Viacom lackey, and BET head negress in charge Debra Lee, pictured.
Filed under: Uncategorized
38 Responses to “BET Loses Sponsorships Over Video Content”
Leave a Reply
-
TSO . . .
-
Recent Comments
pink on MCain’s Turn 
thestateofblog on Virginity pledges do cause som… Nita on Virginity pledges do cause som… impressme *Obama 08* on MCain’s Turn LA on She Got Jokes!
Uh huh.
And I would bet money their ads still show up on 24 and The Girls Next Door; on network news, which is nothing but a perverse reality show about child molesters and serial killers.
Why is rap singled out to be taught a lesson?
I hear you Dina but i’m not a big fan of BET and the only way they will change the content of the show is if you hit them in the pocketbook.
BET is such a good idea but has terrible programming.
With The State Of…rap music and its debilitating, pervasive effects on black kids, I wouldn’t shed a tear if the top ten rappers died tomorrow. In fact, I would give a cheer that the black community would be free of their scourge of negativity and downright niggershit.
Top ten rappers could die tomorrow?
Niggershit?
Millions of people, including Black kids, around the world have watched the evolution of Jay-Z from street dealer to billionnaire mogul.
Millions of people, including Black kids, around the world have watched the evolution of 50 Cent from street dealer to flipping businesses.
Millions of people, including Black kids, around the world have watched the evolution of Lil Wayne from street dealer to America’s greatest poet.
And you call that Niggershit?
And you want these guys to die?
Ok, Pres, what’s the alternative? A bunch of guys like you, who can’t speak out loudly enough anytime any homosexual feels an affront?
A bunch of guys like you who think there are better things to do than marriage?
A bunch of guys like you who don’t think enough of themselves to reproduce?
From where I’m looking, the anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-children, anti-hip-hop, pro-anal sex nonsense you’re peddling is the “negativity and downright niggershit” young Black youth need to be protected from.
The top ten rappers mesmerize the world over. You and people like you, at best, capture a collective yawn.
Dina, politics aside, are you really defending something that exposes viewers to “violence, profanity or obscenity once every 38 seconds.”
You on that bullshit…for real.
Paul,
This isn’t an issue or defend or oppose. Agree or disagree. Co-sign or not. Try to think a little deeper than that.
In American society, what doesn’t expose viewers to “violence, profanity or obscenity” every 38 seconds?
Cabs have strip club ads on their roofs.
Billboards have sexually suggestive ads for clothing.
Network news has endless streams of horror stories about pedophiles and serial killers.
In Will n Grace, homie the homo used to wear an apron that said “Kiss the Cook”, but he used to tease about thinking that the second “o” was a “c”.
Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera French-kissed Madonna at some video awards show.
And Pepsi has the nerve to point the finger at hip hop?
This is no different than throwing the book at crack cocaine users, while cocaine users are lounging at Club Fed.
Wow…. Dina, your first post is right on. I’m thinking that the difference is that BET has a large following of young people. I’m sure there’s more violence and abuse of all kinds on the Law and Order shows… but young folks I know don’t watch those shows.
Many times, those companies just don’t want to be the only ones NOT doing something. With the economy as it is… negative press and stay-at-home moms picketing your HQ isn’t good for the bottomline.
There’s so winning.
Pres, the top ten would be replaced by #s 11-20. I’m with Dina on the evolution… I enjoy seeing it.
Truth,
Very good points. But VH1 and MTV also have large followings of young people and, last I checked, Flava of Lov and Tila Tequila haven’t gone anywhere. Music award shows are huge in the youth audience, with sponsors falling over themselves to get airtime. And they have nothing but obscenity from beginning to end.
How can some Black folks support this hypocrisy that says when Black people do something it’s bad (crack), but when White people do it, it’s not a big deal (cocaine).
Dina you make an amazing point. Do you think some blacks blame rap for things they should blame themselves? Or they blame rap for things that are really the responsibility of the larger culture?
