What I learned was both troubling and inflammatory, though not terribly surprising. Here are Miss J’s words on the subject.
What I was NOT happy about was their reason behind doing it. Supposedly, the REAL reason was because they didn't feel a show with "educated" sounding black women would get ratings. Comments from the site that featured the story about this show being shelved included a few from black employees of VH-1.
Here is one quote: "I am the employee that leaked the information about the reason Vh1 turned down this reality show Interracial Love. It was told to the creators that this was not something Vh1 was looking to do right now and it did not fit with their network. The truth is that we was told to tell the creators this however that is not what was said behind closed doors. The truth is that this show does not fit the mold just as they said however they left out the part what also was said. This is word for word what was said, 'This is not a good fit for us here at Vh1 we are not interested in showing this family or black women in the positive light this show wants to. It is our thoughts that the viewers are more interested in seeing black people in a ghetto role. This show will not sell. Black women are looked at as being ghetto and not educated so we need to pass on this project.'”
I have always found Miss J to be a credible blogger, with insight and attention to detail. I have no doubt that the information on the VH-1 program is as reliable as is possible to determine. That is where I find a sadness and irritation. Not with Miss J, but VH-1 and Viacom it’s parent company.
Viacom seems to have the least understanding of and interest in African Americans, while at the same time a dedicated interest in profiting from this same target group. We are just a means of exploitation, as concluded by the actions of this public corporation. I don’t mean exploited like Nike targeting $150 sneakers to inner city teenagers with the concept that they will allow the kids to become professional basketball players or other athlete entertainers. I mean exploited as in the proliferation of gangsta rap music as the only option in the music genre, promoting drugs and violence.
Viacom owns VH-1 in addition to MTV and Black Entertainment Television (no connection to this blog). At each cable channel the main attempts to provide programming that directly attracts African Americans involves gansta rap, music video hoochies, drugs, violence, materialism, misogyny, lack of education, alcohol, and poverty. You might say where are those things happening? You didn’t see that, where did I?
Continued in Part 2...
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