[Beauty1913]

That's very interesting, mccoyred, about the NPHC receiving concern from the membership of the constituting organizations about the boycott itself. I have two views on this issue. The first is that the membership of the NPHC organizations have a right to be concerned. This is because many of the employees of BET and I would even venture to say that a sizable number of employees of Viacom are members of the NPHC orgs. If the NPHC is officially boycotting these companies, how would this effect these peoples' jobs and reputations in the workplace. Implementing massive boycotts like this is difficult when you are talking about the livelihood of the very people you claim to be representing. The second view is sort of a spin off of what I read Robert Johnson (The conceptor of BET) say in the most recent Forbes Magazine: He basically said that people should pretty much accept BET for what it is. BET was never intended to be the one voice and representative of Black America and all of its concerns, political agendas, problems, wants, and needs. It began 20 years ago with the onset of pop music and the similar phenomena that was taking place in the society. He said that if people would simply remember that BET is merely a television network like the others that exist, and exists for a specific purpose, to entertain, then there would be much less discourse over what is being broadcast. I have to agree with a lot of that. I feel that, as someone stated before me on this thread, that the answer to this dilemma is to simply create more stations. We cannot blame BET or the visions of the owners of the station for what they choose to broadcast. What we can do is mobilize the appropriate people to start a station that broadcasts shows that are in the various interests that are being expressed here and elsewhere. Otherwise, we have to just take BET for what it is worth. I am not saying that I am on any way satisfied with what is being shown on BET, but I just don't expect anything more than what they show. That's pretty much all that we can do.