It would be nice if black people - especially supposedly educated negroes - begin to wak up and understand that the media does not operate in the best interest of black people.
Yeah, so Jay Z is a mogul; doing it at the expense of his people by spewing violence and profanity lade lyrics aimed at black folks? Great role model for black kids to emulate - his business acumen, yes, his selling out of his people, sorry?
We as a community are in trouble, people. And Mr. Porter is a sell out who had to have a mere CHILD sremind him of his moral responsibility as an adult?
Read this and then tell me how you can defend this garbage that black people continue to defend and gobble up like now and laters.:
Jenice Armstrong: You can stop the vile media
IF YOU’RE lucky, you missed getting a bloody e-mail promoting Ashanti’s new single, “The Way That I Love You.” It was disturbingly violent and, given the homicide rate plaguing many American cities, it was in unbelievably bad taste.
Some kook dreamed up the idea of sending an e-mail blast of customizable e-cards to hype the R&B singer’s ballad about a relationship gone awry. Called a Gotcha Gram, the video was done in the form of a fake TV news report alleging that Ashanti’s killing of a cheating boyfriend had sparked a wave of copycat murders.
Here’s where it got even more macabre. Recipients of the card had the option of adding the names of their own cheating lovers, which could be written on a bathroom wall in what looked like blood. You could even upload a picture of yourself to show that you were under investigation for the murder. Recipients also got to decide how their cheating lover would be killed. That’s where the gotcha part came in.
What I’d like to know is: Where is Universal Music’s moral compass? Ashanti is a beautiful singer who appeals to young listeners who essentially are being given the message that if your lover cheats, you seek revenge by killing them. It doesn’t matter if it was done as a parody or in jest. The irony gets lost in the mess of all that dripping blood and butcher-knife imagery. And by the way, the song isn’t violent at all. That’s what made the video even stranger.
Needless to say, it didn’t take long before thinking folks who got this disturbing promotion started howling in protest. A nonprofit organization called Industry Ears, which was started by a former BET programmer, threatened to demonstrate during Ashanti’s singing of the National Anthem during the NBA Finals. That, apparently, cooled Universal’s interest in continuing this viral marketing campaign.
“It does go to show you that when you do push back against the corporate entities, that you can make a difference,” said Lisa Fager Bediako, a communications-industry veteran who co-founded Industry Ears to fight against just these types of negative images. “As soon as we said we’re going to mess with your bottom line by going to the NBA Final five game, that’s when we got a response.”
I’m relaying the Ashanti saga as a reminder that consumers do have power in terms of what’s being pushed at us on TV, the radio and elsewhere. A lot of times, people click past in disgust when they catch glimpses of negative imagery on television, partly because people are wrapped up in their own worlds but also because folks don’t know what else to do.
A recent study conducted for Radio One by Yankelovich, the North Carolina-based research firm, revealed that most African-Americans are dissatisfied with the way they’re portrayed in the media. Most say that they don’t relate to the way blacks appear on most black TV shows. Roughly 40 percent say that most television reinforces negative stereotypes about blacks. Only 29 percent of those surveyed feel that they’re getting a fair shake from the media.
“Twenty years ago, ‘The Cosby Show’ was Number 1 on TV,” said Paul Porter, former BET programmer and a co-founder of Industry Ears. “Twenty years later, the Number 1 African-American show is ‘Flavor of Love.’ . . . Someone taking a poop on the floor on the ‘Flavor of Love.’ Why is this accepted in mainstream TV?”
A former radio personality, Porter became an activist when a 12-year-old at a school where he was volunteering asked for help regarding a rap song by Rah Digga called “Beat that B—- with a Bat.” Her father had assaulted her mother with a baseball bat.
” ‘Mr. Paul, can you get this song off the radio? Every time they play this record, the kids keep saying it to me,’ she complained,” Porter recalled. “I told her, ‘Look, I’m going to get this record off the radio.’ Ever since, I decided to see what I could do.”
