition, and that being noticed is more valuable than being respected. I’m not interested in teaching our people to chase applause from people who refuse to see our full humanity. I’m interested in asking why we sometimes accept so little when we have so much more to offer.

WHEN APPLAUSE BECOMES A STATEMENT

Let’s examine the audience for a moment, because the crowd is part of the story. A public gathering isn’t simply a collection of people sitting in chairs. The audience helps determine what kind of behavior becomes acceptable. When people laugh at a degrading remark, they can make the person delivering it feel even more powerful. When they applaud, they may signal approval, amusement, or a willingness to overlook the harm. We can’t know what every person in that room was thinking, but we can examine the public effect of the reaction. A moment that could have been met with silence or discomfort instead becomes entertainment, and the woman at the center of it can be left carrying the burden of a humiliation that everyone else gets to enjoy.

Now imagine the situation being reversed. Imagine an older Black man attending a political gathering dominated by white people, approaching a young white woman, and making a crude sexual remark about her body in front of the entire audience. Would he receive the same laughter, the same applause, and the same freedom to carry on as though nothing had happened? We can’t know exactly how every audience would react, but racial history gives us serious reasons to question whether the same behavior would be judged equally. The difference in how people respond to the same action can expose the unequal standards operating beneath the surface of public life.

That’s why context matters. Power doesn’t exist only in government offices, corporate boardrooms, or expensive homes. Power also exists in the ability to insult somebody without fearing consequences, to set the tone of a room, and to decide whose discomfort deserves attention. When one person can turn another person’s body into a public spectacle while everyone else treats it as harmless fun, we should examine the imbalance. The issue isn’t whether the woman is attractive. The issue is whether the person making the remark believes his status gives him the right to speak about her as though she isn’t standing there with her own mind, feelings, and dignity.

And let’s not pretend that a woman being famous, wealthy, or successful means she’s beyond criticism or automatically immune to disrespect. Public figures can make questionable decisions, promote messages that deserve examination, and face legitimate criticism. But criticism of someone’s work is not the same as the public reduction of that person’s body to a sexual object. We should be able to discuss an entertainer’s influence, choices, and public statements without pretending that a degrading comment is a compliment. If a woman is celebrated only when her body entertains somebody, then what exactly are we celebrating about her?

THE HISTORY BEHIND THE FETISH

We cannot discuss the sexual objectification of Black women honestly without looking at history. During slavery, Black women were denied basic freedom and subjected to systems that treated their labor, bodies, and reproductive lives as things other people could control. Enslaved women were forced to endure exploitation and sexual violence while being denied the protection and respect that should belong to every human being. The racist myths used to justify this treatment did not disappear simply because slavery formally ended. Ideas about Black women’s bodies continued to shape entertainment, advertising, social attitudes, and the ways people talked about Black womanhood.

One painful example is the nineteenth-century exploitation of Sarah Baartman, a South African Khoikhoi woman whose body was displayed before European audiences and treated as a spectacle. Her experience shows how racial prejudice and sexual curiosity could combine to strip a woman of her individuality and turn her physical features into public property. She wasn’t given the ordinary respect owed to a human being with her own life and identity. Instead, people made her body the story, while the person herself was pushed into the background. That history matters because it reminds us that objectification isn’t always harmless attraction. Sometimes it grows out of a belief that another person’s body exists for public inspection and consumption.

The language has changed over time, but the underlying problem can survive in familiar forms. A Black woman may be praised for her curves while her intelligence is ignored. She may be pursued for her appearance while being denied respect as a partner. She may be invited into a room because people find her attractive, only to discover that they have little interest in her thoughts, ambitions, or humanity. These experiences aren’t identical, and we shouldn’t assume every expression of attraction carries racist intent. But when a person is repeatedly reduced to a racial stereotype, it’s reasonable to ask whether the attention is genuine appreciation or a fetish built on assumptions about an entire group.

A fetish becomes especially troubling when the person doing the desiring believes that attraction gives them ownership. You can want a woman and still respect her boundaries. You can admire her body without assuming that she’s available to you. You can find somebody beautiful without treating her as though her beauty is the only thing she has to offer. These aren’t complicated rules. They’re basic standards of human decency. Yet history shows us what happens when certain people are encouraged to believe that their desires matter more than another person’s freedom.

