Hi everyone,
My name is Bronze Trinity. I am a graduate student and a member of the Afrosphere Bloggers Association. I will be guest blogging here for a while to keep fighting againist negative representations of Black women. My first post my impression of what has happened this week.
What About Our Daughters has won the BET battle!
What was once a disgrace and offense to the Black community is no longer offensive! Based on the activism and drive of one fantastic blogger, Gina McCauley of What About Our Daughters blog (WAOD) the offensive title was changed and all offensive material was removed from the show. THAT MEANS WAOD WON! No the show was not canceled but the show that aired was no longer offensive. The whole point of the protest was to stop an offensive show from being aired that would insult and spread stereotypes about Black people. In actuality, that offensive show NEVER AIRED! Its was CANCELED! What they aired instead was a version with the offensive title and content removed. I think that the fact that the show's content had to be edited actually proves that there was a lot of offensive material in the original show. If the show was a poignant social commentary to begin with then there would have been nothing to edit in the first place. What was left was just disjointed video segments. It didn't lift anyone up or inspire anyone to do better. It was a piece of crap!
At first I was worried that people were bringing too much attention to the show and actually giving it publicity. What if it had actually been a good show? Fortunately it was garbage, many people, the media, and critics saw the garbage and are now in the process of writing negative reviews. This negative publicity would not have been generated if WAOD did not bring attention to the show. It is taking attention away from BET's other shows! I hope that this finally motivates them to change the type of programming they carry. I also hope that channels like TVONE, that provide better programming, can capitalize of this by getting new subscribers! Understand this, one blogger with vast activism skills stood up against a television corporation and stopped an offensive show from airing. THIS IS A VICTORY!!! Please congratulate Gina because this is a victory against negative depictions of Black people in the media.
The war is not over and Black bloggers are going to find creative ways to use internet activism to improve the lives of members of the African Diaspora. We are taking back our lives, confronting and dealing with our own problems, and stepping up to change things. We will fight crime, drugs, AIDS, poor education, low self-esteem, poverty, and all the problems that affect us. This was a great example of how it can be done. We will use this example to help us fight all of our problems!
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Friday, July 27, 2007
What About Our Daughters Wins Battle!!!
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20 comments:
i love it....not on our watch...I hear that!
It's an exciting time in the brown blogoshere because there are so many intelligent black writers and opinion makers on the web making good things happen every day.
Hoeing, pimping, and otherwise low culture will never go away in it's entirety; but it's time to take back the power of our image, our wounded spirits, and embrace the true beauty of our nature as Black people.
Blogging just proves that people with a voice and a vehicle can change things for the better.
Gina, you are one bad sista, seriously. You proved that, contrary to popular belief, one person can INDEED spark meaningful dialogue and make a difference. BET is a disgrace and has been a disgrace for quite some time now. Kudos to you for making those clowns sweat! Keep up the fantastic work and shake off all the haters!
I've been visiting this site for about two weeks now and I love it.
I have been frustrated with BET for about 15 years now. I don't watch the network and I find it sad that there could be more powerful programming for the culture than is currently being presented. Thank God for TV One. They're on the move. I love that network. It has something to offer everyone. They could start an R&B or Hip Hop music show with artists we WANT to see that would knock BET off the air waves (well this is my wish). We need more positive social satire in our music and TV One could really do it right now.
Gina, I love your blog, I listen to the shows, and what you're doing is awesome. I've actually e-mailed BET on several occasions only to have my e-mails returned in error! Now that I fully understand how the business works and the involvement of the advertisers, I see it as a good strategy to go after them directly. Thanks again Gina.
So what is the plan now? What types of alternatives are you offering up that uplifts Black culture? I don't understand how everyone can rally around getting a show cancelled, but have no alternative programming in mind. Now, I don't agree with the craziness that was/is "Hot Ghetto Mess". But I have a problem when all Black people do is tear down other Black people and don't ever offer possible solutions.
I have a independent Black drama series that talks about all the issues you wrote about in your post and then some. We whore ourselves out to get attention on Black blogs but we do nothing but get ignored. Even if you do not support my project in particular, support SOMETHING. Don't just knock something down for the sake of doing it. Offer up something to replace it. Gina and the other blogs have a chance to do that. Will they take it???
Lamont
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
http://www.mybrotherskeeper.tv
Come on. Please, stop claiming victory so early. Do people really think it's over? Only week one of the series has aired!