These days, he focuses his ire on shows such as BET’s “106 and Park” and “Rap City,” both notorious for spotlighting music videos with imagery that’s harmful to young minds. He also lectures parents about code words in songs such as Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop,” which Porter says is about oral sex, and does what he can to spread the word that consumers don’t have to passively accept what’s presented to them as entertainment. “The real crisis is that black folks are dying and we see all this stuff going on in the streets and we’re asleep at the wheel,” he said. Industry Ears - http://www.industry ears.org - is one tool that can help wake folks up. *
It’s pure comedy that a non-black person is speaking about what’s “best” for blacks.
Hip-hop is largely anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-children and a host of other shit…
Actually, what is pure comedy Anonymous is that I’m more Black than most allegedly Black folks out there.
” … a 12-year-old at a school where he was volunteering asked for help regarding a rap song by Rah Digga called “Beat that B—- with a Bat.” Her father had assaulted her mother with a baseball bat. …”
That makes my heart hurt.
But hey! If he was making a lot of money from the song, that’s all that matters, right?
The end justifies the means, and all that.
Why does it alway seem to be about the music?
Movies depict terrorism.
Movies depict racsim.
Movies depict murder.
Movies depict molestation.
Movies depict adultry.
Movies depict drug abuse.
Movies depict drug sales.
Movies depict prostution.
Movies depict pimps.
…and a host of other things that would be against society’s supposed “morals.” - All in the name of entertainment.
But somehow, music and TV are supposed to have a higher moral standards? (uhh, ok)
We watched Cosby because it was entertaining. Some watch Flava because of the entertainment factor. Just like Fear Factor, Soap Operas, Game Shows, and the rest of the reality shows.
What some people consider entertainment is different from others, and the networks are selecting programing that cater to their audience. If the audience goes away because they don’t like the content, then the ad dollars go away, and then the network will eventually go away. It’s a business.
And just like movies have ratings for what is age appropriate, parents need to apply that same principal in the home.
And if we are going to try to claim “cause and effect,” for the way our children behave, then, to be consistent, we would need to apply that to all other media as well.
I guess we’ll be right back to “the violent video game I was playing made me kill that person…”
Of course, of course.
And if that Rah Digga song was never made, that mother and father would be at home reading books to their daughter.
Thank you Anonymous 11:49.
Same people who cry about rap music are on their way to Best Buy to buy their nephew the latest version of Grand Theft Auto; feeding their children high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils; while checking the listings to go see the latest shoot em up movie.
But it’s all rap music’s fault.
I’m sorry, that 11:49 was me. I don’t write often, so I hit too soon and forget to put a name
Dina
It always astounds me how many non black people feel entitled to comment on what is best for blacks. I’m not blaming rap for anything, I’m simply stating that rap is anti-marriage, anti-family, and anti-children.
As for your statement “I’m more Black than most allegedly Black folks out there”- You and people like you, at best, capture a collective yawn.
Anonymous said:
“But somehow, music and TV are supposed to have a higher moral standards? (uhh, ok)”
Mucis and TV are inanimate objects. However, people, in this case, black people specifically ought to have and exhibit more ’standards’ in MY mind.
Especially given the condition of our people. Because at this point, if you are not advancing the race, I have no need for you. I am talking about BLACK PEOPLE not exploiting their own people for material gain by DOING HARM to each other..
And that is what too many black people have been doing; using these instruments of communication to drive our race into the ground.
I cannot stand the movies and the TV shows too in their depictions of black folks. TV’s depiction of black folks has changed since the Cosby show. it’s a vast niggershit jungle out there making our people dumber.
And that is my concern in this discussion, BLACK PEOPLE.
I’m supposed to be happy that 50 Cent was a drug dealer who turned his life around? Fcuk that mentality; I want to know what the fcuk was wrong with thei BLACK MAN that he thought it acceptable to distribute drugs to BLACK PEOPLE in the first place.And I’m supposed toi be happy that he doesn’t do that anymore.
