BET Awards 2014: The bad and the ugly

Did you see the 2014 BET Awards last night. I sort of did. I watched a good chunk of it but the anger, irritation, and appall within me rose to an unsafe level causing me to shut off the television. Maybe because I don't watch TV or listen to mainstream music was the reason I was so taken aback, enraged, and repulsed by the celebratory debauchery I witnessed.

It's curious how black people could complain about the negative way we're portrayed in culture and treated in society when we so vehemently promote that degrading stereotype when given the chance to reframe it. Often times, the only idea other ethnicity have of black people is the one they receive from mainstream media, and while there is reason to believe the media's depiction of black people has an agenda achieving underbelly, we are responsible for being the refreshing change we we would like to see.

So often we hear mentally blinded people cheering over all the progress our nation has made, and how it is such an achievement to see black people on television. I beg to differ. In most cases, when a black person is on television he is either stupid, conniving, drowned in emotional baggage, or branded with some other undesired adjective. How is this progress, to see our people on TV behaving in the way other ethnicity already expect us to? Blacks feel good because now they have a lot of money, completely missing the fact that the gold chain around their neck is just that, a chain, a symbol of their willful imprisonment.

They mentioned Jesus more than a few times on the awards last night, and a woman sang a gospel song somewhere in the middle of profanity laced, basically naked women gyrating as a man in dark sunglasses sang about big booties and alcohol. Ironically, this same man later mentioned how grateful he was to Jesus for his award, right in the middle of his participation in modern day Sodom and Gomorrah show.

One of the main events of the evening was the Civil Rights presentation wherein a slide show depicting black s being thrown on the ground, a white woman using the "n word" and other dark memories that shouldn't be focused on during a positive, celebratory event was played on the big screen. It was a not so sleuth way for the non black owners of BET to make sure the unsuspecting, materialistic, idolatry invested "celebrities" in the room didn't forget their place. In hindsight, it is actually funny how they showed all those dark scenes and used the n word and all the black people in the room didn't even notice that the joke was on them. Chris Rock made unfunny jokes, where many of his colleagues served as the punchline.

It was all very disgusting.