If you check out Jam Donaldson's MySpace page blog, one of her comments says that in the following episodes "the spirit of HGM is definitely realized". Neutering the first episode and getting the name changed are not really victories if any of the rest of the series turns out to be the very thing people are fighting against.
LAST NITE I CAUGHT A RERUN OF D.L. HUGLEYS SHOW S.O.B. AND TO MY ASURANCE I RECOGNISED SAFAREE THE WINNER OF CHARM SCHOOL THE VH1 SPIN OFF(I SAY ASURANCE BECAUSE WHILE LISTNING TO THE PROMOTINS ON TJMS I DIDNOT BELIEVE D.L. HUGLEY TO BE TELLING THE TRUTH WHEN HE STATED THERE WERE NO ACTORS AND THESE WERE ACTUAL ACCURANCES. WE ARE BEING VAMBOZELED BY OUR OWN KIND THIS HAS TO BE RECOGNISED.S.O.B CLAIMS TO BE A "REALITY" SHOW WITH HIDDEN CAMEARAS RECORDING THE REACTIONS OF AMERICANS HOWEVER IN REALITY THESE ARE SCIRPTED SHOWS PARTRAYING THE RACTION OF BLACK PEOPLE IN A NEGITIVE LIGHT.THE SCENE I AM SPEAKING OF TAKES PLACE IN A RESTRUANT AND THE HOSTEST ASK THE PATRONS TO BE SEATED BY COLOR AND THE ONLY PATRON THAT IS AFFENDED ENOUGH TO LEAVE IS A WHITE MAN NOT ONLY IS THIS POPOSTUROUS BUT THIS PLAYS ON MORALS AND VALUES OF ALL AFRICAN AMERICANS AS IF TO SAY IN AN EXPERIMENT BLAC`KS WOULD BE WILLING TO TAKE RACIAL UNJUSTICE. THIS IN NO WAY SHOULD BE SHOWED ON PRIME TIME TELEVISON LITTLE LONE SET OUT TO REPRESENT BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISON. THIS IS NOT WHAT OUR KIDS SHOULD BE WATCHING THIS IS NOT THE MESSEAGE THAT WE SHOULD BE PROMOTING THEY LIE ENOUGH ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICANS ENOUGH WE HAVE ENOUGH OF THESE SHOWS AND ITS TIME WE SAY WE'VE HAD ENOUGH. S.O.B. SHOULD BE BOYCOTED ALSO
CPlair, Knock yourself out! Let us know when you get it going.
My question to all you people is are the stuff shown on HGM real or imagined, if truly this things are happening then I think you should direct your energy to bring about change in those communities instead of railing against BET. BET has a show simply because there is something to show otherwise the program will not even exist. I think its high time African Americans wake up to realities and do what is right. For you to claim victory, you need to deal with the root cause and i.e the way African Americans carry themselves. Am a Nigerian and have visited America a couple of times and I must say that am not too impress with African Americans when you consider the huge opportunities available to them. I mean if migrants can come in and make good of themselves, whats stopping u guys? Wake up guys! be role models to the black race. You can definitely do better!
I continue to be amazed at the people who come on here telling me what more important stuff I need to be working on. How do you knw that I am not?
Lots of thing are important to me, but I don't blog about them. Somebody else is doing that. I go to their comments section and participate.
Second NOTHING is topping you from starting your own blog and doing whatever you want to do. It is free.
And yeah. I am claiming a victory. Just because some are too myopic to understand why, doesn't make it a defeat. Let's see. Renamed a show that they said they didn't have to rename at the TCAs and basically forced them to run the show without commercial interruption so they lost money, or at least didn't make very much. On any other network, the show would have been canceled with no external sponsors.
SO keep coming with the hateraid. The Universe is preparing me for something and the hateration is part of that process. I get that now.
Gina, I was turned on to your blog today by someone in my new media sphere. No doubt you should go ahead and claim victory on this power-move hustle against BET.
I dig the fact that you were able to leverage the blogsphere and jump out of the fishbowl to reach out to those not in the same realm (advertisers, etc). Dr. Allcome at it's finest.
I've subscribed to the blog and will continue to follow WAOD from here on out. Likely we'll run across each other at the conference in 08. Until then, be easy.
WAOD,
You have my support. We have to fight dehumanization and degradation on all fronts. Each person's fight will not be the same. One of the master's tools is to get the slaves to turn on each other, to tell on each other, and to discourage each other from uprising.
