Last night, my eleven year-old daughter frantically yelled, “Mom! MOM! Did you see what just happened on the MTV Video Music Awards?! MOOOOOOOM!!!”

In case you were also in the back of your house arranging bookshelves like I was, YouTube  captured the moment (marker :42; it’s disabled here, but clicking the link enables you to open in a different window.):

Yeah, pretty unbelievable. I had to see it twice. Then I felt really awful for Taylor Swift — something I never thought I’d say after she tortured me inadvertently through my daughter’s stereo speakers for the past year.

The drama was a total letdown for tween Bella since the incident involved three of her favorite music peeps. At their impressionable ages, pre-teens haven’t mastered the complexities of media relationships and tend to get caught up in the moment, unable to separate the artist from his/her humanity. (At least, that’s what happened to me when I first saw the weirdness that was David Bowie shaking his butt on camera in unison with Mick Jagger for [shiver] “Dancing in the Street.” )

“Bella, I know you like Kanye’s music, and that’s still cool. He’s got bad manners is all. We just won’t invite him over for dinner.” I could tell my kid was just itching to punish Kanye by deleting his entire catalog on her iTunes library.

I won’t tell Bella about the other Kanye video shot moments later backstage as he was being kicked out of the award show, though:

Yes, that is correct. He was yelling for MTV to “give a black man a chance” because he has “the number one record right now.” My god, how many chances does Kanye need for MTV to give him? Isn’t it, like, his channel already? Give a black man a chance? Here’s a short list of black men who were never given chances by MTV, cough, cough, cough: Ed Lover, Fab Five Freddy, Prince, Michael Jackson, LL Cool J, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Seal, and Kanye Friggin’ West. I said “short list” because I had to leave off about a million black men for the sake of word count. Kanye has apparently discovered a vacuum in time, and I wish he’d crawl out of that.

My kid is Kanye’s consumer. She’s also Taylor and Beyonce’s consumer. When Kanye hops on stage and flips out like some sort of black-music messiah, who does he think is listening to his point? People his age? Underground black artists the world has yet to discover because of evil MTV? Christ, no. His fan base is who’s observing Kanye’s crazy hour: kids with cable and internet access and iTunes allowance money. He’s not preaching to the ghetto, but he is alienating himself from the people who buy his music. His PR rep must have a continuous stream of panic attacks to go along with that immeasurable job security.

Taylor Swift is a pop artist. She’s the ultimate white girl. So what? As a parent, it’s nearly impossible to find modern music for your child to listen to that doesn’t include heavy sexual overtones and primitive language skills. Even with a Cosby Show rap artist like Kanye, I have to compromise my parental skepticism in exchange for giving my kid music she’s chosen for herself. It’s irritating to constantly tell your kid “no” when all the other children seem to be listening to straight out gangsta rap and songs about getting blowjobs at a club, drinking booze, and overt materialism — all using terms that make me feel like an antique, running to Urban Dictionary right and left. The culture needs to check itself. For that one reason alone, I appreciate sweet, little Taylor Swift.

Ugh. Kanye? Pleez.