‘Gossip Game’s’ JasFly Says Don’t Blame Mona Scott Young For Black Women Fighting On TV

One of the freshest faces of VH1 reality tv, Jas Fly, is giving another perspective on black women fighting on TV–and it doesn’t involve pointing the finger. After only two episodes, the freelance writer, who now has a gig on ‘Gossip Game‘, is using her personal tumblr to weigh in on watching a few fights on the show. And although she’s inserted herself in the conflict between Ms. Drama and Vivian, she wants to make it quite clear that viewers should not blame one of the show’s producers, Mona Scott-Young, for black women throwing blows on TV.

Read a few excerpts from her post:

I’m tired of watching Black women fight on TV. We’re two episodes into The Gossip Game and last night we witnessed our second fight. Sigh. When I accepted Mona Scott-Young’s invitation to sit down for a casting meeting, I was more than skeptical. This was three weeks into Love & Hip Hop ATL and all that kept running through my mind was ‘she’s not gonna do me like she does these other women.’ And as soon as I sat down – in front of Vh1 execs, show creator Tone Boots and his team and the network casting department – I told her as much. Mona heard me out and then informed me that she never set out to abuse Black women. And that she didn’t prompt Stevie J to keep both a mistress and a wife. All she does is give a look inside their lives.

She continues:

Sometimes, we as Black women don’t treat one another very well. Societal factors have made us defensive and (often times) insecure about who we are and afraid of who we are not. We’ve been told that we’re all in competition over men, jobs, friends, adoration, etc. And because we are such an insular culture – Black woman are known for watching/dating/buying/talking/living in our Blackness – we turn a great deal of frustration back on one another. We’re so hyper-sensitive to criticism (because we’re SO over criticized)that in the moment we often can’t discern between someone attacking us and someone trying to help us. It’s hard to see kinship in someone you’re determined to make your enemy. So (often times) we fight.

I couldn’t get mad at Mona for the fights that happened between Drama and Viv. Not when I was dealing with the very same things (via toxic email threads, vicious sub-tweets, subversive moves against me etc) in my own life. Mona didn’t make those two women fight. In that moment, instead of risking being hurt or hearing something they didn’t want to, they chose to antagonize one another. This choice is made every single day. And I couldn’t expect Mona to create a television show about us and ask her not to show all of it, including the parts we’re not proud of. So we can continue to complain about how we’re portrayed on television. Or we can candidly address how we treat each other in real life.

Is JasFly right? Is Mona to blame for the drama (entertainment) that we watch on TV? Or are we (*raises hand*) to blame? 

[Jas Fly]