Cardi B has a blunt piece of parenting advice for New Yorkers: pack up and head to Pennsylvania.
The Bronx native made the suggestion during an Instagram livestream on Sunday while reacting to the death of Javits Frimpong, a teenager who was shot near Crotona Park last Thursday, October 29.
Javits was just 15. He moved to the US from Ghana last year and was walking to school that morning when he was shot by other kids, according to reports.
His father told ABC7 NY that his son had been bullied at school and that he believed the bullies were responsible for the killing. That detail seemed to hit Cardi hard, and it shaped most of what she said on her stream.
The rapper said she would never raise a child in the Bronx, Harlem or Washington Heights. She also said she would not send her kids to a New York public school or raise them in the hood.
“New York City, the schools, the kids are extremely xenophobic,” she said. She described growing up there as a matter of survival and added, “I’m not even exaggerating.”
Cardi couldn’t get past the timing of the shooting. She questioned how the suspects could wake up early in the morning and decide to kill another boy for no clear reason, and she didn’t hold back on the kids she believes are being raised in the city. “They got the devil in them, I’m telling you,” she said.
Her solution was simple, at least on paper. She told followers to get their “quality of life up and move to Pennsylvania,” and repeated that anyone planning to have a baby should think about relocating there.
What makes her take more layered than a celebrity vent is where she places the blame. Cardi argued that bullying doesn’t begin in middle school or high school but as early as first grade, and that kids who arrive from other countries get picked on no matter their race or nationality.
“It’s not a specific race or nationality that’s making fun of the other people. No. It’s everybody,” she said. “It’s a melting pot of everybody just being mean.”
She went further, saying some kids even target newcomers from their own background simply because those students came from abroad.
She also told parents directly that their own children could be part of the problem, and urged them to teach kindness at home, since in her view it starts with the parents.
Cardi also pushed back on the classic advice given to bullied kids. Telling children to mind their own business is a lie, she said, because bullies still come after them anyway.
Her sharpest point may have been about what happens next for those kids. She said some students who get picked on over and over end up joining gangs, just to learn how to defend themselves against verbal or physical attacks.
For now, the investigation into Javits Frimpong’s death continues, and his father’s claims about the bullying he faced at school remain at the center of the conversation.
