BET's 'Hot Ghetto Mess' dubbed racist, elistist

The brouhaha leading up to Wednesday night's BET's "Hot Ghetto Mess" debut found African-American media watchers unified in their criticism of the program as racist and elitist.

The day after HGM, or as its been renamed, "We Got To Do Better," aired, viewers roundly criticized the program as confirming their worst fears.

"When it was over, I asked myself, 'Is it as bad as you thought it would be?' My answer is, 'It was outrageously worse than I thought it would be," said Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq., National Chair, National Congress of Black Women, Inc. "As a matter of fact, it was downright vicious. It was an assault on the soul, the whole being of Black people."

The creators of "We Got to Do Better," which is based on the Web site hotghettomess.com, were obviously tentative about airing the program in light of the Internet protests lead by Austin-based attorney Gina McCauley and her blog, "What About Our Daughters?" Her activism spurred at least two major advertisers to pull out of the BET program and Web site promotions.

"BET should cut me a check!" said McCauley after viewing the show and posting several updates on her blog. "The irony is that this should have been BET's shining hour, millions of people who normally don't watch were watching and when their moment came, they put on a really bad show. It's not original programming if it is made up of YouTube Clips we have already seen."

When "We Got to Do Better" initially aired on Wednesday night, it was virtually without commercial interruption. All commercial breaks were filled with BET promotions, one Chrysler ad and three commercials for the upcoming movie, "Whose Your Caddy." Ironically, "Caddy" is the inaugural release from former BET owner Bob Johnson's film company, Our Stories Films.

In an exclusive interview with EUR published Thursday, Johnson called the fallout surrounding the show a "knee-jerk reaction that has a chilling effect on creativity."

"All of a sudden, creative people who want to tell stories or produce shows like 'Hot Ghetto Mess' are saying, 'I don't want to work on BET because they can't be doing anything that's innovative or pushes the envelope," he said. "I think that would be detrimental to creativity. I think it would be detrimental to the Black community in allowing us to mature and let a lot of voices be heard."

Williams countered saying that neither the show nor its proposed message of positive enlightenment provided a clear understanding of the concerns of the African-American community.

"Now, just think of all the progress Black people have made in spite of the greatest of odds, and in a 30 minute BET program called 'We Got to Do Better,' all Black people were reduced to rubbish. There was not an ounce of balance in the program. It had no redeeming value. In fact, if there had been television during Hitler's time, it was the kind of show the Nazis would have used to portray the Jews—because they were intent upon destroying them."

While BET changed the show's name, its host, Charlie Murphy, continued to refer to it as "Hot Ghetto Mess." There were efforts at showing both Blacks and whites in similarly socially challenging behavior, but AP's Nekesa Mumbi Moody summarized that "The show was racially balanced — and equally unfunny — on all levels."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.