by Dr. Boyce Watkins
Amber Cole is a 14-year old girl who was recorded giving oral sex to her boyfriend. The video has gone viral on the Internet, with millions of people watching. Since that time, Cole has been the victim of ridicule and bullying.
As a father, I am concerned by both Cole’s actions, as well as the public reaction to them. I hate the idea of any 14-year old doing this kind of thing, and I especially hate the idea of people over the age of 14 participating in the quest to ruin this poor girl’s life.
We all make mistakes, but for some reason, we act as if this girl’s behavior isn’t being replicated in millions of bedrooms across the country. I find it incredibly ironic that we condemn the free expression of sexuality, even though sex is the reason that all of us exist in the first place. At the same time, I am also sad that there is no one around to tell Amber that 14 is simply too young to be doing any of this stuff.
There is a conversation we should all have with our children about how to manage the age of social media, especially when we experience love for the first time (which makes all of us do crazy things). We should also help our kids to understand that the power and privilege of sex is something that should be pursued responsibly, at the right time, with the right person, and not just whenever it feels good.
My thoughts are in the video below:
14 comments:
I will pray for this child...where was her parents when this happened?
It's very very sad..I hope she doesn't catch an STD behind this.
A lot of people get the story wrong. This was a young lady who believed she was in love with this boy. He was her first love and her first sex partner. He dumped her, broke her heart and she was willing to do anything to get him back. He said he'd consider it if she did this and posed those boys as lookouts. She wasn't doing this to a random stranger. She was a victim of young cretins who didn't have a parental figure teach him how to be a man. It's a shame that Amber Cole is getting all this flap, but the boys are not getting anything! Honestly, I feel if this were a case with a white girl, the cops would be all over it and seeing how to press charges for child pornography. If we have laws for sexting, there must be some sort of legal action we can take here.
If what Kiki Lightbourn wrote is true, please add something to the list esp. to the girls: sweetheart, you are a daughter of the Most High. Never degrade yourself or have yourself pushed into sexual acts. Do not use sex in order to get someone back.
To the boy: ditto regarding being a child of the Most High God. And: a girl is a human being like you and not a toilet pot. Do not ever push her or manipulate her into doing your will esp. sexually. To be degrading people is to defile yourself and humiliate and damage someone else. Who wants to act like that?
It is a shame that such a private act has gone viral. This is but one more example of how insane the human race is. We are not an exclusive species on this planet and we are not better than any other animal but we have convinced ourselves so with all of our mental rigamarole. The age of this young lady is only a problem because of the 'Americanized' Eurocentric culture we are assimilated into. In other cultures and traditions she is well past the age of consent and marriage!
We tend to lose ourselves in a culture which was never meant to be ours and we tend to worship entities and practice religious beliefs that were foisted upon our ancestors without our ever stopping to consider what it is doing to us as a people. Yet nothing we continue to copy from our Anglo "benefactors" will ever save us or our children from a worsening future. Thanks to our stupidity, naivity, ignorance and unfortunate behavior we are caught up in this racist white-supremacist environment. An environment which is obviously driving us further into a multitude of wrong directions, down ever darker and convoluted paths.
The young lady in question is a victim of our loss of our (own) cultures, languages, lands, traditions and beliefs, and although the young lady will live through this Internet travesty against her youthful naivity, she will carry not only the resulting scars, but many of the same psychological scars we all must burden oursleves with. With luck she will get better, but will we all live through the overall Eurocentric socially constructed tragedy that is constantly threatening and attacking 'our' African-American psychosocial stability? The future does not look too bright for most of us!
@Kikilightbourn--both Dr. Boyce's and your opinion are full of understanding. But what I question
is how do parents monitor what teens do sexually? Teenage is a time for exploration of everything. It is a time for falling flat on your face, getting up and learning how to survive. Teenage is a learning curve time.
It is a time to learn WORLDLY coping skills to last a lifetime.
What I sincerely hope is that Amber and the guys involved learn about behavior and consequences, and how to effectively cope.
Amber need couseling and that boy need to be locked up. Maybe next time he will respect a female.
I actually cried and had nightmares behind what has happened to this little girl. More so, like you mention, because of how adults have reacted to it.
I thought about the boy the most and what has his parents taught him about respecting women? What would possess a person so want to humiliate someone in such a manner.
We all are responsible for doing inappropriate things but why would he expose her like that. I wouldn't wish such on my worst enemy and he supposedly cares about her. NO WAY.
This is disturbing. It shows that she still has a very young childess mind because she never thought about the outcome of her actions. This should be a message to all mothers whether black or white. The message is to love your young girls and share things with them and talk to them. So they wont have to seek love from the outside and seek desperately for anyone to love them.
My 15yr old daughter got tagged on her FB page with this garbage and as a parent I was truly upset with not only the child who tagged my child with it but the fact that FB did nothing to remove it! I have since deleted my childs FB page and I feel sorry for this child she has what appears to be a low self esteem if all it takes to keep this little thug is a promise and for her to disrepect herself. I am not putting her down but like I have told my own daughter you have to learn to love yourself because once you know that no-one can persuade you to do something that will change your life forever....
Its always amazing to see how women respond with the comments of being "degraded by a man" and the "where were the parents" comments. These older women act like they havemistakes mistakes or did oral.sex on a man they thought they loved in some car or dark corner! I feel sorry for the little sista who's dealing with all of this extra publicity. This is a prime example of how technology is ruining these kids reality & quality of life. Why do all these kids have phones in the 1st place? If parents were really parenting, wth your 13 or 14 yr old need a phone? Parents, instead of being judgemental, you.might want to.check.your.own child's phones & ipods, you'd be amazed what you will find!
This is sad. I can't blame the parents because maybe they just didn't know she was sexually active. Parents can only give their kids the tools for life. I talk to my daughter often and even though she is an adult now,I reinforce what she's been taught. Tools. What she does with them is out of my hands. Doesn't mean I don't still worry. Some parents are just not aware. It's not fair to blame them and ask "Where were they?" In this economy, probably at work, the BOTH of them.
Itis so sad that our babies are not being taught to respect themselves and that sex should be a scared and private event between people who love esch other and never to be displayed .
The emotional scars from this will be deep,
I hope someone will help to repair.
I facilitate a mirror 2 mirror group. Sisters that can ID w teens and young women without judgement. I hope protection was used. Hiv/Aids is running neck to neck with teen suicide. When we know better, We do better
When do we begin to address the horrible actions of the young men involved? When did it become acceptable to video tape and post sex online? They are trafficking in child pornography, which last I checked is illegal. Yet noone has mentioned any of their names even once. Enough of this "boys will be boys" nonsense. The fact that we refuse to reign in our young men and teach them that violence and exploitation is unacceptable, is the very reason they are so vulnerable to the criminal justice system.
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