BET, known as Black Entertainment Television, refused to acknowledge or air the Million Man March. The significant of this year’s Million Man March marked the 20th year anniversary since the original march took place. BET chose to cater to their majority white audience despite the rise of police brutality and murders of unarmed black males. BET producer, Jarvis Robinson, commented, “We as blacks should stop walking around with chips on our shoulders and stop being sensitive. Why focus so much on race when our president is a brother.”
Let breakdown BET’s official statement released a few days later:
1. We decided not to air the Million Man March because we are working towards racial equality and to end division among whites and blacks.
I think BET is suffering from abandonment issues when black viewers started to watch networks such as VH1, MTV, E! and Bravo. Or perhaps it was BET’s founder, Robert Louis Johnson, who chucked up the deuces to the network in 2006. Johnson created BET in 1979 as the first cable television network aimed at African-Americans. It later became the first black-controlled company listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1991. Nothing about BET will ever be integrated or inclusive as long as it is called BLACK entertainment television. This idea of racial equality becomes a primary goal when black companies are gentrified. In this case by “viewer friendly” American global mass media company– Viacom.
2. Although we understand the reasoning behind the Million Man March led by the Honorable Minster Louis Farrakhan, we can’t stand behind a theme that is “Justice or Else”. The ideology behind the theme encourages violence towards whites and we do not condone violent acts of terror against whites or any other races.
This “Justice or Else” meta tag was strapped on by Al Sharpton who used the same outdated phrase last year. Thus the premise behind the march was NOT terror or violence. In fact, it wasn’t even about the war on black lives as much as it was about black men declaring “their right to justice to atone for their failure as men and to accept responsibility as the family head.”Calling this march “violent acts of terror against whites” simply ignores and disregards the essences of the Million Man March. In both marches “the world saw Black men demonstrating the willingness to shoulder the responsibility of improving themselves and the community.” This march was never about the white community.
3. We started as a black entertainment television company but now we have moved forward and we have viewers of the white community we wish not to offend by airing the Million Man March.
Clearly black entertainment is luring in the white community with misrepresentations of black culture and what it means to be black. Also, if the viewers are majority white then they must be white people “obsessed” with black people because even the commercials on BET are very urban. Nothing about the network reads integration and the closes thing to white is video vixen, Amber Rose. Being Mary Jane is the best show of them all but it features an independent woman that can’t find a decent black man. I am still trying to understand the dichotomy that exist in a network that is for white people by black people. I also want to know how the Latino community managed to get the USA pageant off air and we can’t get a peace protest to show anywhere.
I get it …..
Yes, marching is not the solution nor are terrorists threats. But don’t make your network all about black people and not be for the advancement and celebration of black people.
TMZToday reported that after releasing their explanation, BET insiders told them that they have received hundreds of hate mail and many have threatened to boycott the channel. BET executives have agreed to air the Million Man March during their infomercials hours which are between 3 and 6 am in the morning. The time slot is during hours that most people are asleep and typically have the lowest amount of viewers.
“I don’t see what the problem is. White people are our biggest audience and I think it would be idiotic for to offend them. We as blacks should stop walking around with chips on our shoulders and stop being sensitive. Why focus so much on race when our president is a brother” says BET producer, Jarvis Robinson.
Oh, my people perish for they know not what they do.
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