FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:

CJ Frogozo,CJ@FitzGibbonMedia.com, 310.570.2622

Rachel Tardiff, Rachel@FitzGibbonMedia.com, 202.746.1507

New York, NY – Today ColorOfChange.org launched a petition calling on Oxygen Media and its corporate sponsors to cease production of All My Babies’ Mamas. The reality TV show, set to air this spring, stars Shawty Lo, an Atlanta-based rapper, who has 11 children by ten women, and a girlfriend the same age as his oldest daughters.According to Oxygen Media executives, the show will chronicle Shawty Lo’s attempts to “split affection multiple ways while trying to create order” as he navigates the “dysfunction” of his “drama-filled,” “modern family.”

Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org, said, “The creators of ‘All My Babies’ Mamas’ claim that this show is ‘daring.’ But there is nothing daring about Oxygen’s decision to invest in and promote inaccurate and harmful perceptions of Black families for the sake of ratings and advertising dollars. ColorOfChange has a long track record of holding the media accountable for race-baiting and it is important for us to begin a broader discussion about the effects of dehumanizing portrayals.”

Robinson continued, “Today we are sending a strong message to Oxygen, its president, Jason Klarman, and others in the media that we wont sit silently while corporations and individuals profit from degrading and inflammatory images of our community.” Overwhelmingly negative representations of Black Americans on the news, and shows like All My Babies’ Mamas reinforce negative stereotypes about Black men and women as hypersexual, combative and unfit to parent.

In addition to reducing self-esteem, a number of studies confirm that these distorted portrayals can lead non-Black audiences to hold onto problematic perceptions of Black folks. According to recent studies, Black people receive “less attention from doctors, harsher sentencing by judges, lower likelihood of being hired or admitted to school, lower odds of getting loans, and a higher likelihood of getting shot by police.”

Oprah Winfrey and former Nickelodeon Executive Geraldine Laybourne launched the Oxygen cable network in 2000. At the time of the launch, the company’s goal was to fill a void in programming targeting young women. In 2007, Oxygen was purchased by NBC Universal and is now available in 80 million homes. Since then the network has become a haven for reality television shows that exploit children, women and now Shawty Lo’s ‘unconventional’ family.

To see a clip of All My Babies’ Mamas, go to http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/oxygen.