I don't have the media knowledge nor the time to go after advertisers, but I am glad Gina did, or at least she sacrificed her time to do so for ALL black women, not just herself. And, at the same time, this improves the lives of all blacks.
I concentrate on speaking to history and to the present status of black women, negative and positive. Everyone should be encouraged to find their own way to fight injustice. If you don't want to work on behalf of black women, then work on behalf of black men, black children, inner-city schools, community resource centers, environmental racism, whatever you like. Just don't get in the way of someone else's fight.
Respectfully yours in struggle and in study,
Blackwomb
I applaud this Queen( Gina) for taking a large step in the right direction. This is indeed a victory. Ignore the weak .... Real men admire your strength. We applaud your efforts and stand at the ready to support you and if need be to defend your honor.
Sincerely
Don L. Rondeau
The negative reviews keep coming in:
Boston News
MSNBC
Black Star News
Press Enterprise
Hip Hop DX You MUST read this one Gina!!!
Eurweb
South Bend Tribune
All this over lil ole me. Jeez, I dont know where to begin. But I will first begin by addressing a few misconceptions about the site.
It is owned solely and completely by me. I started it in law school and there is no source of funding other than my pretty empty pockets.
The TV show had its origin from a DVD I produced with my student loan money while still in law school. HUdlin, saw it, thought it had a great message and asked me to turn it into a series.
So the notion that this is some "staged" project, some puppet endeavor is incorrect. While I know its fun to speculate, sometimes there really is no conspiracy.
Now to the much-discussed website.
More misconceptions. Gina has stated a number of falsehoods that everyone has seem to accepted as truth.
I have not changed my site because of her accusations and suddenly remove a bunch of incriminating pictures. This is ridiculous and a lie she keeps saying. With all the hub bub over the TV show, I havent touched that site in a month.
Where are these much-touted bare breasted underage girls???????? This is all she talks about. Yet, there has not been one pic she can point to with an exposed underage girl. I guess these are the pics I have rushed to take down. This is ridiculous!!! So please dont buy into that.
OK, now for the issue of using pics without people permission and the very grey area of copyright and privacy law when it come to the internet. (sigh) What most of you dont seem to realize is that approx 95% of the pics on my site ARE ALREADY ON THE INTERNET IN SOME FORM OR FASHION. These are pics from Myspace or Black Planet or Facebook or some other online dating page or pages people have made up to promote themselves in some way. So this is not a privacy issue. I dont go rummaging through people's drawers to steal photos out of their secret showbox and post them on the internet.
Now of course, many of them are annoyed at the context in which Im placing their picture, but if you were proud enough to put it online, then tough shit.
OK, now to the pics of the kids--I have been conflicted about the pics of the kids on the site. Whe I receive these pics, because i dont know the identity of the subjects, its really hard to ignore them. So what I thought would be more helpful than ignoring them was to post them in the hopes that soemone would recognize the child or the adult and alert the parents or proper authorities. And i have actually been successful in that regard when a mother contacted me and said she had had no idea of this particular incident with her daughter.
So reasonable minds can disagree about whether these posting are appropriate or not but please note that I post them with some sense of social responsibility.
Last but not least, it amazes me that whenever there is a discussion about my site, NOONE ever mentions that in every gallery all the pics are juxtaposed with positive images of us. Its mindblowing how this detail seems to fall by the waste side. The site is all about context. This image bad, this image good. I try to show positive images in each conategory that are representative of the images that represent our community well in the world.
No one ever talks about these--in fact, I challenged one of my most vocal critics about this and he admitted, he had never noticed them.
I also have articles and essays, examine lyrics in our popular songs, have a Not Ghetto profile, feature articles that have ways for us to "Do Better" and a great message board which provides the platform for discussions on all types of topics from race to politics to sports to relationships.
So please, when discussing the site, please dont look at a couple of pics you got in an email and make a judgment. Go through the entire site. In order that we maintain academic integrity, please acknowledge that there is more to the site than just these pics.
You may not agree with me or my tactics in attempting to muster dialogue in our community but please dont misrepresent the site nor ignore the components that dont fit your argument.
But you guys are right about something, what started out as a subversive site started by a law student has grown into a monster and taken on a life of its own.
Its disconcerting to be theorized about, lied on, praised, fawned over, and villified all at the same time by a faceless "public".
Definitely more than I bargained for but I think now that we're here, the discussion is worth having.
