the saddest Hot Ghetto Mess ever

I actually cropped this to spare you her thong shot...

So I am at work at my wonderful new job with my old market research firm and we are talking about crazy websites - so I mention "hotghettomess.com" to my co-worker Julie - telling her it's one of the craziest in terms of crazy pics of people's absurd "ghetto-fab" imagery. You know, baby pictures with infants with big gold chains, cars with Louis Vutton paint jobs, etc.

As Julie pulled up the site and brought up the pictures listed under "Just Sad", I was shocked to see one of the first pics being of a young lady in what seems to be a Muslim headscarf, posing half naked (with a thong strategically pulled halfway down) with her little kid.

I told Julie to maximize the picture (don't ask why) and got an even bigger shock: I knew the young lady in the picture and yes, she's a Muslim.

I knew her and her sister from a couple years ago when we worked together at a direct marketing and communications firm, and to be honest, she pretty much ran wild, partying, etc., and wasn't really known to be devoutly practicing. Except for one thing - she and her sister were never without headscarves. Yeah, they had piercings everywhere and wore mini skirts, but they were never without a scarf. At first, I thought they were with the Nation of Islam, but I eventually talked to one who told me their mother was married to an arab Muslim and that they occasionally attended the mosque in Denver. I left off my main questions like, "Just what the hell are you two doing...?" because I could tell that oft-times their furtive glances in my direction were tinged with shame and rebuke of judgmentalism.

A couple years later, as I looked at the picture on hotghettomess, I knew in a flash what I fight against regarding my own daughter, what I've fought against with my stepdaughters, and what we all must fight against regarding the challenge and responsibility we all have - regardless of religion - in raising our daughters in the midst of our society that objectifies them and distorts their mentality into thinking that striking a stripper pose with your young'un is a "cool" thing to do.

Like the motto on the hotghettomess website - we have got to do better.