The fallout of the grand announcement by Black Entertainment Television (BET) that it was bringing the on-line website “Hot Ghetto Mess” to television is warranted. I wrote about this website a couple years ago in a commentary about how Blacks were being re-stigmatized in American society. BET’s decision to bring this to a greater media venue is atrocious. Obviously, the change in management of Debra Lee and Reginald Hudlin hasn’t changed BET’s Bob Johnson mentality of denigrating Blacks at any expense - as long as it makes them (BET) money. 

The term “being ghetto” has become synonymous with “being Black.” If someone says “someone or something is ghetto,” something or someone associated with African Americans (or their community) immediately comes to mind. Now, if they say trailer trash…somebody else might come to mind, but ghetto has become exclusively ours. So, why would anyone in our community want to promote the lowest, most denigrating images of the African American community? BET, trying to calm the firestorm, decided to change the name of the show from “Hot Ghetto Mess” to “We Got To Do Better,” but the concept and the content will remain the same. How can we do better, if negative images of black people are constantly being exploited by our own? Then, there is BET, who never misses an opportunity to profit from our misery.

My problem with BET is that it has never understood the social responsibility that comes with being a media giant, and the cultural responsibility to black people - to reflect them in their best light, not their worst light. Bob Johnson, who is still BET Chairman, rebutted the outcry over Hot Ghetto Mess as the public holding BET to a different standard. Johnson stated that if Jerry Springer and Maury Povich can do it, why can’t BET?

How ignorant art thou? Let me count the ways; first, Jerry Springer and Maury aren’t black and while they reflect all people of uncouth and degenerate ways, it’s the only way either of them can draw an audience. That’s not true with BET. BET doesn’t have to do this. Secondly, this type of Sambo, Amos N’ Andy programming takes black people back 100 years, as others who already see Blacks as “less than” or “less deserving than,” use these images as rationalizations of how we should be exploited or excluded. Promoting and exploiting the lack of sophistication and lack of social graces among the black population, only stigmatizes the whole population.The “ghetto-rization” of Black America is the bad apple that can rot the whole bunch, as whites and other don’t differentiate. Third, BET should be held to a different standard. BET has been given a pass for twenty-five years. Twenty-five years of booty-shakin’, thug thumpin’ videos that have two generations of black youth thinking it is okay to “drop it like it’s hot” or to “kill a n**a,” because it was all they saw from sun up to sun down and all through the night.

24/7 of degradation of black people made Bob Johnson a billionaire. Maybe he did it in the beginning because he had to in order to stay on the air (as distasteful as it is to admit), BET doesn’t have to continue to degrade black people as the staple of its programming. TV One has proven, with its Roots series, and other syndicated programming, that you can educate, entertain and enforce the positive, and stay on the air. Everybody I know was watching Roots, proud that it was back on television. The interest was as high as it was 30 years ago. That’s something, for black people’s desire to see something constructive and positive - even with the hurtful history; it showed how we came up as a people. The day of Sambo programming is over. Just because it’s funny, doesn’t mean it’s healthy for Black’s social dignity. Most of it is downright “not funny” and is outright shameful. Damn, BET. Haven’t you done enough damage?

Stepin’ Fetchin’ was funny to white people, and he got rich - and black people laughed along, but the imagery took at least five decades to overcome. White people still think all black people are shiftless and lazy. Amos N Andy was funny to some people, but the imagery wasn’t one of which black people were particularly proud because we recognized for the first time, as a race, that white people were laughing at us - not with us. Kenan Wayans, with his unflattering portrayals of black celebrities in his series In Living Color; Dave Chappell, in his ghetto-rized portrayals of black people in the Dave Chappell Show, even Eddie Murphy’s unflattering portrayals of full-sized black women in his last movie, Norbit (that many think cost him the Oscar in Dreamgirls), are just the most recent examples that everything that makes money ain’t funny. People may be laughing, but every chuckle may not have anything to do with humor. People are sitting on couches, chairs, or in movie theaters saying, “See, that’s how black people are. That’s why you can’t trust them to _______,” and you can fill in that blank with any number of false rationalizations. When will we (African Americans) come to a time when we want our social image to say something other than criminal, fool, buffoon, prostitute or thug. Just because we were once social outcasts, do we have to remain social outcasts? This is one thing we can’t blame totally on “the white man.” This is “us” doing this to “us.” We can do better. We must do better. "We got to do better," BET!!!

In terms of trying to correct our social imagery, it’s BET that always seems to let us down - chasing the dollar and making us holler over what we see in their programming.

Black Entertainment Television is the real hot ghetto mess. Somebody needs to fix that. 

BlackCommentator.com Columnist Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of the upcoming book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com. Click here to contact Dr. Samad.

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