F**K BET!

Yeah, I said it.  I put asteriks in there but the message still remains the same.  The anger and disappointment remains the same.  And it didn't start with tonight's annual BET Awards, either, because.... I refused to watch.  So again, its F**K BET.  The so-called network has been masquerading as a community and family vessel of hope and outreach for quite some time now. The awards show is simply a microcosm of what regular viewers should expect day-to-d ay: unintelligent, uninformative, saturated, copycat images, transmitted to you worldwide.  Ignorance at its finest, presented to you in high definition.... and you don't even need all the extra bells in whistles from your cable provider OR the store you purchased your idiot box from.  Why?  Because the answer is not in gray.  Its in black and white.  In my opinion, BET was a once a network that stood on principles that were valid and genuine.  It wasn't perfect, but it was a network that made me proud of my race. It was owned by US.  Owned by us not for just an hour on Saturday’s but 24/7/365, we owned it, too.  In addition to great video shows like Video Soul, Video LP, Caribbean Rhythms, and Rap City (before it later became Rap Shitty), Ed Gordon and Tavis Smiley had informative news and human interest programming.  Teen Summit came on Saturdays and discussed issues that teenagers face daily, from sex, peer pressure, pregnancy, STD’s, violence… you name it.  And they had dope musical guests every week.  But none of this exists anymore.  I knew the day would end when I saw that God-awful, “Cita’s World”.  The one thing the network had managed to avoid and now you succumb to it… stereotyping your own race.  I mean, I’m not that old-fashioned that I can’t laugh at my race or my own self, for that matter.  But this was sad.  Sad because the role she played has been accepted in our community for so long that it was clearly time to move on.  This made it really easy for others to observe, over-analyze, and be amused. Now, we flash forward to 2000.  Viacom purchases BET for $3 billion dollars.  Robert Johnson is a business man so I can’t be mad at that sale.  But honestly, he probably would’ve made more had that sale not taken place considering how much has been stolen from our culture in the first place.  By saying no, he would’ve forced others hand to submit to his brand of marketing and television and try to duplicate what he was producing.  Instead, he fell for the “banana in the tailpipe” and Viacom turned BET into a traveling circus of coonery for everyone to see.  No creative television, either.  Every BET reality show was a direct bite off one on MTV.  I mean, its not that reality shows have any educational value.  It was just frustrating to see a network that continuously set trends were now being forced into mediocrity’s vacuum, ridding the world of all intelligence for simple currency exchange.  And now, the main event:  TONIGHT’S AWARD SHOW!  UMMMM…. I TOLD YALL I DIDN’T WATCH IT!  You guys will have to fill me in on what happened (actually, don’t fill me in.  I’m good).  I’m pretty sure the show will be filled with cursing, gyrating, etc… followed by a couple of gospel music arrangements.  But that’s how BET gets down.  Remember, this is the same network that pride’s themselves in being a family network and uplifting family.  The same network that promotes safe sex and “wrap it up”… but the same network that allow several artists that talk about how “they bang hoes daily” to perform… but yet the promote a “wrap it up” campaign?  They tell you ALL DAY to “get tested” but most of the people performing aren’t getting tested.  They’re only promoting even more sex with multiple partners.  So keep your award shows.  Keep your network, period.  I tried to AT LEAST give yall a little support when you showed repeats of “The Wire”.  But once you took that off the air, you lost me.  After all, you can’t expect me to be watching a network that shows “Pain in Full” and “State Property” at least two weekends out the month.  And you can’t expect to me to tune in to a network that had the nerve to say Little Brother, Beatnuts, and De La Soul are “too intelligent for their listening audience”.  No thanks, yall.  Remote in hand and I’m now watching SportsCenter.  Peace