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6 Nov, 2005 in art pottery by admin

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Something I Said - Bet, A Disservice To Black Media

SIS/BET
Dwight Hobbes
Insight News archives Black broadcast media can be a wonderful thing. In fact, in the 1960s, when America loosened up the airwaves enough to allow us access, all kinds of refreshing things happened. Radio stations like WLIB with DJ Frankie "Hollywood" Crocker played James Brown, Aretha, Kool & The Gang, Gladys Knight and the Pips and much more – which meant soul folk no longer had to be glad whenever recording artists had hits big enough to hit the White stations. On television, Tony Brown's Journal started going out over PBS and Gil Noble got to do Like It Is on ABC. This all, thanks to Civil Rights Era riots that scared the nation into hurrying up and placating an African America sick and tired of sitting still for the same old dumb stuff, having our sensibilities obscured and our self-expression obstructed. So, yes, it can be wonderful. Fast forward to the current state of affairs: it also can be considerably less than wonderful. Truthfully, it can be pathetically counterproductive when instead of being put into effect for communal self-empowerment, it's exploited as a money market that, indeed, stalls our overall growth – something that, to this day, we still can ill afford. I'm talking about Black Entertainment Network (BET), quite arguably the most powerful influence on our up-and-coming generation. Teens (will anyone argue that youngsters are not our future?) plug into videos by the hour, virtually programmed to thoroughly internalize and enthusiastically emulate self-defeating stereotypes. Young men have it drummed into them a credo proffering the-thug-life-is-the-life-for-me, counseled that it's all about making gangsta-money and having gorgeous, materialistic-minded young women hanging off their arms, preferably two at a time. A young woman has it instilled her their psyche that the way to be worth something is to be hanging on the arm of some thug. So. We have folk behind the BET scenes, keeping artists, accountants and record execs rich by indoctrinating our youth to become bonafide bad-boyz and hip-swinging, booty slinging hoochie-mamas. Which, frankly, one can't find much fault with in small doses. There is, after all, freedom of speech and, for that matter, artistic license. But, they way the airwaves are inundated is dangerously debilitating. Male adolescents who gravitate to this model then to wind up flunking out of school, graduating the penitentiary. Female adolescents find themselves peddling their panties for the illusion of social security. While kids of the artists execs and accountants attend Ivy League institutions on a fast track to successful careers in the real life. Five will get you ten that Black men and women at Black Entertainment Network don't allow BET in their homes and would get out the razor strap if their kids even made so much as the first noise about wanting to grow up and be like Thug-Mug, Sylvia Sexpot or anybody else glamorizing a dead-end existence. I'm not saying BET shouldn't exist. Nor am I denying that, albeit in the way wee hours, something like 2 or 3 in morning, the network airs religious programming. What I am saying is that Black Entertainment Network ruthlessly is seeing our young right down the river. This is not what Black access to broadcast airwaves was supposed to be about. It certainly is not why we raised all that hell way back when. Just like BET feeds on teenage narcissism, libido and pliable self-esteem to turn a big, fast buck, it take a little more time, energy and investment of integrity to offer them positive input. That is the problem I have with Black Entertainment Network, which, as things stand, prostitutes, what began as an honorable undertaking.
About the Author

Dwight Hobbes has written for ESSENCE, Reader's Digest, Washington Post, Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, City Pages, Mpls/St. Paul, MN Law & Politics, Pulse of the Twin Cities, Twin Cities Daily Planet, Women & Word, San Diego Union-Tribune and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (where he contributes the commentary column Something I Said). He's spoken his mind over National Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, Blog Talk Radio's UNOBSTRUCTED and KMOJ in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Was regularly featured as guest commentator on NewsNight Minnesota (KTCA-Minneapolis/St. Paul) and Spectator (Minneapolis Television Network). His monthly column "Hobbes In The House" in MN Spokesman Recorder speaks to domestic abuse and rape. His plays are Shelter - produced at Mixed Blood Theatre by Pangea World Theater, Dues - produced by Mixed Blood Theatre, University of Southern Illinois in Point of Revue, selected for Bedlam Theatre's 10-Minute Play Festival and published by Playscripts, Inc. You Can't Always Sometimes Never Tell - produced by Theater Center Philadelphia, Long Island University, reading at The Kennedy Center and published in the anthology CENTER STAGE, In the Midst - produced by Long Island University, starring Samuel E. Wright. Hobbes spoke on the panel "Farewell To August Wilson" at the Guthrie Theater, broadcast on Conversations With Al McFarlane (KFAI, KMOJ). Singer-songwriter Dwight Hobbes recorded the single "Atlanta Children" (BeatBad Records) and gigged 10 years in the Long Island/NYC area, including The Other End, Kenny's Castaways and My Fathers Place. He fronted the Boston blues band Midlight. In Minneapolis, Hobbes opened for David Daniels at First Street Entry, James Curry at Terminal Bar, sat in with Yohannes Tona, Alicia Wiley at Sol Testimony's Soul Jam, The New Congress at Babalu, Willie Murphy at the Viking Bar and Wain McFarlane & Jahz at Lucille's Kitchen. Dwight Hobbes still drops in at the occasional open mic around town. www.myspace.com/dwighthobbesmusic

When are people going to start speaking out for Drug Legalization?

ABC News reported there are 700,000 gang members in the USA the product of a drug culture FOSTERED BY PROHIBITION. Prohibtion makes the price of illegal drugs high therefore addicts have to mug, commit burglaries, or rob banks to keep their habit.
Prohibition provides funds to Terrorists who are killing our soldiers.
Prohibition has accomplished NOTHING since drugs are increasingly readily available.
Prohibition sustains maffia, gangs and terrorists.
Prohibition fills our jails over capacity, drains our resources in a FUTILE War On Drugs that fills the pockets of the judicial system and lawyers.
Prohibition is prohibitively expensive and a complete an senseless waste of money.
Legalization and regulation and those who want get high and die young that's their fricking business.

Hell yes!

99% of everything bad the general public knows about drugs is just D.A.R.E. propaganda, and is mostly untrue or completely exaggerated, I wanted to add that as well.

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