Washington City Paper: Contents for Mar. 8

Why B.E.T. Sucks
How did the great black hope become one more venue for broadcast mediocrity?

Cover Story

It’s late or it’s afternoon. The X-Files isn’t on or Oprah just went off. Not up for anything too educational or too cultural, maybe some music videos, tops. But MTV’s showing one of those obnoxious Gen X reality shows. What’s an urban black girl to do?

Searching for black faces in small spaces, I seek my reflection on a TV screen. Eyes scan, remote clicks, and I land on BET—Black Entertainment Television. Ah yes, “television made just for me.”

But is it?

I’m 24. Black and citified, educated middle-class and artistically inclined, equal parts geek and hipster. I don’t watch TV regularly because I’m always running my mouth or running around town, but every few days, I fall prey to gravity and crash on the couch. Like most folks, I don’t expect much from television, but despite reasonable hopes and a vague feeling that I should like BET, I always end up turning it off in no time flat. Is it too much to expect that I might be mildly entertained by people in my own image? Apparently so.

It’s not that BET is evil, it’s just so...completely whack. It’s like a Jheri curl in the midst of no-lye relaxers, dreadlocks, and braids. It’s Jet in the age of Essence and Emerge. Regular chocolate ice cream when you could be eating New York Super Fudge Chunk.

BET has been sliding along for 15 years, and it’s chronically disappointing, a grinding reminder that just because a black man’s driv-ing the bus doesn’t mean it’s going somewhere new. On almost every level, BET is boojee, tired, and dated.... Continued

Issue of Mar. 8 - 14, 1996

News and Features

Why B.E.T. Sucks
How did the great black hope become one more venue for broadcast mediocrity?
Cover Story By Holly Bass
My Dinner With Werner
Feature By Eddie Dean
Downtown Ghost Town
The Last Days of an N Street Apartment Building
The City By Erik Wemple
Girl Talk
The City By Heather Van Slooten
It’s a Square World, After All
The Mail By Richard and Linda Peterson
Square’s Fair
The Mail By Julie Mangin
She Saw Hee Haw
The Mail By Cheryl Hogue
Meatout the Brett
The Mail By Caroline Kweller
Trace Relations
The Mail By Beatrice Valdes
Type Casting
The Mail By Grady T. Turner
Preservation’s Required
The Mail By Carol and Robert Bruce
Lingoism
The Mail By Mario Solomón
Glove Is Blind
The Mail By Bob Roehr