Efforts to cancel a new Oxygen reality TV special are picking up steam since the network released a preview of the show. All My Babies’ Mamas, which features Atlanta rapper Shawty Lo, who has fathered eleven children by ten women, has been panned by critics and viewers. A Change.org petition has more than 34,000 signatures calling for the shows cancellation because it “stereotypes and demeans black children, mothers and dads.” In the preview, Shawty Lo struggles to remember the names of all eleven children, and the mothers are given nicknames such as “the Jealous Baby Mama” and the “Wanna-be Bougie Baby Mama.”
When asked about the controversy, Shawty Lo told MTV News, “You can hate all you want to, I didn’t ask for it. It just happened. Now that it happened, I’m supposed to turn my back against it?”
Oxygen has pulled the trailer from the internet but is standing by the show’s production, saying that it is not intended to stereotype, but rather, that it provides “a look at one unique family and their complicated, intertwined life.” For now, All My Babies’ Mamas is set to air in the spring.