What About Our Daughters

Janet Jackson's boob caused a commotion for so many years and CBS was fined heavily by the FCC. These little girls were "twerking"?? I'm on twitter, @cali_breezy. I just read a tweet that you posted this. I don't have cable/satellite anymore because I will not pay for such filth! This Debra Lee, is she crazy or just stupid? I agree with you about the children's parents. I'd be willing to bet you though that the parents didn't want to embarass their little angels. That's "US" trying to be White! "Status Quo" and no discipline works for them. So does dumbing way down. It backfires on them though and this sexual crap feeds into their Nazi hatred. Willie Lynch and Adolph Hitler are smiling from hell. What's the name of the "clique", I didn't catch it. WHY oh WHY did we trade in our True Cool for this b.s.? The whole world imitates the African-American but we need to walk taller...

I think Cover Girl was one of the only sponsors. And supposedly they nixed Chris Brown due to their partnership with Rihanna but then this other debauchery happened. So really what was the point? Their phone lines don't open until 9am pst but I will be calling back!!

The Labor & Stds Bur. doesn't even have a vm system (I'm in EST).

I was outraged by the outrage. It all just seemed false to me; as if black America was suddenly made aware of BET's standards of programming. It's BET folks... this has been their M.O. for over a decade. Nothing's changed!

I don't watch TV in general, so I didn't see the awards show. But even if I did watch TV, I wouldn't have bothered tuning in, because I long resigned myself to the fact that BET doesn't give a damn about how its content is received, or its audience.

I think we're content to just scream about it, and maybe feel superior in the process. But when it comes to actually acting on that rage, we tend to fall way short. And that doesn't only apply to this specific case.

I believe the girl the new group consisting of Waynes daughter, Tiny's Zonique and I forget whose child the other one(s) is.

They had their parents permission to be there.

Most folk who watched the awards did so b/c BET said they were going to have an MJ tribute...I watched, but tuned out before Wayne and cam back 4 Janet...so I didn't see the girls, but i heard about it.

I would imagine that people are only 'outraged' because they think other folks were watching because of the MJ tribute. Presumably this has been par for the course for this show since forever. I can't really say because I don't watch award shows and the thought of a BET awards show makes my eyes bleed. I'll hit the phones later this afternoon.

Another avenue to look at is the advertisers. I, like many others, watched the show ONLY because I thought they were going to do some type of MJ tribute. Anyway, during the show I noticed there were numerous signs for show underwriters (Organic Root Stimulator, etc). First of all, if Viacom is the parent company for BET, VH1 and MTV, WHY is BET the only network that has advertising ON STAGE during an awards ceremony??? Ugh. Anyway, call the advertisers and ask if them about it. It's worked before.

Just my two cents...

@gem2001

I wonder if BET felt bolder than usual after this stunt Oprah pulled with a young girl:

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/04/hoprah_watch_op_16.html

After all if America's Guru can exploit little girls, then why can't Black Evil Television? At least, that's what Debra Lee is thinking

So, it's back to the phones to remind BET the folly of their sinful ways.

I'm so glad I didn't watch the show.

I didn't see this part. I watched the very beginning b/c of the MJ tribute and then turned the channel. I do not watch BET and so I forget sometimes how inappropriate they can be. I agree, given BET's history, no one should be surprised.

"OR THE GIRL’S PARENTS didn’t storm the stage and grab somebody by the scruff of their ponytails"

because they have parents like Lil Wayne and Tiny from Xscape..nuff said

Yea, so I watched the BET awards and definitely thought it was inappropriate that the girls were up there but in all honesty it's no worse than young girls listening to this music in their homes. The problem is bigger than just those girls simply being on stage. We know Reginae and Zonnique have probably heard that song a million times anyways and probably worse being the daughters of two rappers. But there are tons of little girls just like them listening to these songs and watching these videos. It's been happening for years so I don't know why all of a sudden this one thing is a big deal especially considering who the girls were that were up there.

Fred,
Oprah's right. A girs would be more likely to tell little ‘Dante’ down the street "no thank" when he promises to take her to heaven if she knew how to satisfy the beautiful urges God saw fit to bless her with....Because she’d be able to take herself to heaven and no unwanted babies or stds required. And it’s no different than the ridiculous amounts of "alone" time little boys spend in the bathroom at that age. Get over it, girls are sexual beings… and it’s not dirty or shameful. But, back to the award show, I agree, we love to complain, but refuse to stand up. You get what you demand. Period.

