B.E.T. = Bad Entertainment Television: Programming is Demeaning to Black Women

B.E.T. = Bad Entertainment Television
Professor says Programming is Demeaning to Black Women
The public's perception of black people continues to be distorted in the media, a media arts professor said yesterday in a lecture on Black Entertainment Television, part of the Faculty Fellows Speakers Series. The lecture titled, "And for the Girl Backstage, Never Mind Who You Thought I Was. I'm Rick James B***h!" was delivered by media arts professor Beretta Smith-Shomade at the Gallagher Theater yesterday afternoon. "It's important that we think about, examine and understand the way that Black Entertainment Television and now others like it, target, market, and illustrate black folks," Smith-Shomade said. "Seeing video after video of near naked, very young black women, gyrating, begging, crawling, pleading for some attention from some unattractive, fully clothed brother just makes me mad," she said. Smith-Shomade explained it is contradictory for BET's late night show "Uncut," a show that features such women in music videos, to be aired directly before televangelist Robert Tilton's "Success for Life." [more ]