Monday
Dec142009
Where Do Tavis Smiley and PBS Stand on Child Rape? Some Important Questions
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 7:45AM Gina, The Blogmother
PBS, Tavis Smiley's largest platform, is funded in part by YOU, the taxpayer through a private corporation created by the federal government called the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Yes, the same folks who brought us Sesame Street. Seeing as how YOU are subsidizing his primary advertising outlet, I think it is a legitimate question to ask PBS's resident diversity check box where he and his business partner stand on the issue of child rape after Mr. Smiley's publishing company set off a publicity blitz to announce their role in rehabilitating the image of R. Kelly, an accused pedophile with longstanding purported predilections for engaging in alleged sexual acts with underage girls.
Now Mr. Smiley is free to engage in whatever legal commerce he want's to, HOWEVER, Mr. Smiley has built an empire on the purported basis of "uplifting" and empowering the Black community, that empire is sustained and supported by taxpayer dollars, first on NPR and now on PBS. Therefore, I think its fair to ask him to make a clear unequivocal statement regarding the following:
For PBS
I have no doubt that Tavis Smiley will refuse to answer these very simple questions, but feel free to ask them anyway. If he does plan on answering these questions, he might want to think about answering them sometime in 2009.
You can ask the PBS media folks for their statement, should they choose to provide one:
As always, I throw up the contact information that I pull up first in Google. Our wonderful reading audience always comes up with much better contact information, put it in the comments.
Notice I said ASK QUESTIONS, not launch World War V. . . we'll leave the fighting for later.
Do us a favor, if you write about "Tavis Smiley" on your blog, hyperlink the words "Tavis Smiley" to this or other posts discussing this abomination .
Talk show host Tavis Smiley, founder of Smiley Books, said the publisher "was thrilled to be the conduit through which R Kelly will tell his own story".Source
Now Mr. Smiley is free to engage in whatever legal commerce he want's to, HOWEVER, Mr. Smiley has built an empire on the purported basis of "uplifting" and empowering the Black community, that empire is sustained and supported by taxpayer dollars, first on NPR and now on PBS. Therefore, I think its fair to ask him to make a clear unequivocal statement regarding the following:
- Does Mr. Smiley believe that it is appropriate for a 40 year old man to have sex with a girl that is 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11 or younger?
- Does Mr. Smiley believe that is is appropriate for men to videotape sex acts with girls that are 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12,11 or younger?
- At what age should a girl be before Mr. Smiley believes it is appropriate for an adult male to engage in a sex act with said girl?
- Does Mr. Smiley believe that it is possible for a man who has admitted to being illiterate to be marketed as having "written" a book?
- Does Tavis Smiley believe that Robert Kelly has engaged in sexual relationships with underage girls? If not, why not?
- What if any impact does Mr. Smiley believe that older men having sex with much younger girls has on the "empowerment" of the African American community?
- Would Mr. Smiley be "thrilled" to tell the story of Mr. Kelly's alleged victims? If so, when?
- Do you believe the health and safety of African American girls is subordinate to profiteering?
For PBS
- Has PBS entered into any content-producing partnerships with African American WOMEN for nationally televised events? If so who, what, when, where and how?
- Will Mr. Kelly or his book be mentioned or appear on any PBS programming? If so when and why?
I have no doubt that Tavis Smiley will refuse to answer these very simple questions, but feel free to ask them anyway. If he does plan on answering these questions, he might want to think about answering them sometime in 2009.
To contact PBS' funder, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting-
Comments Line
800-272-2190
Main Phone Number
202-879-9600
Mailing Address
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
401 Ninth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004-2129
Paula Kerger, PBS President and CEO - PBS Contact Form (need an alternative contact)
Tavis Smiley
Producer:
KCET & The Smiley Group
4401 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90027
(323) 666-6500
Web site:
www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/
E-mail:
tsinfo@kcet.org
You can ask the PBS media folks for their statement, should they choose to provide one:
Lea Sloan, PBS, 703/739-5021; lsloan@pbs.org
Jan McNamara, PBS, 703/739-5028; jmcnamara@pbs.org
As always, I throw up the contact information that I pull up first in Google. Our wonderful reading audience always comes up with much better contact information, put it in the comments.
Notice I said ASK QUESTIONS, not launch World War V. . . we'll leave the fighting for later.
Do us a favor, if you write about "Tavis Smiley" on your blog, hyperlink the words "Tavis Smiley" to this or other posts discussing this abomination .