Fred,
Oprah's right. A girs would be more likely to tell little ‘Dante’ down the street "no thank" when he promises to take her to heaven if she knew how to satisfy the beautiful urges God saw fit to bless her with....Because she’d be able to take herself to heaven and no unwanted babies or stds required. And it’s no different than the ridiculous amounts of "alone" time little boys spend in the bathroom at that age. Get over it, girls are sexual beings… and it’s not dirty or shameful. But, back to the award show, I agree, we love to complain, but refuse to stand up. You get what you demand. Period.

"I mean folks didn’t have a problem calling child welfare officials on Octomom. They didn’t have any problem calling the child labor people on Jon & Kate’s Eight."

When it comes to black girls being pimped out on national TV, no one really gives a shit. Not even the community that SHOULD be giving one. The only reason things like this happen is because we LET THEM HAPPEN.

@Mack,

I feel you really hit the reality. I've said it too often. I see this and worse, too many minorities are not ashamed of this; they think it's cute; they encourage it and will tell you off if you speak up in disgust. I'm not sure if some will ever give a damn. I tried to steer my daughters and nieces right and a few daughters of friends and that's all I can do in my community.

But let my people miss out on some free chicken and all Hell breaks lose. Freaking pathetic...

I contacted The First Lady, the FCC and the gift bag for celebrities company.

I personally don't let a damn thing "happen" to me when it comes to kids. I once lived in a 198 apartment complex and helped raised so many kids who weren't mine, NO APPLAUSE. I have three sons, two adults and a senior in high school. My parents are long deceased, they were SHARECROPPERS from Alabama, so I don't play with kids. My sons are linebackers and baseball pitchers. (I have two stepsons in the NFL, starters). I don't have any grandkids and this is NOT by accident. My husband and I taught them abstinence is BEST and guess what they chose throughout their young lives. You guessed it. Lastly, I'm over 40 years old but I will clock your kids or mine, I'm known for snatching a few over 18 youngn's up off the pavement, especially these hot in the tail, loose, ignorant females. I'm talking about the so-called hard cases who stepped to me with chips on their shoulders. Violence is not new in the history of the world, don't be a victim!

I'm also 'STRAPPED' with the blessings of God.

Thanks Successful :)

I'm glad someone called somebody instead of staring at each other in the comments section.

Like Shadow and Act, i'm outraged at the outrage. This is a network where the previous owner-- Johnson, a black man (or should I say Negro?_-- made millions off phony hip hop videos with black women gyrating like ho's, cementing in white and black people's minds that sex and pumping babies out of projects and ghettoes like water out of a faucet is all black women are about.

Here's my suggestion: Stop complaining and make a committment to never watch BET again. That's what i've done.

With Rev. Al Sharpton seated in the front row, surely he must be organizing a march on BET. If it were MTV, he would be trying publicly shaming them by now. Maybe we should switch our thoughts from "it's BET, what do you expect" to "it's BET, this is WHAT we expect." I have a holiday weekend, I will be writing my letters.

what is pleasurable is profitable, what is profitable will proliferate.

yes, that performance (and most things about BET) is disgusting and exploitative. Most things about hip-hop are disgusting and exploitative. Yet, these products are consumed, producing big profits for the Viacoms and others invested in black entertoxins. This contradiction between values and behavior is troubling, but is not unique to the black community.

This is a human problem of hypocritical inconsistency between values and action, which is most certainly ubiquitous across the globe.

People will not change unless they are compelled to change from within, or forced to change from without - circumstances that none of us can bring about - unless you are going to volunteer to be the "catcher in the hood".

Humans are frail and ignorant and cruel and pathetic beings. (there is a quite long history of this, called History) Why keep expecting that to change after 50,000 years? Why expect what there is no evidence for?

In that vein, a deeper question is this: "What does it matter to me what a bunch of same-colored strangers care to do with their lives?"

I did not view the show. I caught Maxwell's performance on the after party broadcast and then it was a wrap for me.

I'm not outraged. I don't watch B.E.T. even though it is part of my cable service. I have said a million times that until there is a large enough movement NOT to support stupid and offensive programming, it will continue to be aired.

What blows my mind is the number of females who support this insanity! The disrespect factor seems to go over their heads. I cannot wrap my brain around the reason why.

Gina writes, "The people who run BET don’t actually like the people who WATCH or perform on BET. So Debra Lee likely has no problem with 9, 10, 11, and 12 year old girls from “urban” families getting on stage to dance while vile disgusting lyrics about women and girls are spewed around them."

