BET has to do Better!

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Blackface in Contemporary World

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sourced by Karen Hatter

Hot Ghetto Mess, hurriedly renamed We Got To Do Better, debuted on BET on July 25, 2007, on the so called Black entertainment network. The show is an off shoot of the web site of the same name, Hotghettomess.com. As a matter of fact, the web site solicits visitors to the site to send in, “.... your craziest home videos for a chance to be on BET.”

According to the Corporate Fact Sheet online at BET.com, Debra Lee, an African American, is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BET, previously serving as Chief Operating Officer (COO) before taking the reins from BET founder Robert L. Johnson. She is the highest ranking African American woman at Viacom, the parent company of BET. Prior to her appointment to COO, she served as executive vice president of strategic business development at the network.

The web site, Hotghettomess.com, was created by Jam Donaldson, an African American woman who identifies herself at the site, as a “ public interest lawyer working with the poor”, who says, at the web site, “.... I am just holding up a mirror to my community so don’t blame me if you don’t like your reflection”. She serves as executive producer of the show, Hot Ghetto Mess.

Reginald Hudlin, who has co-directed and directed such films as House Party, Boomerang, The Great White Hype and The Ladies Man, is an African American man and is president of entertainment at BET.

Now, I just might be a bit touchy but, given the caliber of entertainment that most often finds black people either on the wrong end of the law or as glorified buffoons in varied situation comedies, I'm not longing for videos and clips of black people behaving embarrassingly and in patently stupid ways, in a quasi reality t.v. format.

Writers on the short lived series that premiered on UPN in 1998, The Secret Diary of Desmond Pffeifer, the 'P' was not silent, which disappeared after four episodes, were African American. Somehow the notion of a comedy series that centered around an enslaved person of African descent, with jokes, for instance, that hinted at sending him to the field for some infraction, struck these writers as funny. Obviously, this faux pas, literally translated from French as false step, meant to convey a blunder, by the purveyors of Hot Ghetto Mess, pales in comparison.

For decades, the airwaves have carried the images of the majority population of this country, that is white people, portraying all manner of characters, from highly intelligent scientists to the idiotic buffoon. Unfortunately, intelligent black drama is usually short lived.

There isn't enough time here to fully articulate my outrage at the motives and intent of a show that offers a critique of alleged bad behavior and actions, while calling for videos to be used to provide the material for scrutiny and castigation.

However, I do know that because there is not a true balance of buffoons versus brainiacs on television showcasing African Americans, the portrayals of black folks, after more than fifty years, have gone from maids and servants to being predominately top heavy with wise cracking sistas/brothas/mamas/papas/children, take your pick, buffoons, gangsters, thieves, pimps and whores, on reality television and in sitcoms.

I fail to see how watching Hot Ghetto Mess will, as one of the creators claims, get viewers, “.... to improve themselves and their communities" by “...taking a hard look at some dysfunctional elements of our community.”

How will observing ever more demeaning and degrading negative images or portrayals aid us with learning how to 'do better', as the site directs?

I think we've covered those bases and seen enough of how not to behave with the top two highly rated shows that aired for the last two years on VH1, and this year's new top viewed show, programs that have succeeded in convincing all who watched of the low moral character of the majority of individuals within an entire group of people solely through their identification with the group.

We, of African descent, do not have the luxury of being magnanimous and proclaiming this as harmless fun, meant to poke fun while it educates.

It may be said that only the ignorant will believe that all black people will behave like those featured on any of these shows. Whether others outside of our community view these shows and believe we are all as crass, ridiculous and laughable, as those seen on these shows, should not be our concern. We should be terrified of even more negative imagery being internalized by our impressionable youth.

With all of that talent on the executive board at BET, is that the best that can be done? Hold up a mirror? Since this mirror has been previously viewed by all who glimpse it's contents at Hotghettomess.com and on the show, it seems what is required is instruction on how not to be a "hot ghetto mess".

Given all of the African Americans in positions of leadership at BET, one would think mentoring programs to instruct those showcased in that mirror how to achieve what has been achieved by those executives at BET would be the focus, instead of stigmatizing and ridiculing them.

In an article found at USAToday.com, first appearing online in April 2006, Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, comments, “.... we (BET) have to operate according to the philosophy that you have to exist in a world where business decisions have to be made based on business, not on political notions or social agendas."

If those of us within the African American community wanted or expected more of Black Entertainment Television, its founder and now the producer of the recently released, Who's Your Caddy?, has stated, BET as an enterprise, was and is, a business established to make money.