Reader Comments (12)
Excellent post Gina.I am planning on calling or e mailing to ask a few questions but I have to defitnetly get to a place where i'm a little bit more cool headed.The so called black community must cease to support black on black crimes if we are ever to be taken seriously in the worlds view.It sets us back to have such a prominent member of the "bc" who claims to speak and act on behalf of black people partnering up with a known pedophile for profit.It is unethical to say the least and I am so disappointed about this.
Gina,I remember several posts on other bwe blogs where it is discussed how black men who are well educated and gainfully employed are sometimes just as disrespectful,misogynistic,and practice usury of black women just as rappers and impoverished black males do.Tavis defitnetly proves the point.Smh
Some Black men of all stripes ( educated, uneducated, etc.) too often take the opportunity to disrespect and use Black women. Sad. This has got to stop. Thank you for this post, Gina, and your work. I have watched and supported PBS for years. I will be contacting PBS.
I hope these people answer your questions. If not, i might get someone to send Paula Kerger, Lea Sloan, Jan McNamara, and Tavis Smilely a link of a video starring R. Kelly. Not the kind of video that they show on BET either.
I'm helping do a part in addressing my concerns, too.
Has PBS loss concern about women in general???? I notice they took "To the Contary" off the air!!!
@Hp, good idea about the video.
Hmmm , last time I checked R. Kelly was acquitted of all charges in a court of law. What's the point of the questioning?
Interesting, but I find it both odd and unusual the negative fascination with Tavis.
The fact of the matter is, whether one likes it or not, R. Kelly was acquitted on all charges. It's not then Tavis' responsibility to then answer questions about "child rape" in regards to an acquitted individual, regardless of how we feel about a verdict.
On those same lines, I wonder if you organized a letter writing campaign to Doubleday/Random House for their re-printing of Michael Jackson's autobiography, Moonwalk.
He too was accused of all types of things...and acquitted. I didn't agree with the verdict, and I surely don't think Randomhouse needs to "explain" (then or now) why they would publish his autobiography.
The man was acquitted. We surely aren't responsible for someone else's crimes and surely aren't further responsible when they've been found not guilty.
Gina, it seems your issue is with Tavis and you're grasping at straws. And by the way, The National Urban League announced their partnership with Wells Fargo at the State of the Black Union last year.
I've never seen any post from you about the Urban League or even the NAACP, who uses Wells Fargo as a Title Sponsor for its annual gala. If you have issue with Wells Fargo, tell the whole story. If you have issue with acquitted artists writing books, tell the whole story.
But if your issue is with Tavis...then say as much because you're leaving out the whole story.
I remember back when the "very special" R. Kelly video was being widely circulated, Mr. Smiley said on the Tom Joyner Show that he has seen the video it was definitely R. in the video. Why has his viewpoint changed?
How will they respond to Gina's latest post, hmm? I can't believe whomever comments u are holding didn't show any empathy for the young girl. That was a lot of info u got from an IP address I hope you don't know that much about me lol!
Tavis Smiley and his so call concern for black people and the black community. There is NO black community without its women and girls so they HAFT to be protected! Being involved with a CHILD MOLESTER/CHILD RAPIST like R. Kelly isn't showing your concern for the CORE of his beloved people and community. Can u all imagine Tavis working with a white man that did what SICKO R. Kelly did to a little black girl?
Black women haft to look out for each other there is no one else to do it. I believe that the African American community is the only community in which the men of the comm don't protect its women and girls. The women in this community are marginalized regularly and publicly. The woman are abandoned, abused, used and misused for profit or not. There are NO protectors but there are many perpetrators.
It's the women of this community that's holding up what's left of this community. Maybe Tavis and his owners can’t sympathize with this girl because they’ve done the same thing to a child.
Gina can u get the recording of what 'donnadara' is talking about and has anyone sent the "video" yet? If Gina haft to post the comments that she has from these trolls and they don't respond I hope someone send or has sent the video of R. Kelly molesting and raping an underage girl to these people.
Black male pigs of a feather flock together the blatant disregard for black females from within and without has got to stop and so many speak of a crisis and what we can do about it..it starts here!
I don't know if you were talking about my previous comment or not, but I see you don't post comments from people who disagree with you.
And no I don't work for Tavis
So...keep us posted on this one. I'm already to boycott this book and Tavis. R. Kelly has had a long and prosperous career. he sold millions of records. Hopefully, he has a nice fat bank account because its time for his butt to retire. no book, no more records, no more videos. He needs to just fade away.--and he can take all the people he's doing business with, with him. He had sex with several children on tape. at some point we have to stand against something, and the molestation of little girls has to be it.--I say boycott Tavis, Usher, Neyo and Keri Hilson(a woman standing on the stage with him, like he didn't do anything.)