Back in 2011 Dr. Boyce Watkins wrote a column entitled "BET Has Officially Become the New and Improved KKK" where he cited that Lil Wayne and similar artists are promoting black-on-black violence and that the Black-founded network is standing by it. Four years later, he says he's "seen some transition," but "still has a bone to pick" with the "excessively materialistic and capitalist" company.
"A lot of their damage was done during the first 20-25 years of their existence," Boyce Watkins states in the interview. He feels that the Black community has become a "target of your toxic waste" and BET has failed to recognize it, focusing more on the money they're generating than the content they play for their younger audience. "When it comes to BET, I'm still not happy with a lot of what I see," he says.
Though Dr. Boyce Watkins credits them for becoming more diverse in the past five years or so, when he sees BET promoting acts like Young Thug and Rich Homie Quan and the children who emulate them, he doesn't see a good future for them or the community.
Because Boyce Watkins lives in the areas where there are alarming rises in the murder rate, he feels he has to be the one to speak out because the BET execs who promote this behavior "don't live in those neighborhoods [and] don't see the homicides." His advice to them? "Think about what you're putting out here into the world and what you're doing to your people," because the media "is leading kids in the Southside of Chicago to blow each other's brains out because it's being glorified in media."
Catch what else he had to say about the network and its help in the deterioration of positive Black images above.