Sorry, I ain’t drinking that Kool-Aid.
I am still waiting for someone who jumped down my @ss to defend the actions of Ashanti’s record company and how that campaign advances the cause of BLACK PEOPLE.
or, does it just not matter because, hell, niggers don’t matter as long as I can make money off of them. To have black folks jumping on that bandwagon and perpetuating as well as further fostering ignorance in the BLACK COMMUNITY is INEXCUSABLE.
And that’s why I would celebrate if those niggers were gone tomorrow.
“Think. It ain’t illegal yet” - Geroge Clinton
You’re funny Anonymous.
But you’re incorrect. No yawns from my stuff. I’m one of the most interesting commenters around.
Admit it. You wait with baited breath for what I have to say about things.
I want to know what the fcuk was wrong with thei BLACK MAN that he thought it acceptable to distribute drugs to BLACK PEOPLE in the first place.
Why don’t you ask all those college-educated folks who are “pharmaceutical reps”?
I am talking about BLACK PEOPLE not exploiting their own people for material gain by DOING HARM to each other..
Why don’t you talk to all those mortgage brokers you know who got bonuses from lenders for selling suckers on subprime loans?
Because at this point, if you are not advancing the race, I have no need for you.
What’s less advancing than refusing to reproduce? What’s less advancing than telling children there are better things to do than get married? What’s less advancing than telling young Black boys to be pro-anal sex?
Rappers aren’t being singled out. Protest groups single out different perverse shows all the time. I’m glad they are doing this. Screw BET and the horse it road in on.
Anyone who uses the EXCUSE to leave rap music alone just because there are other bad forms of media is very shortsighted. They are not mutually exclusive. I think we know that each has negative aspects. However the topic is about to networks… BET and MTV who were founded on MUSIC. Now for anyone who thinks rap music & videos are GOOD for our young kids please provide bullet points as to why. WARNING!… using 1 or 2 (JayZ and Curtis) as examples from the tens of thousands of published rappers in the past 30 years is not a legit response. Pretend like you are running for president on the platform of rap music is good for our young kids.
Dina.
You want to know what I’m about? What I have put my blood, sweat, tears and MONEY into?
You can see it right here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kFwTS8-DjHs
Pres,
You don’t have to drink the Kool-Aid. And I’m not asking you to. I am also not defending the content that the media puts out.
Our discussions on this blog are not assisting with the matter. I didn’t see the promo for Ashanti, but I don’t doubt that it is as untastful as you state. But if you have heard any of the album, you would understand why they may have resorted to the tactic (it is AWFUL).
I am suggesting that the “revolution” starts at home, then branches out to the surrounding community, and then eventually to the masses. And part of “starting at home” is beating Education down our children’s throats, so they can begin to have the sense, which can lead to the resources to have our own Shit and release content that present black decendants more frequently in positive light. (Thank you for the Spike Lees and Denzels of the world).
But even then, Denzel may have made the Antoine Fisher story, but he also made Training Day - Two different genres of movies. And I believe Training Day made more money.
Unfortunatley, it comes down to the almighty dollar. But if we begin to educate our youth better and provide a sound guidance and foundation, I have hope that some of these things can be overcome.
I don’t condone it, but I do understand it. And without understanding, you have no way to begin to come up with plausible solutions.
Dina
I’ll admit you’re extremely talented when it comes to diversion. Pres and others make it clear that their primary concern is about black (American) people and 99.99% you always manage to go on some rant about what whites are doing… “what about MTV, VH1, Brittany Spears, … it’s not fair!”
Far from black, but entertaining nonetheless…
“Especially given the condition of our people. Because at this point, if you are not advancing the race, I have no need for you. I am talking about BLACK PEOPLE not exploiting their own people for material gain by DOING HARM to each other..” Pres
Pres,
I submit that Lil Wayne “advanced the race” further in “Shoot Me Down” and in “Prostitute” than Al Sharpton “advanced the race ” in his entire life.