And here’s where the issue becomes particularly painful: some people mistake being desired for being valued. They may believe that if a powerful person notices them, invites them into an exclusive circle, or praises their physical appearance, they’ve finally received the recognition they deserve. But attention isn’t always respect, and access isn’t always acceptance. Somebody can desire you without respecting you, pursue you without caring about you, and publicly praise you while privately treating you as disposable. If we don’t understand that distinction, we can spend years confusing somebody else’s appetite with genuine appreciation for who we are.

MY YEARS OF WATCHING HUMAN NATURE

I grew up in New York City, and the city gave me a front-row seat to human behavior in all its forms. I watched people move through neighborhoods, workplaces, streets, gyms, and social circles, and I learned that public appearances rarely tell the entire story. Long before social media made it possible to record every interaction and distribute it around the world, people were revealing themselves through the way they talked, the way they looked at others, and the things they felt comfortable saying when they thought they were among people who would understand them.

I remember the old entertainment districts, the adult businesses, and the street activity that once made parts of Manhattan and the outer boroughs very different places after dark. I saw men driving through certain areas looking for sexual encounters, and I observed the way women could become part of a commercial spectacle. Some men treated the experience as entertainment, something to discuss and laugh about with their friends. Others were there to purchase access to women whose circumstances and choices they knew little about. What stayed with me wasn’t simply the sexual activity. It was the way a human being could become an object in somebody else’s evening, reduced to an appearance, a price, or a story to tell afterward.

Those observations also taught me that exploitation doesn’t always announce itself with a threat. Sometimes it arrives through charm, flattery, a job offer, a private invitation, or a conversation that gradually turns personal. During my years in bodybuilding, I encountered men who approached me with sexual propositions involving their partners. Some tried to introduce the subject indirectly, as though a little flattery or familiarity would make an inappropriate request acceptable. I learned that a person’s respectable public image doesn’t guarantee respectable private intentions. I also learned that I had every right to decide what I would accept and where I would draw the line.

I’m sharing these experiences because I want people to understand that objectification isn’t limited to one gender, one profession, or one setting. People can be reduced to their bodies in different ways, and racial stereotypes can influence the assumptions made about them. But when we’re talking specifically about Black women, we have to recognize the historical weight that accompanies the experience. A woman who has spent generations being portrayed as excessively sexual can be placed in a difficult position when the world praises her for the very stereotype that has been used to disrespect women who look like her.

My point isn’t that every white man behaves in the same way, or that every interaction between people of different races is secretly driven by prejudice. Sweeping assumptions about entire groups can blind us to the very human behavior we’re trying to understand. My point is that racial history shapes social expectations, and those expectations deserve honest examination. We can discuss patterns of exploitation without pretending that every individual is guilty of the same conduct. We can acknowledge racism without allowing hatred to become our own guiding principle. The goal should be sharper judgment, stronger boundaries, and a clearer understanding of how power operates.

WHEN ATTENTION BECOMES A SUBSTITUTE FOR SELF-RESPECT

Now we have to talk about the part of this conversation that may make some people uncomfortable: the choices we make when attention comes from somebody we believe has power. It’s easy to criticize the person making the offensive remark, but we also have to examine the environment that rewards the behavior and the decisions people make inside it. Sometimes a person will overlook disrespect because the person offering the attention has money, influence, celebrity, political connections, or access to opportunities that seem difficult to obtain elsewhere. They may convince themselves that the remark wasn’t serious, that everybody was only joking, or that objecting would cost them something valuable.

This is where self-respect becomes more than a slogan. Self-respect is tested when speaking up might make you unpopular, when walking away might close a door, or when refusing to play along means losing access to people you once hoped would recognize your value. Anybody can talk about dignity when there’s nothing at stake. The real test comes when protecting your dignity may require you to sacrifice an opportunity, disappoint somebody important, or admit that a relationship isn’t what you thought it was.

At the same time, we have to be careful not to turn this discussion into a way of blaming women for the disrespect directed at them. A woman’s response to a humiliating moment may be shaped by pressure, surprise, financial concerns, professional ambitions, personal beliefs, or circumstances we cannot see. A smile doesn’t automatically prove that she approved of what happened, and standing beside a powerful person doesn’t tell us everything about her motives. We can question a public response without pretending we know every private thought behind it. The deeper lesson is that no person should have to surrender their dignity to prove loyalty or earn a place in a room.

Still, we should encourage young women to recognize the difference between being welcomed and being used. If somebody values you only when you’re willing to play a role that serves their interests, you need to ask what happens when you stop playing that role. Will they respect your decisions? Will they continue to value your ideas? Will they stand beside you when your appearance no longer provides the attraction that first drew them in? Those questions matter because a relationship built entirely around somebody’s usefulness can disappear the moment that usefulness changes.

