BET Has Officially Become the New and Improved KKK
Everyone did not enjoy Sunday night’s 2011 BET Awards.
After watching the three hour television event, Syracuse University professor and founder of the Your Black World, Dr. Boyce Watkins, penned a column detailing his distaste for rapper Lil Wayne and the network’s support of the Young Money emcee, while comparing Viacom, BET’s parent company, as operating with the same agenda as the Ku Klux Klan.
A piece from Dr. Boyce Watkins’ column entitled “BET Has Officially Become the New and Improved KKK” reads:
The Ku Klux Klan has been regularly criticized for encouraging violence against African Americans and terrorizing our community.
But the truth is that the Klan doesn’t have much power anymore, and their thirst for African American blood seems to have waned a bit.
At the same time, Lil Wayne and artists like him have made a habit of encouraging black men to shoot one another, to abuse or murder women, to consume suicidal amounts of drugs and alcohol and to engage in irresponsible, deadly sexual behavior.
Watkins goes on to point the finger directly at BET saying, “the executive committee for the BET Awards made the interesting decision to give the greatest number of award nominations to Lil Wayne, the man who said that he would (among other things) love to turn a woman out, murder her and send her dead body back to her boyfriend.
Oh yea, he also that he would kill little babies, have sex with every girl in the world, carry a gun on his hip and “leave a N***a’s brains on the street.”
The Syracuse professor later touched on the affects he believes a network like BET supporting an artist like Lil Wayne has:
As a result, black men are the most likely to die from gun violence, mass incarceration continues to decimate black families, drug addiction and possession ruins black lives in droves, and HIV is the leading killer of black women.
So, the truth is that Lil Wayne-like artists and the corporate armies producing this weaponized genocide have killed more black people than the KKK ever could.
So, by accelerating, financing and supporting the “Lil Wayne gospel” to a community that is already dying, BET has effectively positioned itself as a new and improved version of the KKK.
Dr. Boyce Watkins does have a point. Even though you have to give BET credit for attempting to reduce its misogynistic images by taking BET Uncut off of the air (or maybe that’s just me…I kinda liked BET Uncut).
But placing the blame on BET and an artist like Lil Wayne is only attacking the surface of much more deep rooted problems within the urban community.
Although, I guess you have to start placing the blame somewhere, huh, Doc?
Dr. Boyce Watkins’ latest column isn’t his first attack at Lil Wayne.
Just last week, Watkins read an entry entitled “Why I am Ditching Lil Wayne Completely,” where he broke down the lyrics to Lil Wayne’s “We Be Steady Mobbin” as brainwashing listeners to follow in the violence state of Weezy’s lyrics.
At least Dr. Watkins is consistent.
Read Dr. Watkins piece, “BET Has Officially Become the New and Improved KKK,” in it’s entirety here.
