Original Ape-
I don't believe that Manders doesn't see merit in the question. What she is saying is that on this board, anything even
remotely related to race usually turns in to a 'flame' war. Usually, some unregistered user makes a nasty comment, and that jump starts the drama from there. (If you move your topic to the Alpha board, they can't post, and that will cut back on the negative stuff.)
Anyway, to answer your question-
The image of the African-American male is not good in our society. Television is one of the problems, but so are music and movies. It's like there are only 3 types of black men in the mainstream media: The criminal/thug, The laughing/joking never-serious 'homeboy', and the extra-militant brother. Those are not representative of the bulk of black men. Unfortunately, we help perpetuate this by not suppporting the shows with positive images of african-americans (i.e. City of Angels) and supporting the others that aren't so great. Unfortunately, that says to the networks that that is what we want to see.
As far as programs go, we have an auxilliary called the Zeta Male Network that is geared toward men in the lives of Zetas. It is a positive group. When I was an undergrad, we had 2 programs geared toward discussing interraction between black men and women. They were well attended by women and poorly attended by men. It's hard to keep giving programs when the 'other side' is not showing up, ya know?
ZetaAce
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Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
1-UL-97