I know this post has been a long time coming, but a while back BET promoted/aired a special listing the top 25 things that mishaped Black culture. The final list went like this:
25. Jheri Curls
24. Hurricane Katrina
23. The ‘N-Word’
22. The Counter Intelligence Program
21. Elvis
20. Negative Images in Hip Hop
19. The ‘Bling’ Phenomenon
18. Welfare
17. Justice System / Prison
16. Color struck
15. Ward Connerly
14. Supreme Court
13. Ronald Reagan
12. The Bombing of Black Wall Street
11. Soul Food
10. Gangs
9. Hollywood
8. Murders of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King
7. Proud To Be Dumb
6. The Ku Klux Klan
5. Apartheid
4. Religion
3. AIDS
2. Drugs
1. Slavery
*sigh*
I want to be a proponent of BET and their purpose soooo badly…but they go about airing these specials on VERY important Black issues in such a nonchalant way. I mean the first entry was the Jheri curl…I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry (both? LOL). BET does such a great job of straddling the fence whenever it comes down to important Black issues/discussions that I’m starting to think it’s intentional. I mean, they can’t just have an hour long special to discuss semi-serious issues, they have to include a very comedic aspect…sort of like “Best Week Ever” on VH1. I mean imagine the conflicts in the editing session when creating this program…on one hand you have people like Dr. Cornel West and Barack Obama giving well thought-out and historical accounts on key events in recent Black history but on the other hand you have Paul Mooney and Young Jeezy making funnies thorughout. Which leaves me asking, was the show meant to be a joke or serious? On top of that, BET can directly attribute about 7 items of the list to THEMSELVES (definitely #7, 25, 20, 23, 9, 11, 19). I mean come on, this is the same network that let Tavis Smiley go and threw another ComicView in his slot…AND THEY MADE HOT GHETTO MESS A TELEVISION SHOW!!!! So that leads me to believe that BET itself should have been included somewhere on that list…for a network criticizing the mindset of “Proud To Be Dumb”, it seems “Dumb To Be Proud” of this list.
Does anyone else find this list or its presentation a tad ironic?
>>TCS
this list is all over the place, lol. how can you rank such disparate external and internal factors? and why the focus on external factors while ignoring a lack of fiscal responsibility and education (unless ‘bling’ was supposed to represent that), riots in watts and detroit (although tulsa several decades earlier definitely deserves special mention), and (my personal favorite) al sharpton?
With Black Entertainment Televison (B.E.T) owned by Wealthy Hierarchy bound Intelligent Tyrannical Entrepreneur Slime (W.H.I.T.E.S) what do you expect? But seriously those who are in charge do not have our best interests at heart because they are not from our community. What we need to do is support our own (TV One) and focusing on raising some kids who understand the difference between independant and in da pendant. Hello!
@ Nae: What?!?! LOL. But I have to say, selling to VIACOM aka White mainstream pop culture was a heavy blow to BET’s credibility.
@ Rach: OK…humor me here. What has Al Sharpton done that’s so hurtful to the Black community? He tries to defend civil rights (albeit in some of the most ill-conceived and ignorant ways possible) and has been crowned in the court of public opinion as “The Voice of Black America” although he’s often quoted as saying he’s “just another Black man seeking equality and democracy…” I think he gets a bad rap…
>>TCS
BET obviously likes to make a mockery of itself. I found most of the list contradictory. As stated, BET should be proud to place itself as #1 on the list.
I Think African american priorities and what they think is cool misshaped them. Like saying the n word, a word created by rasist people that isults and african american declares that as a black only word. Mexicans dont declare the s word as a mexican word. And being dumb, if it isnt cool to be smart than thats just stupid to be proud to be stupid, and gangs, they terrerize theri own people just like the kkk did and kill there own people like the kkk did blacks hate blacks and are doing the kkk’s job and people think its cool to be a gangster. and men are braninwashing their black women to degrad themselves and think the way a man does and think its cool.
[...] guys know how difficult it is for me to get along with BET. First, it was their “Top 25 Events that Mis-Shaped Black America” which was somewhere between comical/ridiculous and thought-provoking (an accurate description for [...]
B.E.T should be on that list for dumbing african-americans down and setting a horrible example of how a black person should act and be, often refered to as keeping it real, but in reality being FAR FROM REAL.