Editor’s note: The following drop was submitted to DP.com from a fellow reader and Internets Celebrity RobAck. Even though the Black Entertainment Television awards program aired several weeks ago (a literal eternity on the internets timeline) I thought that the ideas he presented were valid and worth reading, ESPECIALLY though since RobAck is secretly the target audience for this channel. He is 18yrs old and on his way to engineering college. Oh and yeah, he’s a white. I’ma let RobAck tell it…
Within 30 minutes of watching the bastardization of hip-hop and hip-hop culture perpetrated by BET, I felt the need to hate, er, I mean “blog”. I guess I should write some sort of disclaimer before griping about BET, letting you all know that I am indeed white, so take this whole post with a grain of salt if you must.
So today was the 2009 BET Awards. It was impossible to involve yourself in any major media outlet today without being exposed to some sort of coverage of the awards. But, what wasn’t covered is that fact that the year 2009 marks the 10 year anniversary of Robert L. Johnson selling BET to Viacom. Black Entertainment Television is currently owned by a white man. Tragedy? Maybe. Irony? Yes.
Regardless of my fascination with music, I never really connected with any music channel – VH1, MTV, BET, Fuse, etc. A little MTV Jams here or there to stay ‘Hood Fab’, but other than that, I disconnect myself from mainstream music as much as humanly possible. In my youth, I never had cable, but there was some BET Satan child that my step brother and I could get after school if we positioned the bunny ears correctly and wrapped them with the perfect amount of tin foil. I don’t remember much of what I saw, but I remember feeling guilty about seeing it. Old school kinda shit before internet porn when you had to sneak a freak to Taxicab Confessions and make sure your remote’s “last” button would quickly redirect to Doug or some shit. Not until recently have I had any real connection to the channel whatsoever. I have cable now and I’ve studied the channel closely on the rare occasions I’d watch it. I realized soon why I felt guilty during those after-school rap out sessions with my bro. I didn’t feel guilty because of the music, the images or the lyrics, but rather because those things were attached to a people as a whole. Black people.
I know BET has made some weak-willed attempts to become more P.C. with Sunday morning Christian shows and whatnot, but still, the majority of BET airtime is filled with rap videos. Rap videos that show partial nudity, misogamy, materialism, violence, and encouragement of all those ills. Before you claim I’m giving the old person spiel that rap will turn your sweet little Jimmy and Jill into hustlers and prostitutes, see where I’m coming from.
All those negative things I mentioned are indeed a part of hip-hop culture, for better or for worse, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue. The issue here is that those things aren’t being associated with hip-hop culture, they’re being associated with black culture.
^ Editor’s note: Would the congregation kindly say chuuuch. Amen.
In the beginning, BET aired Soul, Funk, Jazz and Gospel music. In fact, it wasn’t until 9 years after BET’s launch that Rap City first reared it’s ugly head. Well what happened? Hip-hop had been a driving force in American culture long before 1989. Business happened. MTV was crushing BET in ratings, and they needed a new vision. Since then, the image of Black people, on television at least, has been almost irrevocably associated with rap music.
Watching the awards last night, I couldn’t help but try and imagine I had never met a black person in my life. I tried to associate everything I saw or heard with black people as a whole. That may be excessive, but that’s the kind of responsibility BET holds. That channel is FUBU. For black people, by black people (even though we know the latter is far from true”. When you create a television channel with a whole race of people in the title, you better be up for the job of making sure the image of those people isn’t negative. BET failed.
Really, really bad.
Imagine the outrage if MTV became WET (pause). White Entertainment Television. All white people would be seen as snotty cornhuskers from The Hills or sadistic pretty boy assclowns who prank people too much. I mean, shit. People would be pissed. Well, white people would be pissed. I make this hypothesis because, in recent years, BET has virtually mirrored MTV’s line-up. 106 and Park to their TRL, and a slew of reality shows like College Hill or Harlem Heights.
The truth is, nobody can uphold the type of responsibility that comes with a completely black television network, or a completely white one for that matter. Even though the days of slave ships and cotton fields are gone but Phillippe P. Dauman and Viacom are still looking for ways to drag black people by their “Big Ass Chains”.