The same lesson applies to men. A man who believes that money, status, or access gives him a right to women’s bodies has misunderstood the meaning of power. Real confidence doesn’t require humiliation, and real masculinity doesn’t depend on proving how many people you can attract or control. A man can be successful, wealthy, respected, and influential without treating another human being as a trophy. If your position becomes an excuse to ignore somebody else’s boundaries, then your power has exposed a weakness rather than proved your strength.

THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY AND THE PRICE OF VISIBILITY

We also have to examine the culture that teaches young people to confuse sexual visibility with personal worth. Across entertainment and social media, physical appearance can become a major source of attention, income, and public recognition. The more provocative an image becomes, the more likely it may be to attract clicks, comments, and discussion. That attention can create pressure for performers and ordinary people alike to reveal more, exaggerate their appearance, and build an identity around the parts of themselves that attract the strongest reaction.

There is nothing wrong with an adult choosing to express sexuality through music, fashion, dance, or personal style. Women should have control over their bodies and the freedom to make their own decisions. The problem begins when a culture makes sexual display seem like the only reliable path to recognition, particularly for young people who are still developing their sense of identity. When every image becomes a competition for attention, people can begin measuring their worth against impossible standards of beauty, expensive lifestyles, artificial enhancements, and the approval of strangers.

I worry about the young girls who grow up believing that their bodies must be their greatest achievement. I worry about the young boys who are taught to measure masculinity by sexual conquest and the number of women they can attract. Both messages can damage relationships before those relationships even begin. One teaches a girl to seek validation through appearance, while the other teaches a boy to judge women according to their usefulness to his ego. Neither message prepares young people to build trust, communicate honestly, share responsibilities, or respect one another through the difficult seasons of life.

We should also stop pretending that a public figure has no influence simply because parents and communities share responsibility for raising children. Entertainment can shape what young people see as normal, desirable, or socially rewarded. That doesn’t mean one performer is responsible for every decision made by every fan. It means the messages we repeatedly promote deserve examination. If the culture celebrates money, appearance, and sexual attention while treating education, discipline, emotional maturity, and community responsibility as boring, we shouldn’t be surprised when young people struggle to understand what lasting value looks like.

A woman doesn’t have to hide her body to deserve respect, and she doesn’t have to dress according to somebody else’s preferences to prove that she’s respectable. The responsibility for harassment belongs to the person choosing to harass. But we can still ask whether the entertainment economy encourages people to build their identities around constant sexual attention, and whether that pressure makes it harder for young people to discover the many other qualities that make them valuable. Freedom should include the freedom to express yourself, but it should also include the freedom to be more than the image that earns the most attention.

BLACK MEN, BLACK WOMEN, AND THE DIVISION THAT WE CANNOT IGNORE

Now let’s bring this conversation home, because we cannot demand respect from the outside world while refusing to examine the disrespect that exists within our own community. Black men and Black women have both endured enormous pressures, and those pressures have affected how we see ourselves and one another. Racism, economic hardship, family instability, historical trauma, and competing social expectations can all influence relationships. None of these factors excuses cruelty, but understanding them can help us stop repeating the same destructive patterns.

We have to be honest about the language we use against our own women. When Black women are repeatedly called degrading names, dismissed as undesirable, or treated as though their value depends on how easily they satisfy somebody’s expectations, we help create an environment where disrespect becomes ordinary. A community cannot build strong families while constantly attacking the dignity of the people expected to help build them. If we want our daughters protected from degrading stereotypes, we must also teach our sons that women are not prizes, property, enemies, or disposable sources of pleasure.

Black women also deserve room to examine the ways they judge Black men, just as Black men must examine the ways they judge Black women. Some people carry painful experiences from past relationships and turn those experiences into assumptions about an entire gender. Others measure partners by money, status, appearance, or social position while overlooking character and emotional maturity. These patterns can exist among people of every background, but we need to address the specific pressures affecting our community without turning the discussion into a contest over who has suffered more.

We cannot rebuild trust by demanding that one side accept all the blame. We need honest conversations about accountability, attraction, economic expectations, parenting, commitment, and the difference between a healthy relationship and a transaction. We need men who understand that providing isn’t a license to control, and women who understand that partnership doesn’t require surrendering their independence or dignity. We need both sides to recognize that love is not a competition in which one person must defeat the other to feel powerful. A relationship should be a place where two people can grow without constantly trying to prove that they don’t need each other.

