When Will Black People...? Thursday, August 7, 2008

... finally tell BET to stop broadcasting. You know I work at a community newspaper (a local, in-print version of BET if you will), and we have a television in the office (dummy box 1, productivity 0) which was unfortunately stuck on BET for some reason today while I was working at my desk. So because I couldn't find the remote (mainly because I never moved an inch to look for it), I was stuck with the brain rot that was being broadcast.

It was like hell, or more descriptively, like masturbation; you knew you shouldn't, but who the hell is around to stop you? I wanted to physically get up and either change the channel or turn the tv off, but I got caught up in a little bullshit show called Hell Date. Now this used to be one of my guilty pleasures back in the day, until I realized that usually the first segment is mildly funny and it goes downhill from there. Sometime after that, I had the pleasure of catching a full episode of 106 and Park. I think they should take a survey and see how many of them damn kids did their homework (or even attended school that day) before coming to the taping of that show. This show is like TRL for link card recipients.

But then as I finally got up after two hours to turn the tv off (read: go to the bathroom), I realized that in a sick and twisted way that I was actually entertained. I always used to feel that way after watching BET back in the day; knowing that what I was watching was total trash, but still having a slight sense of viewer gratification (this was usually after Freestyle Friday on 106 and Park or The Booth segment of Rap City). Could this be what they mean by Black Entertainment Television? That no matter how trash BET becomes, the viewer will always be entertained?

Then the real epiphany hit me; I wasn't entertained, I was watching intently for inspiration to not come close to being like any of the bullshit I just witnessed. I mean could you imagine any of the so-called civil rights groups not protesting (i.e. creating a big stink on the FOX News Channel) any one of a number of these shows if they were on any other channel? Why does BET get a pass to push black people down? Because they got the word black in the title?

To me, getting BET off the air (because it is beyond the point of repair) is a more pertinent discussion than the N-word discussion can ever be.

And let's state the obvious, BET is not ran by black people; no self-respecting Negro (or even the laziest and most shiftless form of Negro for that matter) would say 'Hey, let's show Hell Date four times a day; Rap City episodes featuring the same set of four songs; and top off the primetime line-up with black cinema's finest films such as Vampire in Brooklyn; then to all the n-words coming in from a late night of drug selling/abusing, we'll hit them with Morning Inspiration, featuring white Jesus! Ooooh Weeeee... BET is going to be better than fried chicken AND watermelons!'

We like to point fingers at various rap artists (of whose names none of us will remember next year, mind you) for killing hip hop music; when will someone accuse BET of killing the hip hop movement? And yes, the hip hop movement is synonymous with the current generation of black culture; don't let nobody tell you otherwise.