A New Low For the BET Minstrel Channel

Although it helps, you don’t have to be black to be offended by the premise behind “Hot Ghetto Mess,” a new series on the Black Entertainment Television cable channel that is an orgy of stereotyping that mocks ghetto culture.

Led by blogger Gina McCauley at What About Our Daughters?, a rather formidable coalition of religious and women’s groups is asking advertisers to pull their ads from the show, which debuts on July 25, and threatens a boycott of their products if they don't.

Although BET must be delighted by the publicity, two advertisers apparently already have complied, while Jam Donaldson, creator of the website on which the show is based, has penned a "Why Can't We All Just Get Along" appeal below a photograph of the "June 2007 Mess of the Month" (see photo) that struck me as being transparently phony.

BET is in business to make money, not act as a beacon of positive reinforcement by providing quality entertainment for black Americans, as well as other viewers, but the lowest common denominator content of its predictably shallow programming continues to amaze me.

More here.