That is rather traditional Black-American parenting. Not that all Black-American parents carry on like that but lets just say it's
not uncommon in "the hood."
Although, at his age and taller height over his mother, it usually takes place either "back on the block" or at home, not off the block in front of television cameras and that huge of a crowd full of strangers.
I was raised by a Black-American father and white American mother. Two different parenting styles per corporal punishment. As is standard in the Black-American community (at least when I was growing up--which also included not going out side the home without a belt on [not like pants hanging down your butt today]) my father used to order me as a small child to go get his belt. Which meant so he could beat me with it. And then as I was spanked and cried, he would shout at me to stop crying before he gives me something to cry about (meaning harder beating). That's also a traditional comment/threat among Black-American parents.
My white mother never slapped me around like the black mothers of my black friends.
Also, my white Mother never threatened me with a beating if I didn't stay somewhere and fist fight some boys threatening me or jumping me. Which was a pretty normal threat ethnic Black-American mother gave their black sons.
But it is hard to say ethnic Black-Americans beat their kids and white American parents don't. Because there are plenty of physically abused white children beaten by their white parents.
But in general I think Black-Americans carried the culture of the whip (why extension cords and so forth were so common in the spanking for black kids) from the slave plantations of the South up to the North.
I think a strong culture of emasculating black boys early on and into adulthood was carried out of those slave plantations of the South.
I'm indifferent to this woman's actions probably because
I have seen it *so much.*
However, I'm of the mind, knowing Americans as I do, that what they really get their jollies off on seeing this public shaming and physical assault on this young man, was the
emasculation of a black male.
As a thought experiment we can imagine a white American man in his 40s publicly slapping around his 16 year-old daughter, while screaming profanities at her, for wearing a mini-skirt and dancing provocatively outside.
Feminists would be in an uproar be they female or male. And white knight syndrome conservative males would be standing arm in arm with them.
(I'm for spanking kids when necessary--and this boy probably should have been slapped upside his head behind closed doors. And I do believe the mother intended well and overall is a good woman and good mother. Her emotions probably got the best of her even while she was *out in public* and I certainly can excuse her. She does not want her only son to end up did or a "hood" statistic.)
