Media Watch: The Boondocks, BET and Black America

Like many people, I usually look forward to watching The Boondocks every week on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Who can not love Huey, Riley, Grandpa and even Uncle Ruckus? Anyway, according to reports today, an episode of the Boondocks that was scheduled for January 7th never hit the airwaves. I investigated a little more and found out that the episode was critical of Black Entertainment Television (BET) executives Debra Lee and Reginald Hudlin for saying that they just recycle old MTV reality shows and make them black.

Geez, I wonder why they didn't show the episode...hmmm

I don't watch BET that much but when I do, but when I do look at it, all the shows look like the Real World with darker faces. Furthermore, what I find the most bizarre about BET is the fact that they show these horrible videos all week, except on Sundays when they show gospel videos.

God save BET.

For a while now, Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder has put the network, and particularly former BET CEO and founder Bob Johnson 'on blast' for profitting off the network that shows rap videos that are degrading and beyond viewable. McGruder is not the only one to turn against BET; many African Americans have protested the network through their blogs and demonstrated in front of the homes of BET executives.

But no, Johnson is not insulted by musics that worship half-naked women and bling-bling. He's insulted by Barack Obama's alleged "campaign dirty tricks." If you have been hiding in a dark place for the last week, following the New Hampshire primaries, this whole nonsensical debate started over whether race or gender was more limiting in America. Hillary Clinton, who became the victor in the NH primaries seemingly because she showed that even a ice princess like herself can get emotional and relate to women somehow, followed this by getting into some hot water by implying at a rally that Martin Luther King has less of an impact on civil rights legislation during the 1960s than President Lyndon Johnson. Obama came out and said that the remarks were insulting.

So in the last few days a flurry of African American celebrities have come out in defense of Clinton, including Bob Johnson.

“As an African American, I’m frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Bill and Hillary Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that I won’t say what he was doing but he said it in his book,” Johnson said while campaigning with Clinton in Columbia, South Carolina.

Johnson is, of course, referring to Obama's revelation of drug use in his books. Johnson got some nerve considering all the scandals the Clintons have gone through. This week just so happens to be the tenth anniversary of the Monica "stain on my blue dress" Lewinsky scandal.

And for this, I hope that black America will not only protest BET, but also Hillary Clinton.

BTW, with Hillary claiming sexism nowadays, does she consider Johnson a misogynist...



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