Open Letter to Debra Lee

Dear Debra Lee,

I see you have a thing for open letters, well I do to.
Recently Teresa Wiltz wrote an article about BET in the Washington Post profiling of your head of “Entertainment” Reggie Hudlin’s demise from cutting edge skewering of BET founder with Aaron McGruder ( Creator of the Boondocks): to Hudlin’s current position at your network.

Apparently Teresa’s honest criticism of the network got your thong and booty shorts in a knot, (what? You don’t wear those? But the videos you air show that all of colored women were those!) because you felt the need to take time from your busy job of exploiting black people, to write a letter to the Washington Post defending your exploitation of Black people.

You claim that you air many things other than videos, you got NAACP awards (smirk) and that all of your gospel programs are doing wonderfully. You’ve got the successful “Rap it up” campaign, Cousin Jeff and the “Keyshia Cole Show” to claim as your major successes.

Now I’m not going to pretend that I don’t like those programs. I enjoyed Sundays best and rooted for Frankie every Tuesday night, but I believe you are missing the point all together. 4-5 quality programs and specials does not a network make. Those shows pale in comparison to the constant stream of mental bile this network produces: Music videos with disgusting images and lyrics to pump into the heads of young people on a continuous loop.

Everyday kids come home from school and what’s the first thing that greets them in the afternoon, Music videos. From 2:00pm- 8:00 pm nothing but “Bust-it Babies” and “Duffle Bag Boys”. Would it kill you all to come up with actual kids programming during the kid’s hour?? That fake Laguna Beach show could have aired during that time slot, some black cartoons could have aired during that time slot, some ABC style “After school” specials could have aired during that time slot, Get the picture?? (and don’t act like ya’ll don’t just Negro-up shows from other networks) shoot Bring TEEN SUMMIT BACK!! That show changed my little young life!! As a kid I truly thought that being a teenager meant discussing issues in forums and things because of that show!

Now Ms. Lee (it is Ms, Lee right? Not ‘bitch’ or ‘hoe’? I’d hate to confuse you with what the rest of us black women are called on your network) I’m smart enough to realize that you are going to call me a “Hip hop detractor” and disregard me as a hater of rap music. But I beg to differ, I love rap, hip hop, R&B, Jazz, Soul, funk, bee bop, soca, dancehall, house, reggae and gospel. I love BLACK music in all of its forms! People relying on BET to hear hip hop will be sorely lacking because you play the same 6 videos from the same 3 artists every day! And don’t you shift blame to rappers! If they had a nice video with an actual storyline, without blurred out butts, bling and blunts how much air play would it get?? T.I. even said that on “Hip Hop vs. America” (you know that show you love to talk about that barely had any credible female voices on the panel)

But Even that’s not what bothers me. What BET is lacking first and foremost is BALANCE. Not all black folks look like the distant members of the Cosby family, and not all of us are out on the corners every day slinging weight and sliding down poles. Black people are varied, we are different, the only thing we all have in common is our interest in hair care (and some of us less so). But it’s ri-damn-diculous to have a network that has only two images ( Fake, overly pious or thug booty shaker) and claims to be representative of Black Entertainment!! There needs to be multiple images of African American’s on this network! We’re not all rappers, nor are all rappers bad thugs. You’re not reaching the 18-34 demographic, you’re really reaching the 13-18 crowd and what kind of images are you feeding them?? We’re not entertained by this foolishness!

-
The Brown Sugar Pages

I’d like to point out that BET did have a lot of Controversy over this whole “Read-a Book”comic thing. I’m not going to discuss it because I actually agree that the point of the satire was grossly misinterpreted and misunderstood

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