Social media, that double-edged sword that is now woven tightly into America’s fabric, might claim another victim this week should the Lumbee Regional Development Association decide to dethrone the current Miss Lumbee, Alexis Raeana Jones.
Jones, just 20 years old, appears to have made a youthful mistake when she agreed to sit in — and that’s pretty much all she did — for the shooting of a video now easily seen on YouTube that was made by her former classmate at Purnell Swett High School, Cliff Powell, an aspiring rap artist who calls himself Feli Fame.
The video of a song called “Big Face Hunnits” — what exactly is a Hunnit? — was shot at a Pembroke convenience store and features a lot of local folks, not just the talented and beautiful Ms. Jones. LRDA officials apparently don’t like the video’s profanity-laced lyrics and its glamorization of drugs, money and violence, all of which Jones claims ignorance. She says all that was added after the video was filmed — which is easy to believe because that is how such videos are created.
Members of the LRDA board of directors, as is their prerogative, might determine that Jones should have known better, and that they don’t want a spokesperson for their organization associated with a video that they believe carries such a negative message. They will wave a contract that Jones apparently signed that warns of “unbecoming” behavior and cites the trappings of the world of social media, although for some reason YouTube wasn’t specifically mentioned.
Unless there is something we don’t know, and there could be, we hope that the LRDA directors take a more generous approach, and perhaps advise Jones, whose tenure would expire in July, that she now has a Strike 1, and that not even a second strike would be tolerated. There is more at stake than just a crown as the Miss Lumbee title comes with plenty of perks, including a $5,000 scholarship that we assume now has been jeopardized.
If you want to enlist as an ally of Ms. Jones, there are petitions on Facebook that are rapidly gathering signatures that are asking that LRDA give Jones another chance.
The lesson Jones is learning, which certainly isn’t new, is that the Internet, for all its wonder, is also a garbage that can never be emptied — and that a second and a third thought are prudent before hitting the proverbial send bottom.
The irony is that the controversy might actually bring some Fame to Feli while causing hardship for his former classmate. But sometimes these stories have a happy ending, and should LRDA decide to part ways with Ms. Jones, the now-developing notoriety might eventually play to her benefit.
We said social media is double-edged.
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