You Can't Believe Everything You See.
Black Entertainment Television (BET) is the first and only television network in the United States primarily devoted to the attraction of African American viewers. Robert Johnson started the nation's first and only black owned cable network. From the very beginning, the heart and soul of BET programming was the music video. Black youth are the focus and main audience of BET's videos. MTV premiered one year before BET but, "BET offered as much as eighteen hours of music videos a day, prompting many to perceive the 24-hour network as essentially a black-oriented music video service." The stereotype given to the black race as a result of these black artists is a disturbing one. If BET were to be turned on right now, one would see the black race living the life of violence, sex, drugs, and money. One would not see the status Black Americans have strived for after hundreds of years of inferiority. .
Black Entertainment Television constructs the black race in a degrading way. Mainstream rap, which is the primary music aired on BET tells the story of expensive cars, alcohol, violence, drugs, promiscuity, and just about everything one doesn't want their child to see. Rappers such as Puff Daddy, who was recently found not guilty for possession of an unregistered firearm, and Jay-Z, who was allegedly involved in a stabbing at a New York City club, are the stars of BET. These are the role-models BET gives their viewers to follow. Of course it is entertainment, but it is not sending a good definition of the Black race to the viewers. BET is almost sending the message that it is cool to be Black because one will be able to drive expensive cars and live in a huge mansion and be surrounded by "booty and bling-bling" . These videos definitely do not construct the Black race, but they do convey the stereotype that Black people are still inferior to Whites. Certainly, only a person unaware of reality would take this media to be the true meaning of what it is to be Black.
