BET Encourages Black Children To Fail

September 5, 2011, I wrote a syndicated article titled, “How The Great Society Harmed Blacks.” In that article I wrote:

When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, 82 percent of blacks lived in married, two-parent households; 40 percent of blacks were small-business owners. In little more than three decades after said signing, blacks went from a legacy of Booker T. Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, to Al Sharpton, Suge Knight, Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters.

Blacks went from being proud of learning and prosperity to high school dropouts, broken homes, abortion, drugs, crime, violence and a degradation of aspiration. Blacks went from Duke Ellington and Motown to gangster rap and rap wars.

Black accountability went out the window. It was replaced with anger, hatred of whites and a refusal to embrace modernity. Then, the cruelest blow of all was, and is, the deliberate destabilization and erosion of everything blacks at one time embraced.

Which brings me to my point. At the taping of the 2012 BET Hip-Hop Awards, gunfire and fights broke out between gangster hip-hop hoodlums Rick Ross and Young Jeezy. BET blamed the incident on a “misjudgment of select attendees,” whatever in the world that means.

But I say what it should be blamed on is the continued devolvement of a segment of our society.

Rick Ross looked like something from another planet as he appeared bare from the waist up with a white fur coat draped around him. His huge stomach, which is tattooed from his neck to his waist, hung over his pants, which were hanging well off his ample behind, and he has breasts that rivaled those of Annie Hawkins-Turner’s size 102ZZZ. Added to that disgusting image, he was dripping in gold and platinum bling, with the obligatory mac-daddy sunglasses.

Young Jeezy, while less ostentatious, and at least 250 pounds thinner, was nonetheless not dressed like someone respectable persons would want their daughter to bring home.

This is not the image of success Robert L. Johnson, the owner and founder of BET, exampled when he founded his multi-billion dollar empire. He doesn’t appear before his board of directors similarly adorned. I submit that no one on his board looks like Ross and Jeezy. So the question I ask is why does he promote such debaucherous behavior to blacks?

His television network reaches more than 90 million households primarily targeting black households. These hip-hop awards programs his network sponsors send a clear and unambiguous message to young blacks who then emulate the trash they see at these shows. And to deny my assertion is to deny what is taking place in black inner-city neighborhoods.

Where are young blacks getting their dress, behavior codes and anti-social behavior codes if not from watching moral pollutants such as these? This is why I had such strong consternation for Michelle Obama’s whorish appearance at the Kids’ Choice Awards program.

Johnson and others are quick to blame whites, conservative whites specifically, as the reason young blacks are disproportionately imprisoned. They blame poor graduation rates on not enough money being spent on education. They promote abortion and condoms, but they do not promote civil-propriety.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it now. Blacks are their own worst enemies and it will not be until people like Johnson stop promoting grievous, anti-social behavior like that witnessed at these hip-hop awards shows that we will witness a change in the outlook and behavior of those emulating the likes of Ross and Jeezy.

You don’t have gunfights and fisticuffs at the Country Music Awards, at the Emmy Award Presentations or even at the Pro-Wrestling Awards.

Duke Ellington and Dr. King must surely be rolling over in their graves.