The Maury Show: Paternity Test Episodes

Shaun M Mathis, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Oct 24, 2006 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

On many of my mornings I park myself in front of the television and watch a few shows in hops of gaining inspiration for my writing, that's one of my rituals. One of my favorite shows is the Maury Show, which comes on twice 10 am and 12 pm in the afternoon. Many of the show ideas are some I've seen hundreds of times, the only thing different is the guest on the show on any particular day. The only type of show that bothers me is the shows about paternity tests.

Today the 10 am show was entitles "I slept with 8 other guys, you may not be the father of our child" It is no surprise that the most talked about and viewed Maury show's are the ones about paternity testing and infidelity but that isn't my problem. My problem is the way African American men and women carry themselves on national television in front of millions of strangers and the way these people air their dirty laundry.

As an African American it's down right embarrassing to sit and watch this display of disrespect they show toward one another. The problems I have, not with the show, but with the guest are many. First a large percent of the guests are of African American decent and many are extremely young, ages of fifteen and older. It disturbs me to witness a fifteen-year old girl on television telling the country she doesn't know who the father of her child is.

The next problem I have is with the female mothers. They come out on the stage and flat out yell, scream, curse at the top of their lungs about how they are 1,000% sure the man they are accusing is the father of their child. Sometimes they are correct but more times the test proves the females have accused the wrong man. Next thing you know they are running off the stage into the back crying. Crying because they were wrong, crying because they still have no idea who the father of their child is and crying because they know they just embarrassed the hell out of themselves.

Problem number three come with the potential male guests/fathers. All guests, men and women, get to share their thoughts with producers via video and it is aired on the show. The men, especially African Americans, are down right ignorant during that time. They disrespect the women by calling them all types of names, bitches, hoes, sluts, and gold-diggers and how there is no way they can be the fathers. This bothers me because this is a woman you laid down and had intercourse with and if you say she is all these things then what does that say about you? The men start to air the women's sexual history to the audience in an attempt to disprove the accusations.

When the test comes back as they are not the fathers they act even more ignorant. Jumping up and down, yelling, pointing at the embarrassed women and acting like a clown at a curious. They celebrate as if having a child is the worst thing in the world, like it's a curse and they are so better off without one. I know no one wants to be taking care of a child that is not theirs or even to be accused as a dead-beat dad, but the way they display their "joy" is rude and upsetting.

What troubles me the most is the lack of knowledge these guests have when they go on the show. These ill-mannered acting young men and women are representing African American's as a whole when they go on shows with these types of topics. How you carry yourself says plenty about your upbringing and about yourself, not to just me but to people who have never lived or been around a black person ever in life. Believe it or not there still are people like that in the world.

Living in urban Philadelphia I witness many African American young women and men in these same situations and they display this same type of behavior in the streets, in malls and even in restaurants and I feel like they get the idea that to act like that is ok because it is widely accepted and expressed on national television. When in all honesty it is not ok, it is representing African Americans in a negative way, in the light that we are all poverty stricken, illiterate baby-makers which is highly untrue.
Instead of these misdirected, confused men and women going on national television to accuse someone of fathering their baby and then acting like fools, these people should use the privacy of their own homes to discuss the situation.

I feel the idea of a free paternity test or a free flight to a new state is enough for these people to throw away inhibitions and perform like animals without home training. It hurts my heart to see people around the same age as me, 20-25, acting like that. It's sending the wrong message to other people who may be in similar predicaments and they are epitomizing the race as whole in a very

Published by Shaun M Mathis

I am 26 from Connecticut that enjoys thinking and writing about articles "outside the box" I am a bit argumenative but I also shed new light to previous & existing topics/situations that are going on all ar... View profile

Just watch the show when it is a paternity test episode. There is one on at least once a week.

These ill-mannered acting young men and women are representing African American's as a whole
They celebrate as if having a child is the worst thing in the world, like it's a curse and they are
It disturbs me to witness a fifteen-year old girl on television telling the country she doesn't know

The Maury Show has been on for almost ten years

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The Maury Show: Paternity Test Episodes

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