And let’s stop allowing political parties to distract us from the issues affecting our daily lives. Black people can disagree about elections, policies, and candidates without forgetting the shared concerns that cross party lines. Education, employment, housing, public safety, healthcare, discrimination, family stability, and economic opportunity deserve serious attention regardless of which political color somebody wears. If we spend all our energy fighting one another over personalities while ignoring the systems and decisions shaping our lives, we make it easier for other people to benefit from our division.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING WANTED AND BEING LOVED

I want to make this distinction as clearly as I can: being wanted is not the same as being loved. Desire can begin with a face, a body, a voice, or a feeling that somebody cannot explain. Love requires something more. It requires seeing the other person as a complete human being, including the parts that aren’t glamorous, convenient, or immediately rewarding. Love shows itself through respect, honesty, consistency, care, and the willingness to recognize another person’s needs even when those needs don’t serve your own interests.

I’ve always believed that the essence of a Black woman deserves to be appreciated beyond the narrow standards of appearance promoted by popular culture. I’m talking about the woman who encourages you when life gets difficult, who challenges you when you’re wrong, who helps create a home filled with warmth, and who stands beside you through circumstances that test the strength of a relationship. I’m talking about her intelligence, her humor, her resilience, her creativity, her tenderness, her ambition, and her ability to be her own person. Those qualities don’t always fit into a photograph or a viral clip, but they can shape an entire life.

I remember the comfort of being cared for, the feeling of sitting down to a meal prepared with thought, and the way a home can feel different when people genuinely look out for one another. That doesn’t mean a woman’s place is automatically in the kitchen, or that every couple must follow traditional gender roles. A loving partnership can take many forms. What matters is the mutual care behind the actions, the understanding that both people contribute, and the knowledge that neither person is being treated as an unpaid servant, a financial resource, or a body available on demand.

The same principle applies to a man. A good man deserves to be appreciated for more than his income, his muscles, his status, or what he can purchase. He deserves to be seen as a human being with fears, hopes, responsibilities, and emotional needs. When we reduce men to wallets and women to bodies, we destroy the possibility of recognizing each other fully. We may still form relationships under those conditions, but we shouldn’t be surprised when the relationships become empty, unstable, or built around what each person can extract from the other.

A real relationship doesn’t mean perfection. People make mistakes, face disappointments, and sometimes discover that they are not right for one another. But mutual respect gives people a foundation for dealing with those realities without reducing each other to objects. If we want healthier relationships, we have to stop asking only whether somebody attracts us or improves our social standing. We must also ask whether we can trust them, whether they respect our boundaries, whether they share our values, and whether we can build something meaningful together.

DIGITAL DECEPTION AND THE FIGHT TO PRESERVE OUR HISTORY

There’s another reason I believe we must take these conversations seriously: the world is changing how information is created, distributed, remembered, and erased. Social media can bring a degrading moment to millions of people in minutes, but it can also bury important conversations beneath the next viral controversy. A public figure’s words may be recorded today and forgotten tomorrow, while the larger questions raised by the incident receive little serious attention. The speed of the digital world encourages reaction, but understanding requires us to slow down long enough to examine what we’re seeing.

Artificial intelligence adds another challenge. Digital tools can now create convincing images, voices, and video scenes that never happened in real life. As these tools improve, it may become harder for ordinary people to distinguish genuine recordings from fabricated material. That doesn’t mean every video is false or every public controversy is manufactured. It means we need better habits of verification, greater attention to original sources, and a willingness to correct ourselves when new evidence changes what we know.

Our history also deserves protection beyond the temporary life of a social media post. We should preserve books, photographs, recordings, family documents, interviews, and firsthand accounts wherever possible. Digital archives can be valuable, but a platform can change its rules, remove an account, lose information, or disappear. Keeping copies in different formats helps protect the stories that future generations may need. If we want our children and grandchildren to understand what we experienced, we cannot depend entirely on companies whose priorities may change.

This is especially important for people whose histories have been ignored, distorted, or reduced to a handful of familiar stories. We should record our own experiences, preserve the voices of elders, study historical documents, and teach young people to ask where information comes from. We don’t strengthen our communities by accepting every claim that supports our beliefs. We strengthen them by learning how to investigate, compare evidence, recognize manipulation, and separate what we know from what we suspect.

The fight for dignity therefore includes the fight for our own understanding. If we don’t know our history, other people can offer us a version that serves their interests. If we don’t examine the images and messages placed before us, we can be manipulated into celebrating our own degradation. And if we allow the loudest voices online to determine what deserves our attention, we may spend our lives arguing over distractions while the decisions affecting our families and communities go unexamined.

