Tuesday, April 15, 2014


Love and Hip Hop’s Mimi Faust is not the true representative of the black single mother
By Rachel Miller-Bradshaw

straightfromthea.com
Black social media is on fire right now!  The release of +VH1's super trailer has plenty of ratchet (slang word meaning outrageous ghetto behaviour) story lines. But the most disturbing story line is the degrading and unbelievable behaviour of single mother +Mimi Faust, who has gone from an entrepreneur to an adult entertainment star in a matter of months.  In the +VH1 trailer Mimi says while shedding plenty of rehearsed tears, during a +Vivid Entertainment meeting that “she has a daughter.”  Interesting statement since she should have remembered this before she let her current boyfriend Nikko, a struggling rapper, press record on the camera.

Let’s be clear Ms. Faust is a single mother due to her choice in men.  Her child’s father, formerly successful producer,  Stevie J, is most known for his own leaked sex tape with rapper/actor Eve.  Despite his antics Mimi’s been dating him for over 15 years and in this time he has fathered 5 children by several women.  Not to mention during the first season of the show it is revealed that he is sleeping with his artist, Joseline, who later reveals to Mimi that she is pregnant with his baby that she later aborts.  By the end of season 2 Mimi is no longer with Stevie J and hooks back up with Nikko, her ex boyfriend, whom many speculate is an opportunist.  That’s all but proven now.   Ironically, Mimi ridiculed Joseline for her stripper past but she is now married to Stevie J and has never stooped as low as to enter into the porn world.

The one person that loses out in this situation the most is Faust’s five-year old daughter who will soon be taunted about her mother's sex tape by her schoolmates and judged by educators who have the job of teaching her.   Mimi has sent a negative message to her daughter.  Her actions have taught her daughter that she can exploit her body for profit, have men denigrate her, and easy income trumps achieving academic success.  Faust, a woman in her 40s, has also taught her daughter that she is not worthy of marriage.  Faust comes from her own broken family.   Her mother abandoned her when she was 13 years old to dedicate herself to her religion.

Let’s be clear if Faust was married or professionally accomplished she would not be making sex tapes.  This single mother’s behaviour doesn’t help in eradicating negative images of black single mothers.  That’s for sure.  Faust is not the average black single mother.  In the documentary ON MY OWN, premiering the end of April, the three mothers featured struggled to get their college degrees, worked hard, and accomplished material gains the dignified way.  They are the faces of the average black single mother, not women like Mimi Faust, who many corporate media entities keep projecting out to viewers. 

The bottom line is this.  Young girls get their value from their fathers.  
As long as we continue to raise young girls in situations where their fathers are inactive in their lives, there will continue to be women like Mimi Faust with low self-worth.   These young girls grow up, start to date, and choose men that don’t have their best interest at heart.  The end result is more single mothers, who unless they get a parental intervention, continue the cycle by executing Mimi’s Faust mistakes with men in particular, and then the low self worth materializes in the daughters they raise.



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