9 year olds are children 2

1. A young human being.  A young human being between birth and puberty.*
   
2. Human Offspring. A son or daughter of human parents.
   
3. Somebody not yet of age – Somebody under a legally specified age who is considered not to be legally responsible for his or her actions.

(*Puberty is defined as the state in human physiological development when somebody becomes capable of sexual reproduction.)

So when an Onion staffer tweeted the following about 9 year old actor Quvenshané Wallis, star of  the movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild:

There are dozens of articles about this on the Internet. I’ll only link to two:

The Onion Apologizes for Calling Quvenzhane Wallis C-Word  tweet

For an appropriate article about Quvenshane, read this one by Kam Williams (whose interviews are often featured in the Bay State Banner)  Crazy about Nazie.

Another 9 year-old child, the rapper Lil’ Poopy  (real name Luie Rivera Jr.)  is being exploited by his father.  That’s nothing new.  Many child entertainers are championed, managed, and sometimes exploited by their parents.  In this case, law enforcement is investigating because of inappropriate sexual behavior of the 9 year old with grown women in the video.  In a series of videos that have just been removed from YouTube, the 9 year old is seen doing many distasteful things that adult rappers do.  He’s not in charge of choices – his father is.  Repotedly,  the young rapper earns $7500 per appearance.

Brockton police have filed an abuse case against the father of the rapper.  I think that the adults in the video with him should also have charges filed against them.  The videos are not explicitly pornograpaphic but they are exploitative and inappropriate.  If a 9 year old girl was touching an adult man in the same manner, there’d be no question if was abusive and the child would have been removed from the home.  Luie Rivera Sr ought to be ashamed.  The father  (and mother) should be receive parenting education to learn about child development and what’s appropriate and inappropriate for a child. 

Note to parents: Three young rappers in their early teens, Lil’ Bow Wow  (in 2000) and the two rappers who formed Kris Kross, Chris “McDadddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith  (in 1992), made a boat-load of money without suggestive lyrics or sexualized videos, so if money is your motive, there is an age-appropriate way to have encouraged your child’s rapping in an appropriate way.  All of these rappers were in their early teens, however.

Parents are supposed to protect and guide and Lil’ Poopy’s father isn’t doing so.  Read about this controversy in Lil Poopy’s Dad: Claim of Abuse a Bad Rap!  by Gayle Fee of the Boston Herald.

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