meanwhile, Bill Cosby softly weeps into his pudding

I know I haven't posted in a minute, but I've been a little busy lately. There's nothing special about this post, the one that breaks the silence. It just shows, to me, at least, how mixed up people can get sometimes. There was also a story I read about how bottled water... bottled water... is the latest target for hippie moralizing, but who has the time really.

Wearing white T-shirts with red stop signs and chanting “BET does not reflect me, MTV does not reflect me,” protesters have been gathering every Saturday outside the homes of Viacom executives in Washington and New York City. The orderly, mostly black crowds are protesting music videos that they say degrade women, and black and Latino men.*

Yeah, we're gonna stop right there. Protesting outside the homes of the executives? As if some 60 year old white guy knows the difference between... I don't know... Wayne Brady and Clipse? These guys should be outside Hype Williams' house.

“Why are these corporations making these images normative and mainstream?” asked Mr. Coates, 34, a pastor of the Mount Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Md. “I can talk about this in the church until I am blue in the face, but we need to take it outside.”

Yes, it's MTV and BET that are actually making the videos, and writing the lyrics. The executives, probably, wrote Luda's "Ho's" on a weekend getaway to the Vineyard.

Viacom’s standards for language and images already prohibit some of the most common racial and gender slurs, gang symbols, gratuitous violence and drug use in music videos, said a spokeswoman, Kelly McAndrew. A statement from Viacom said in part the company was “concerned about negative portrayals of African-Americans in the media” and takes a “positive pro-active approach” with programming that respects freedom of expression and serves an audience with diverse interests.

Ah... it's the "standards" they don't like. In other words, what's permitted on the channels, in content made by other people. It's just like freedom of speech, only the opposite.

I'm not sure what these groups hope to accomplish... maybe they think BET will put pressure on artists to become more "concerned" with negative portrayals of African-Americans in the media. But they're shooting the messenger right now, instead of the message.