this is what Tavis had to say...it's long:
>
>Subject: BET! - There's No Such Thing!!!
>
>Tavis Responds To BET Firing
>Tom Joyner Morning Show Commentary
>Thursday, March 22, 2001
>Good Morning Tom, Sybil and J.!
>In a tribute Tuesday morning to my dearly departed grandmother, Adel Smiley,
>Mother Adel as we affectionately called her; I talked about the fact that on
>every headstone there is a date of birth, a date of transition and a dash in
>the middle.
>The dash in the middle is what matters most, because that dash represents a
>life that was either lived for a cause or a life that was lived just
>because. I trust that you fit squarely into the former category and not the
>latter.
>Sometimes while trying to make the most of that dash in the middle, we get
>caught in the middle. Caught in the middle of situations and circumstances
>that we did not create and do not control.
>Control. I suspect that's why Booker T. Washington said that at the bottom
>of all of our struggle must be the struggle for economic independence.
>Washington understood even then that the real Golden Rule is simply this: he
>who has the gold makes the rule. And so the staple of Black progress must be
>economic independence. When we surrender it, we surrender control. The
>control we need to enlighten, encourage and empower Black people.
>For the past five years, I have attempted every night as the host of BET
>Tonight on Black Entertainment Television to enlighten, encourage, empower
>and, yes, sometimes to entertain Black folk. As Black folk sometimes we
>laugh just to keep from crying! Moreover, I've learned from working with Tom
>that if we can get people to laugh, we can get them to listen.
>Which reminds me J., did I ever tell you the one about...!!!
>Seriously though, I sincerely want to thank the folk at BET for giving me a
>chance to bring you conversations I have shared with everyone from Clinton
>to Castro, Cosby to Cochran, from Prince to the Pope, from Patti to Puffy,
>Sharpton to Snoop. Even when talking with entertainers, my goal is to find
>an empowerment component to the conversation. I'm proud of what we've done
>in making our show a window to Black America.
>I believe that our lives are not so much made up of the breaths we take, but
>of the moments, which take our breath away. I've had more than a few of
>those moments over five seasons.
>Last Friday afternoon I traveled from Chicago where we had been engaging
>small Black owned businesses to embrace technology and grow their operation,
>to Warren, OH, for the kickoff of our Foundation's 9-city 2001 Youth 2
>Leaders seminar series, where we work with inner city youth to help them
>discover, develop and define their leadership skills.
>When I arrived in Ohio I learned that BET and its new owner Viacom had faxed
>a letter to my agent informing us that they would not be exercising the
>option to extend my contract for the engagement period when it expires on
>September 6, 2001. Translation: THE END.
>After leaving Ohio and traveling to Midway, GA, to pay my last respects to
>Mother Adel, I returned home to Los Angeles and convened a meeting Monday
>afternoon to hear suggestions from my advisors on strategy.
>There was, of course, a variety of opinions expressed, but at the conclusion
>of our session the general consensus seemed to be that for a litany of
>reasons I should exercise the option in my contract and simply resign
>immediately.
>Why? My advisors argued that Viacom and BET no longer deserved to have me on
>their network. Viacom and BET have the absolute right to cancel our
>contractual agreement, but after five years of hosting the signature talk
>show on the network, could not one person have picked up the phone to call
>me personally instead of choosing to fax a four sentence memo to my
>representative? Five years, four sentences.
>I listened to my advisors through the pain. To be sure, I have never owned
>anything at BET, but I do take ownership of my personal and professional
>mission statement: to compete only with myself and find a way night in and
>night out to best represent, to best advocate for Black people.
>They say you shouldn't take these things personally. But for me, it is
>personal. I launched, have hosted and executive produced this show since its
>inception. All along I have tried to maintain the integrity and credibility
>of our advocacy on BET against some pretty incredible odds.
>My mother wasn't a part of the strategy session --- but anybody who knows me
>knows that at some point in this process, my mother and I were going to have
>a little prayer and supplication.
>She started out with the philosophical and then brought the theological.
>Reminding me first, that like an airplane ascending to 37,000 feet,
>sometimes we have to go through a little turbulence before things smooth
>out. "Tavis, you can't climb higher without encountering a few bumps along
>the way," she said. Then she brought the theological, which is why I love my
>praying and preaching momma; reminding me that even Jesus before He could
>rise from the grave and bring us new life had to first go the way of the
>cross. In life, there is no progress without a struggle. And truth be told,
>sometimes we are at our highest when our fortunes are lowest.
>I was so relieved to hear my mother's confirmation of what I had already
>decided to do.
>Indeed, while I can exercise the out clause in my contract with Viacom and
>BET and walk away immediately, I'm concerned about what will happen to the
>two groups of folk who have been most loyal to me. First, the viewers and
>second my production staff.
>I'm concerned that the viewers who have been so loyal to me (despite changes
>in the time slot, run time and format of the show) need a voice on Black
>Entertainment Television that will speak truth to power about African
>American issues daily.
>In no way am I suggesting that I have always done that expertly or that I am
>the only voice in Black America capable of doing so. Not at all. I just do
>not know who BET now plans to assign that role to. BET has informed me that
>they no longer require my services, but the network has said that, "The BET
>Tonight show will live on - but in a new direction."
>I'm concerned about my production team because they have been loyal to me
>beyond measure. When we moved the show from Washington, DC to Los Angeles
>last year, no less than four people relocated to LA to continue working with
>me. For that I am eternally grateful.
>Not to mention that you don't win the NAACP Image Award as Black America's
>favorite talk show for the past three consecutive years by yourself; the
>highest award bestowed by the National Association of Minorities in
>Communications; a host of other honors and recognitions; and have your
>program profiled in everything from Time and Newsweek to People and the
>cover of TV Guide. None of us succeeds alone. None of us really flies solo.
>Somehow I feel like I'd be deserting the people behind the camera who have
>made me look good for five years in front of the camera. And let's face it,
>Hollywood ain't exactly the easiest place for folk who look like us to find
>gainful employment! Besides, I've had it with all of this greed masking as
>corporate downsizing that places people in the unemployment line after years
>of dedicated service. Whatever happened to loyalty?
>And so I've decided not to resign as some advised me, but to keep
>representing as best I can for as long as I can --- or until such time as
>Viacom and BET pull the plug on the show.
>This entire situation is still a little hazy for me, but I'm clear about one
>thing: I am unapologetically an advocate. And you don't need a television
>show to advocate; to be a change agent.
>Dr. King never had a television show. Malcolm X never had a television show.
>Mary McCloud Bethune. Roger Wilkins. Ida B. Wells. Medgar Evers. Harriet
>Tubman. Then again, as I think about it, I guess Harriet Tubman would not
>have been well served anyway to be broadcasting on television what she was
>doing on the Underground Railroad!
>Indeed, many of you listening to me right now advocate on behalf of
>children, seniors, students, AIDS victims, the homeless, the unemployed and
>the underemployed, the incarcerated --- you advocate for the least among us
>--- those who are socially, politically and economically disenfranchised ---
>you represent for them everyday and you do it without a television show.
>And so will I, once again.
>Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "What lies behind us and what lies before us
>are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
>I believe that. We are all God's creation. Situations do not control us. We
>control situations.
>I believe that, if anything, this is just another situation for revelation.
>Just since yesterday, your calls, faxes and e-mail have overwhelmed my
>office. I wish to thank you.
>Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, but faith looks up!
>And so, I close this morning just as I have every evening on BET Tonight for
>five seasons: KEEP THE FAITH!
Linear Mode