*******************************************

Gina, you hit the nail on the head with your aforementioned statement. Your statement explains why Debra Lee continues to allow programs that send the Civil Rights Movement back a thousand years - she don't like black folks of a certain socio economic class. This is about “Rich Ivy League Educated” Black Folk vs. the “Poor Uneducated” Black Folks.

And just think I just posted an apology to Debra Lee for not giving the Tiny and Toya show a chance. Sigh.

Sidebar: I can’t stand Lil “Ghetto Gremlin” Wayne. I can’t believe some folks actually think he is a good rapper. SMH

Sidebar: I did not see the performance. I am glad I did not. I must have fallen asleep when the child strippers performed.

I applaud your efforts to encourage our blogging community to *do* something instead of merely express outrage/disbelief/etc. This is something that I have been thinking about for a while now.

Now that blogging is in a more "mature" stage, and that some of us have been blogging for 3, 4, 5 years or more, what can our own more mature role be? In the early days it was cute to just cruise the blogosphere to get the pulse of different writers. But can we--should we--now be doing more?

I do not claim to have any answers and my own latest blog is still very much a work in transition. But I am happy that blogs like yours are encouraging me to keep thinking about the subject.

I switched to Dish Network recently and got their next to lowest package. We were looking over the channel lineup and I suddenly said to my husband, "We're not paying for BET!" That's right, I still get my cable fix, and we do still have MTV, but not a red cent of my tiny cable budget is going in Debra Lee's pocket! :-)

Oh, and Karen, I agree with you. As a parent who acknowledges that I won't be able to pray my daughters' hormones away (once they're teens), I say better a toy than a boy.

I think the only thing we could do is try to cancel BET from our cable subs, I was floored when I went to the Stevie Wonder concert and on his intermission he played "Blame it on the alcohol" and bobbin' his head smh...

"What blows my mind is the number of females who support this insanity! The disrespect factor seems to go over their heads. I cannot wrap my brain around the reason why."

Hello...

Because we don't have the backbone to challenge ourselves. We have Black women running these cable channels and these record companies, yet our media portrayals are becoming even more damaging.

No one will respect us, unless we respect ourselves!

Whatever happened to the protests outside of the homes of BET and Viacom executives?

The answer to why these women "Support" this mess is not hard to figure out if one opens their eyes and observes what is going on.

I would not say they support it, it is something else entirerly. Think about it.

This is why I hate being Black.

If I woke up one morning to the news that BET had been wiped from the face of the earth... I would make it a personal Holiday...and I would celebrate. (I would call in to work and everything...telling them I won't be in that day).

Unfortunately, even if I were lucky enough to hear that good news, Blacks would still find ways to disgrace themselves, to destroy the image of Blacks and live up to all of the stereotypes. The degenerate Hip Hop Culture (now Black Culture) would find another enabler.

I never watched the BET Awards...and don't plan to. But what bugs me is that.... relatively speaking, the whole f------- World was tuned in for this one.... Perhaps not huge numbers by TV history standards (I don't know...but I doubt that)... but once they announced a Jackson tribute, I am sure they had more people watching this awards show than what they would typically have.... including whites (and other ethnic groups) who may have been tuning in for the first time. Jackson's crossover appeal was profound.
And THIS is what they saw?????

I have moved from befuddlement to anger...now I feel like i'm going from anger into something worse.

This is why I was against your post calling for the BET protests to stop. You can't seem to make up your mind. One minute it looked like you were against Debra Lee, BET and its programming... and the next minute (out of the blue)... you were feeling sorry for Lee and wanted to be her buddy.... going as far as calling off the dogs and criticizing the protests and the organizers. The whole thing was so suspicious & crazy that I joked that she might have paid you off, lol.

Now you are against Debra Lee again. (Huh?????)

I don't know.... the whole state of Being Black in America... especially Black and male... just makes me want to holler and throw up both my hands.

Because I know... when people see me.... (as handsome and decent as I am)... I always think to myself...that they don't see Ben Carson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, or a Charles Bolden, or a Ronald Kenneth Noble....or any positive figure. Nope... they see f------g "Little Wayne".

It's enough to drive you crazy.

I'm not suicidal yet though...

