On Bossip, Esther Baxter & The Death Of Class (PHOTOS)

There is such a thing as too much information. Readers of the celebrity gossip site Bossip.com discovered this yesterday after the site posted a photograph of an aborted, bloody embryo resting in a toilet before being flushed. Allegedly, the embryo belonged to video model Esther Baxter, ex-paramour of New Jersey rapper Joe Budden.

The pictures accompanied police evidence and a video interview with Baxter in which she, and the reports, described the abuse she suffered at the hands of the "Mood Muzik" rapper. Immediately after the image was posted, Twitter and the hip-hop social media blogosphere, rightfully cried foul. Several hours later, after receiving many hits, Bossip took the photos down.  

What Bossip's and Baxter's actions reveal in posting the graphic images was an exercise in poor judgement, as well as the lengths gossip mongers would go to create news and pageviews.

While some may argue that the image is no different from the Bin Laden death conundrum faced by our President, we say no, they are two completely different things. One, the American public and our international supporters in the war against terrorism and religious violence, are owed those photographs because we have a right to know whether or not a mortal enemy has been eliminated. Two, those photographs could be evidence that the public is not being manipulated by a clever machine intent on winning political favor or approval. Showing a photograph of a bloody embryo created by two dysfunctional people on the margins of hip-hop accomplishes nothing except to reveal how "class" has disappeared from American culture.

You do remember what class is, right? Class is the triumph of intelligence over emotion. It's choosing the right word, the right dress, the right and compassionate way to do things, instead of succumbing to the Ego, that destoyer of lives, the little imp deftly portrayed by Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in "Black Swan." Class is the high road, the choice we make in whether or not we choose to hurt or elevate someone, whether or not they hurt us. It is a way of carrying oneself when one is confronted with circumstances beyond our reasoning or control. Ultimately, it elevates and nourishes us. Class may be something that can be taught explicitly, as in the case of our parents telling us when we were children, to keep quiet instead of saying something mean, or can it can be aquired through experience like facing a flippant Burger King Drive-Thru employee. Ester Baxter is 26. The age of Bossip's editors are unknown.