After being enlightened by an article enitlted “I WANT MY MTV….Where Have You Gone?” by Ryan here at Freshout Media, I thought to myself, hey self, there are many more sell-outs to exploit, why not expose them, too? After a moment of pure ponderance, I concurred with my conscience. She was right. BET is among the Uncle Tom, backbiting, two-faced, “sell you up the river” manipulative media dream team. If MTV is going to catch hell for their Benedict Arnold impersonation, we must not forget those who aided and abeted them. R.I.P Black Entertainment Television, because you have turned into Brainwash Everyone Television since the late 90’s, the real BET is a memory. Amen.

In my younger years I was not privy to the fact that my beloved BET was becoming oversaturated with sleazy videos, annoying televangelists and “idiot savant” caliber reality shows. This was right around 2000 AD, as I remember it. Shows like HITS on the Street and 106 and Park became the voice of BET. Once the network started gold-mining for shows such as these, BET News fell into oblivion by editing out the great journalist Tavis Smiley. This would be like 60 minutes deleting Dan Rather in the middle of his prime. In essence, this is equivalent to glossing over issues and taking matters lightly, rather than going in-depth and gathering insights about substantial issues taking place in the black community. The very moment progress is made, we get sacked behind the line of scrimmage, back to where we started.

Looking at the line-up of BET shows, it’s evident that their aim is entertainment, but at whose expense? Most of the shows that come through your tube are videos, shows about videos, sitcoms or “reality shows.” Although, much of this is time consuming and even engaging. The problem is that BET may entertain, but it’s not enough. It is simply inadequate for a nation of colored, black, Afrikan and Afrikan Amerikan people at a point when we are regressing in our strides towards being uplifted. This schedule is not nearly enough. Why don’t we have a show like 20/20? Why isn’t there a show pertaining to Black history, during Black History month? Why does PBS out-run BET when it comes to educational information about Afrikan, or Afrikan Amerikan people? I know why, because of the thing that people lust for more than sex, and exploit their fellowman and even themsevles for, yes you guessed it, the Almighty Dollar.

This is this same dollar that BET spends in such an idiotic manner, trying to cater to videos rather than original (or creative) black educational programs, sit-coms and black music, for that matter. BET’s programming displays a sense of carelessness about the profound, and a preoccupation with the frivolous. This is disconcerting. No wonder why blacks are stereotyped implicitly and explicitly in the vast arena of the public domain.

In 2004, surveys asserted that blacks spend more on food, clothes and entertainment products per capita than whites. What’s more is that blacks have a median household income of $ 30,134, which is the lowest compared to Asians, Whites and Hispanics. Now do you understand why BET is Brainwash Everybody Television? I’m sure you do.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that our grandiose and superlative lifestyles are a by-product of many other things, but my point is that BET does not elevate us from such shallowness, they simply add insult to injury, with very little remoarse. A channel which reaches so many homes and speaks to millions worldwide should educate as well as entertain. So when you decide to brainwash yourself by watching BET, observe the fickle lifestyle it promotes and ask yourself, does it provide anything substantially progressive for black people, black music or anything black, or are they just exploiting blacks for a stack of greenbacks?

Thursday Says:

“Destroying, then Rebuilding the World piece by Peace.”

One Response to “BET=Brainwash Everybody Television”

1. kidf Says:
   March 13th, 2006 at 11:18 am

   furthermore…Black Entertainment Television is a broad title that has for most of the last 20 years excluded any artist or entertainer who isn’t “traditionally” black. Musicians like Lenny Kravitz, Ben Harper..more or less anything outside of the tight scope of what is considered mainsteam hihop cannot be found on the channel. Not only does this support the idiotic notion that black people should not listen/perform anyhting outside the realm of hiphop..it also isolates and alienates black artists who dont cater to the mainstream genre, and dare I say stigmatizes them as being somehow “less black” than their hiphop counter parts.

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