BET Has Never Been Bastion of True Black Culture

There has been much harumphing of late about Black Entertainment Television’s cancellation of three of its four public-affairs programs (”Lead Story,” ”Teen Summit” and, despite last week’s exclusive interview with Trent Lott, ”BET Tonight With Ed Gordon”).
Not much is being said, however, about the real issue at stake here, which has little to do with the loss of these shows. What we, as black people and Americans, should really be upset about is the lack of alternative voices and oppositional perspectives in the mainstream media as a whole.
I’m not the least bit worried about recent shake-ups at BET. Why? Because I never believed its programming offered anything close to sophisticated analysis of racial issues or global affairs to begin with. Should the network have been more responsible to the black community? Certainly. But after 33 years of video ho-business as usual, it sure seems late in the game to start making that demand.
After all, we’re a long way from journalist Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaign waged in the black media of her day. Far removed from the Pullman porters who covertly dropped the Chicago Defender at select Southern stops so that cotton-picking kinfolk could read about job opportunities up North. And, seriously, folks: Only the most delusional among us believed that Robert Johnson intended to fill that void when he launched BET.
In fact, all the waggling fingers aimed at the nation’s only black network overlook one key point: A market-driven capitalist society such as our own does not, by definition, require social responsibility.
So why should we be surprised when such a rare and noble objective isn’t offered ”freely,” at the expense of all-important profits. Black people, after all, also believe in the Money God.
I, for one, have never once turned to BET expecting sophisticated coverage of domestic race relations, much less global affairs involving the African diaspora. Why should I? When it’s just as easy to turn to ”The News Hour With Jim Lehrer” on PBS, or the evening broadcast of BBC News. Or even Le Journal, where a recent report detailed the plight of women factory workers in France engaged in a long-standing and peaceful protest against Lacoste. This, for me, is also a ”black” issue, given that the vast majority of black people–at home and abroad–are wage laborers.
Within the narrow confines of ”blackness” constructed by BET executives, however, such issues are dismissed as somehow taking place outside our strangely fetishized local memory. Rather, we’re supposed to be interested in ”Building Black Wealth” and ”Trash Talking Thursdays.” Not only is this a small-minded way of understanding ”blackness,” it’s a small-minded way of understanding the world.
Ideally, any number of black-owned networks could have been launched long ago to compete with BET. Dozens of such plans have been put forth since 1980, including the Minority Broadcasting Corp.’s African American Movie Network in 1988 (a 12-hour block of feature films), the African Heritage Network (a syndicator recently redubbed the Heritage Network), and failed attempts such as the World African Network, New Urban Entertainment, and the long-awaited Black Family Channel and African TV Network.
Perhaps the most successful of these is the Major Broadcasting Network, founded in 1999. The religious-oriented outlet touts itself as the first 24-hour, fully black owned cable network. Similarly, the Maryland-based gospel channel, Dream Network, airs on a handful of local stations in four states as well as via satellite. Both position themselves as ”networks,” although their reach is nowhere near BET’s.
In fact, there will most likely never be another opportunity for a black-owned network on the scale of BET. To start, today’s economic landscape calls for a minimum of $100 million in start-up capital (as compared with Johnson’s mostly borrowed $515,000). And most important, monopolistic control of dedicated networks among cable-systems operators means that an outfit like Viacom (which owns BET as well as Showtime and MTV) wouldn’t dare give up space to a fledgling competitor trying to get a piece of the black programming pie. Why should they? Television is no humanitarian venture, it’s business.
In the best of worlds, the combined effect of any number of proposed networks would have allowed for a more equitable distribution of airwave ownership among minorities, as well as a fuller, richer understanding of black identity and experience.
But that was not to be. Instead of truly layered and nuanced news, we’re stuck with the same ol’ BET: ”VIP” celebrity interviews and booty shaking, crude comedy (some of it quite funny, actually), pointless award shows, and, oh yes, overly stylized ”public-affairs” programming in which guests say nothing and viewers learn even less.