The first time I heard the name Shaniqua in mainstream media was back in the late 1980’s with the song by Oran “Juice” Jones called “Shaniqua”. The lyrics of the song were “Shaniqua got me Whipped”. His video and lyrics depicted a vixen named Shaniqua who Oran “Juice” was dangerously in love with. Her persona was sexy, fem-fatal and seductive. The image was fine for me at such a young age because, what young girl doesn’t fantasize about being an object of a man’s desires at some point in her adult life. At the time, the name Shenequa was alright with me. Around that same era there was a Cosby show episode where a beautiful black princess named Shaniqua Watkins appears on the scene dating a male cast member on the show. The young lady was pretty, intelligent, and gentle all the positive attributes little black girls needed in their lives. Fast-forward to the 1990’s and Sheneneh Jenkins arrives on the scene and destroys the positive image and role model that was so carefully developed and morphed her into a comical and misrepresented character. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0uFcf7Cft4 Now I could go on and completely try to destroy the genius work that Martin Lawrence has done to create such character and that would not be very Shaniqua of me so I’m not going to do that. What I do plan do with it is shed light on the negative persona and somehow change the branding of Shaniqua so that the Sheneoqua’s, Shenequa’s Shaniqua’s will never have to worry if when they submit their qualified resume online that they will be judged accordingly. My goal is to take back Shaniqua and rebrand her image back into a positive one.
Excellent post, my friend. I wish you success in this endeavor, and promise to you that I will never negatively typecast the Shenequas, Shaniquas, or Sheneoquas, just because of your positive example :-)
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