Suppose a hip-hop star made a music video in which he or she illustrated the emotional choice of a young unmarried black woman to undergo an abortion, despite pressure from her community against it. How would the mainstream press react? The star and his music video would be lauded as courageous and authentic and groundbreaking and so much more.
But when a rapper records a song and makes a video portraying a young black woman who makes the emotional and difficult decision not to have an abortion, the video is described as “emotionally manipulative,” “melodramatic,” and exploitive. In fact, you get the sense reading Renee Graham’s column that she’s more disturbed that pro-lifers have embraced Nick Cannon’s song and video for “Can I Live” than she is by the quality of the song and video itself.