Through his art.
I find your petit bourgeois refusal to acknowledge the complexity and tremendous artistic value of Hip Hop a form of self hatred no different than the Negros in the 40’s who said Jazz did not “advance the race”.
Rap is art. Art is an opportunity to better understand ourselves.
Blaming rap makes about as much sense as blaming a mirror for the bumps on your face.
Hip Hop is young people rejecting a value system they feel has rejected them.
Pres, you cling to that value system. You are invested in that value system. You are betting your hopes and dreams on that system. There are many people who think you are actually more foolish than Young Jeezy who sees the system you advocate, as a system determined to destroy black people.
One of ya’ll is right. One of ya’ll is actually “advancing the race” race. One of ya’ll is a fool.
-
Sunny.
I didn’t write that commentary!!!!!
I posted it: ‘Jenice Armstrong: You can stop the vile media’
And I agree with you 100%. The responsibility begins in THE HOME.
oh sorry Pres
WOW Pres, that looks amazing. I’ll watch over the weekend.
I am so impressed with the energy and focus it takes to pull off something like what you’re doing. A friend of mine did something similar during his 20s and 30s and won the type of award that gets you on the front of the New York Times. Which only really mattered for the exposure it brought to his cause.
It was inspiring to watch the process from start to finish, overcoming many obstacles, frustrations, sabotage from envious colleagues, and the payoff.
Come to think of it, he didn’t get married until after age 40 too.
lurky lulu.
Thanks for the kind words. Some of us find other paths to fulfillment that would be compromised if spouses and kids were present in the equation. the secret is knowing what you can and cannot handle. And making a decsion in terms of what is important in you life.
DV
Hip Hop is young people rejecting a value system they feel has rejected them.
CORRECTION!
Hip Hop/ Rap is a FEW young and old ass people spitting profanity, violence, sex and consumerism to mostly young teens that is endorsed, funded and distributed by a handful of international congloms. Universal Music Group for example. Death Row ain’t even partly owned buy Suge anymore. So please for the 100th time tell the entire story! Don’t let being a fan blind you!
“secret is knowing what you can and cannot handle”
Sing it.
And learning to really, truly, ignore those people who think they know what’s best for you.
Anon listen to “Shoot Me Down”.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Anonymous
Anon listen to “Shoot Me Down”.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Please inform us of what I posted that’s not TRUE? Just don’t make blanketed statements without explaining your reasoning…If you have any at all??????
DV says: I find your petit bourgeois refusal to acknowledge the complexity and tremendous artistic value of Hip Hop a form of self hatred no different than the Negros in the 40’s who said Jazz did not “advance the race”.
Don’t get it twisted; I used to love rap. I was a college freshman when the ‘first’ rap record came out so how could I not like rap.
But the stuff that’s out today, good grief.
As demonstrated by Ashanti’s label, the music industry does not operate in the best interest of BLACK PEOPLE; in fact, it is doing us HARM.
1.Millions of people, including Black kids, around the world have watched the evolution of Jay-Z from street dealer to billionnaire mogul.
Millions of people, including Black kids, around the world have watched the evolution of 50 Cent from street dealer to flipping businesses.
Millions of people, including Black kids, around the world have watched the evolution of Lil Wayne from street dealer to America’s greatest poet.
OTL: Angelus Funeral Home and OTL have watched the evolution of several bruhs from my old neighborhood, from street dealer to the graveyard.
Hey, I have nothing but respect for these guys, and I’ll be the first one to say more power to Jigga, fiddy, & lil Weezy. But at the same time we have to recognize that’s not the end game for most of these cats on the street.
Most just want to hold down the block, and will kill you and five more just like you to do it.
The issue isn’t hip hop, it’s BET.
No thanks to Viacom influencing black folks.