This is so disgusting. I\'m a long time lurker and never was this disgusted before. I don\'t understand how the same people that rightfully got a 60 year old shock jock fired from cbs/viacom radio, are not saying anything about this stunt. Not only are they not saying anything about this stunt. They are sitting front row cheering with Saint Joe Jackson. How the heck did this happened? Its not just bet (we will insult another woman) either. Saint Joe Jackson was everywhere. My friends were talking about this and one of them said something that I would hate to think of. They wanted to know what bet would have done if the great Tina Turner passed before Ike? I\'m so glad that this will never happen, but I\'m sure Debra Lee would have found a way to drag him out and the Al Sharptons of the world would have been treating him like another saint as well. After all no one ever talks about Marvin Gayes, or James Browns woman abuse. No one mentioned Don Cornelius past when they honored him. They might be great entertainers but they are flawed people and we don\'t need so called Reverand\'s, media, or celebrties to ignore this stuff. Otherwise we end up with litte girls dancing on poles. I really don\'t believe we can even fix this problem. The bet awards were the highest rated cable show for the entire week. That means everyone saw this and very few really care. The only way we can do something is if we complain about this stuff to other networks. Cbs news won\'t talk about this stuff when its effecting there company, but maybe time warner, disney, and universal might. Its all about ratings now and we have to learn how to play that game.

@angryindependent

As usual, you comeo n here popping off at the mouth engagin in revisionist history when you don't know what you are talking about.

I said people should stop protesting at her house unless they came up with some concrete steps they wanted her to take. I never said stop going after BET. That's a lie. I said the tactic was one I would not support. Just because I'm at war, doesn't mean I believe I should use chemical weapons on my opponent. BTW. I didn't lead the protests. So if you are upset about ineffective protests stopping, then contact the protest organizers.

There was a LOT of behind the scenes machinations related to you beloved protests that had nothign to do with Black women or girls, but then again, you get to hide behind your keyboard and throw rocks.

So you're a liar and deceiver to come on here saying that there has ever been a time that I have been FOR Debra Lee. Check the archives. they are riddle with anti- lee posts.

They protested outside Martin Luther King's house too... right before it got firebombed.

So I will not apologize to a cowardly keyboard warrior who hates Black people for not supporting a TACTIC I don't support. If you can't distinguish between the two, then that's your intellectual dishonesty at work.

Notice, YOU weren't at any protests.Nor have you organized any.

Notice none of these protests took place at Proctor & Gamble who basically has the ability to dictate to BET what shows to put on or drop. I wonder why?

I stand by my decision not to support loud protests at a private residence that go on for months with no end in sight or no concrete specified goals other than protesting and media attention.

Get your facts straight AI. Go back and read the post, I said the protests should stop UNLESS they spelled out concrete steps they wanted her to take.

NO I wasn't paid off and suffered tremendous personal losses as a result of my stand. And you're no longer welcome on my blog. Just don't post. Spare me the trouble of putting you on the comment Blacklist.

If you tally up what I've LOST to provide you with a space to trash and defame me, TRUST that there isn't enough money in the world to buy me off.

I tuned in to to BET only because of the so-called MJ Tribute but eventually got bored and embarrassed as the show started its decent into the practices and standards BET is known for.

I am at not all surprised by this story or shocked that Black children would be exploited and "abused" like this by BET.

I like this blog by the way and I think it is great. If we are going to rally against black exploitation especially towards black women and girls, then we should not support any venue that does this, i.e. VH1, MTV, BET etc.. I feel BET is an easy target due to their own flaws, but we should think twice before we say "I dont watch BET or I fix my cable to not have BET". Because if your are strongly against exploitation then don't pay for any service that supports this. Just my thoughts. Please don't attack, I think it is tasteless and classless :)

Here are some links to petitions against BET. Its a small step towards action that can be taken. I also boycott BET and tuned in to the show to see the MJ tribute but quickly changed due to the low quality of the program & the negative depiction of Black people.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/sign-for-a-formal-apology-from-bet-for-mj-tribute

http://twitition.com/ecdrb

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/betterBET/

Okay I give in. All you BET petition folks, return here on Tuesday and I will explain why petitions and protests don't work on BET. If you are going to petition or protest, protest the people who paid for it and those who are most sensitive to consumer unrest, that woudl be their sponsors.

YOU. ARE. NOT. BET's CUSTOMER. Cable companies and advertisers are their customers. You pay for BET whether you watch it or not. *SIGH* people never learn.

while I'm usually the one that says don't like it, don't watch. I don't see why the performers, BET, the advertisers, and whomever else didn't just say ummm....NO....when they saw those little black girls on stage. I mean 14 dancing to "i wish i could f*ck every girl in the world", well wait, that's what they do anyway. Why not just get grown women, there are no shortage of LEGAL jumpoffs and groopies ready to dance for a regular joe, let alone Lil Wayne.

I agree with the poster above me though, we're not BET's customers, the cable companies are. You have to ban against the money. I don't watch BET to begin with though and I don't pay for cable tv.