If you were appreciative of the roles BET has offered you, #StaceyDash, you wouldn’t go out of your way to remove similar roles or opportunities from anyone else. Your blog post on Patheos is one of the most self-serving, spiteful, hypocritical blog posts I’ve read from someone who is of African descent that I’ve read yet in 2016 regarding diversity. But it’s typical and par for the course.
It’s an annoying #RespectabilityPolitics tendency among AA conservatives (and conservatives in general, and even libertarians) to view the Image Awards, BET, BHM, etc. as “liabilities” for full integration, that the viability of creations depends rightfully, morally, upon “merit”. But somebody saw merit in BET to include it on cable and satellite packages. Somebody saw merit in including BHM as one of many month-long White House observances. Somebody saw merit in televising the Image Awards. Somebody saw merit in MLK’s Birthday and Kwanzaa. That “merit” just happens to = an audience, a customer base, a source of revenue. It responds to consumer pressure. And the “free market” responds. An interested public responds. But to you, it’s not merit. It’s “pandering”.
As if there is any difference. BET, TV One, Telemundo, Univision, Fusion, Bounce TV, Arirang World, etc. are not the impediments to integration that you think they are. They provide more employment, more venues of entertainment to people who would find it harder to offer their services or eyeballs to an already-crowded market of entertainment. There’s more room for more opportunities in this market, even more so with online streaming services.
You’d rather shut them down rather than see a more diverse set of Oscars or Golden Globes nominations? How many other venues should we shut down because they exist outside your norm of “merit”? The religious channels? Maybe you’d like to shut down TBN and Daystar because of their “pandering” to a specific religious sect? How far do you want to go with this? Because you’re tilting at windmills with this, just as every Unserious Conservative White Guy does when he says “Why can’t we have WET/WHM/NAAWP?” It’s an Unserious proposal (with a capital “U”) because it’s patently ignorant of how many organizations and media outlets cater to and defend people of Irish, Jewish, Italian, British, Russian and other distinct European nationalities and descents.
It’s also patently Unserious because the fact that these organizations, events, and venues have to exist at all speaks to some degree of non-inclusion into the larger demographic frameworks of expression and economy in this country, and some sort of failure of the rest of the United States to not recognize that. But these guys envy the NAACP? BET? Black History Month? They’re not entities and events to envy. I take no pride in the mere existence of these entities, or of the Image Awards. I’m glad they exist for their core directives, even as I wish for them to broaden their thematic scopes, and I’m glad that they honor those who reach beyond their own ethnic experiences to help skillfully relay POC narratives, but I take little pride in the fact that they exist, or that they’re needed. But if they’re needed, and they shine wider-reaching spotlights on aspects of our existence which are not given such prolonged coverage in the most widely-reaching media, then I will not deny their utility.
I will not deny the utility of ethnic media outlets in this country, nor their contributors and professionals. I will not deny the utility of ethnic heritage months in expressing aspects of our shared history as a nation. And, if I were you, I wouldn’t be so self-serving and ahistorical in denying such utilities especially after I benefited from those opportunities or that knowledge. Move on already.