Just wanted to add a couple of things I forgot to mention earlier. I have reached out to older Af-Am's who have been ensconced in the movement for change for advice and guidance. I was initially very conflicted about what I was doing. I was able to connect with Henry Louis Gates who gave me suggestions on how to make the site more effective (all of which i implemented) and he told me he believed the site could be a very powerful tool for change as the next "civil rights" movement will come from within the community.
So I welcome all comers who can advise me on promoting change from within as I am young and new and unfamiliar with the players and the bloggers and the BIFM's... :-)
Instead of offering solely criticisms or even congratulations--you see I have a platform, help me make the most of it and make it better.
Thanks for having me...
BTW, I loooooooove black men. :-)
Gurl, I can't throw you anymore watch parties okay. You are going to have to get ratings for THAT SHOW on your own.
I invited you on to explain your foolishness a MONTH ago, but now all of a sudden you want to talk. You need to stop bragging that you haven't pulled those disturbing photos.
I find it ironic that she does not want to be judged based on pictures taken out of context, but has built her entire empire on taking photos out of context.
She is conveniently clueless. People just won't let a sister go on vacation. FYI this comment is exactly the same as the one she put up at Racialicious. So no wonder THAT SHOW was so unoriginal.
Yeah it is a little late. I read the comments and find it interesting that Jam is maintaining that she receives images of children and posts them in the hopes that parents will see or someone will help the children. Sure Jam. The next time I see someone getting hurt or making a fool of themselves I'll just post them on the internet and maybe someone will help them. Sure. I guess it wouldn't be helpful at all to send those photos to an organization that helps children or something. I don't know about the US but in Canada, if someone suspects that a child is being abused then they have a duty to report that to the proper authorities. We don't post their photos on the internet.
So what if the photos are posted elsewhere on the net? It matters where it is posted and in what context. Putting them all together on a site called YOU KNOW WHAT makes a big difference. People don't expect others to take their profile pics, or pics on their sites and re-post them somewhere else. They probably feel safe on a site with people who want to make friends or date. If they wanted their photos on THAT SITE they would have sent them in personally.
I have an idea for you. Why not start a site called "Ugly people who should hide their faces". Go around to dating sites and Myspace and find people who you consider unattractive. Then post their photos on the site. On the same site post people you consider attractive. Then those ugly people will learn that they shouldn't take photos of themselves, and they should wear make-up, get surgery, or hide their faces so they are no longer ugly. If we use your reasoning Jam then that would be a public service.
Maybe Jam, people don't notice the gallery with positive images because THEY VISIT YOUR SITE FOR THE NEGATIVE IMAGES. If they wanted nice photos of people they would lot visit a site like yours. They want to see the train wreck and they are not going to be distracted by the pretty flowers you place around it. It doesn't work. That goes the same for the articles. People go to your site to see Black people looking badly and they must not care very much about anything else posted there.
I would suggest scrapping the site and creating one about positive and historical people of African Descent all over the world. We need a site like that where people can go and see how to be leaders, successful, and happy in their lives. The media is already flooded with negative images of us. We don't need to add to that.
Trinity, you ought to make that a full fledged post. I don't mind breaking my embargo on all posts related to THAT SHOW. She can have 30 more seconds on her 15 minutes of fame
My, oh my. Keep fighting, but do it at home and shame your friends into cleaning up their own images.
It's called personal responsibilities. The media is not the end all to making black people look bad. Black people, make black people look bad. So you accomplished watering down Hot Ghetto Mess, a show I admit I have not seen. The overall grand scheme of things is that once again, the "Secret" Fraternity of Black People have once again won out, by keeping the "secret" under wraps. You know the secret that there are Black people who don't take pride in themselves and don't mind looking foolish.
Instead of going after BET, go after each other and say, "You look foolish, change your image." Having one show watered down does not win the war. The war will be one when Black people look at themselves and take some pride in their appearance, but they will have to realize that on their own.
P Kenneth, thank you for your comment, but we have moved on here. I am sure the folks over at that website that will not be named on this blog will be more than happy to discuss this.
I never had a problem with the purported message or even having a discusison about these images, I had a problem with the minstrel show set up that BET created. My objections always were and will continue to be context. THAT and the fact that the website is an abomination.
All I ever said was that advertisers shouldn't pay for what BET had planned to show.
Trinity - Nice to see you spreading your wings and your unique style in other parts of cyberspace! I look forward to reading your contributions here on WAOD as well as on your own blogs.
peace, Villager
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