"Birthday Sex" Back to School Campaign

Girls Rule, Chicago
www.girlz-rule.org

About a month ago, Ron Huberman and Richard Daley announced that they selected Morgan Park High School alum, Jeremih Felton, singer of the popular song, "Birthday Sex" to be the face of their back to school campaign.

Many of the parents I spoke with were outraged and very concerned about the message this decision would send to students. Community organizations threatened "consequences" if this decision was not reversed. Those consequences would include encouraging students "not" to attend the first day of school to send a message that decisions like these, that negatively impact the community at large would not be tolerated.

What are your thoughts?

• Was the decision to align the back to school campaign with this "celebrity" damaging?
• What message do you think it sends to youth?
• Is this type of protest the right path to take?
• Has the campaign been successful?

Here's the background information and a video. Let us know your thoughts...
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Community leaders gathered at Chicago Public Schools headquarters today to denounce the choice to head up a back-to-school campaign: A singer with the hit song "Birthday Sex."

"This is not the appropriate forum for the boosting of him and the endorsing of him because when Chicago Public Schools administrators. . .are seen as endorsing this type of behavior amongst the children, we have a problem," said William Dock Walls of the Committee for a Better Chicago and a candidate for governor. "We're starting down that slippery slope to increased STDs, increased HIV, increased pregnancies and abortions."



The small group's comments came two days after CPS chief Ron Huberman and Mayor Richard Daley announced the selection of Jeremih Felton, a Morgan Park High School alum, to be the face of the campaign.

Though Jeremih's song is popular on airwaves and some students may have been aware of it prior to the campaign, the fact that CPS "then adopts him," Walls said, "augment[s]" his exposure to others. If CPS doesn't reverse the decision, there will be "consequences," he said.

"Some of the consequences: that we will have protests. . .at CPS and that we will discourage attendance on the first day of school to send a real strong protest message that this will not be tolerated in our community," Walls said.

When pressed about discouraging school attendance over a song, Walls said, it's "over a concept."

"If children go to school with birthday sex on their mind, they can't learn anything," he said. "Can you imagine a 6-year-old saying to another 6-year-old, 'It's my birthday, come and have birthday sex with me? And it's OK because the teachers told us and the principals told us and the administrators told us to listen to Jeremih. He's our role model.'"

On Tuesday, Daley brushed away questions about the appropriateness of the song, saying the artist has a right to "free speech."

"He's a young man, [with a] back-to-school message, a young man who has had great success recording, producer, going to school, went to public school," Daley said. "Graduated from Morgan Park, and like anything else, he's willing to help other youngsters in our public school system."

But Gilda Walker, a member of both the Committe for a Better Chicago and Concerned Women, said the message promotes teen sex.

"I don't think that should be the message sent to our children going back to school," she said. "If CPS is so concerned about music, why don't they put the arts back into the school so the children can learn the different genres of music and be able to appreciate why and how music is constructed?" she said.

Delilah Johnson, 22, a junior at DePaul University and 2005 alum of Percy L. Julian High School, said the selection of a celebrity for the back to school campaign did impact her and others.

"It set the tone for the year. It set the tone for what the teachers expected of you," she said. "And if the teachers don't expect anything better than what Jeremih is singing about in these lyrics, that's an insult to us."

-- Lauren R. Harrison

www.girlz-rule.org
Girls Rule

"It is easier to build strong children, than to repair broken men."
- Frederick Douglass