DIGNITY MUST MEAN MORE THAN A PUBLIC STATEMENT

I don’t expect one article, one argument, or one public controversy to transform the world. The attitudes we’re discussing have deep roots, and they won’t disappear because somebody delivers a passionate speech. But change can begin when people decide that certain forms of disrespect no longer deserve their silence, applause, money, attention, or participation. It begins when parents teach children that their bodies are not their entire identity, when men reject the idea that masculinity requires sexual conquest, and when women understand that the attention of a powerful person doesn’t automatically make them valuable.

We also need leaders who understand that respect cannot be measured only by public praise, expensive invitations, or proximity to influential people. A leader should be judged by decisions, conduct, accountability, and the way people are treated under their authority. The same standard should apply to celebrities, employers, community figures, and ordinary people. Nobody should be allowed to escape criticism simply because they are famous, wealthy, politically connected, or surrounded by people who are afraid to challenge them.

At the same time, we have to guard against becoming the very thing we criticize. Calling out racism doesn’t require us to assume that every person from another racial group is identical. Defending Black women doesn’t require us to deny their individuality or excuse every decision they make. Supporting Black men doesn’t require us to ignore the harm some men cause. We can recognize injustice, speak forcefully about historical patterns, and demand accountability while still judging people according to their actions rather than assigning guilt to everyone who shares their background.

The point of this conversation is not to teach our children to hate other people. It’s to teach them to recognize manipulation, establish boundaries, understand history, and protect their dignity. We need young people who can walk into a room without feeling that somebody else’s approval determines their worth. We need young women who know that beauty can be part of their identity without becoming their entire identity, and young men who know that strength includes restraint, empathy, and respect. We need families and communities where people can disagree without destroying one another and hold one another accountable without denying each other’s humanity.

And above all, we need to stop confusing access to power with freedom. If somebody can humiliate you and you feel unable to object because you fear losing your opportunity, you need to examine the price you’re paying for that access. If somebody’s approval requires you to laugh at your own degradation, you need to question the bargain. If a relationship depends on you ignoring your boundaries, then the relationship may be asking for more than it deserves. Your dignity should not be a fee you must pay to enter somebody else’s world.

WE MUST DECIDE WHAT WE WILL ACCEPT

When I look at the public objectification of Black women, I see more than a disturbing comment or an audience reacting to a moment of entertainment. I see an opportunity to examine the values we reward, the history we remember, and the standards we accept from people who claim to respect us. The real question isn’t simply whether a powerful person crossed a line. The question is whether we recognize the line, whether we are willing to defend it, and whether we apply the same standard when the person crossing it offers us something we want.

To the Black women reading this, understand that your worth isn’t determined by your appearance, your relationship status, your bank account, your age, or the approval of a celebrity or politician. You deserve to be appreciated as a complete human being, with a mind, a history, a personality, ambitions, imperfections, and the right to make your own choices. You don’t owe the world a performance of sexuality, and you don’t owe powerful people your silence. You can be beautiful without being available, confident without being arrogant, independent without being isolated, and loving without surrendering your self-respect.

To the Black men reading this, understand that defending Black women must mean more than speaking angrily when somebody outside the community disrespects them. It must also mean how we speak to them, how we treat them in relationships, how we raise our sons, and how we respond when our friends behave badly. We cannot demand that the world recognize the humanity of our sisters while using degrading language against them ourselves. If we want stronger families and healthier communities, our conduct must reflect the respect we say we believe in.

To our younger generation, learn to look beyond the performance. Don’t assume that fame means wisdom, that wealth means character, or that a powerful person’s attention is proof of your value. Study history, ask difficult questions, preserve what matters, and learn to recognize when somebody is trying to turn your identity into a product for their benefit. You are allowed to admire people without surrendering your judgment, and you are allowed to walk away from an opportunity that demands too much of your dignity.

And to everybody willing to have an honest conversation, this is where we begin: with self-respect, accountability, historical understanding, and a refusal to treat human beings as disposable objects. We cannot control every insult, every political speech, or every audience reaction, but we can decide what we reward in our own homes, relationships, workplaces, and communities. I want us to build lives that mean more than public attention, relationships that mean more than physical attraction, and communities that mean more than political slogans. I’m LanceScurv, and I’m telling you plainly: if we want the world to treat us with dignity, we must recognize our dignity, protect it, and teach the next generation never to mistake being desired for being respected.

PEACE, LOVE & RIGHTEOUS REVOLUTION ALWAYS,

SCURV

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