>>The problem that you and Suave Bro are having, is that you
>>don't realize that black people are not monolithic.
>
>- see there you all go again puting peoples opinions on a
>message board before real world events - if what you just
>typed out is true, it would reflect in the market. allow me to
>break it down for you in the most simple way i know how...if u
>put 20 black folks in a room and 17 of them want to see UPN,
>SoulPlane, listen to ying yang twinz and lil john and the
>other 3 want to watch Hotel Rwanda, listen to BlackStar and
>dead prez, want to go to the poetry sessions and protest and
>march etc., those 3 are simply SOL when it comes to the media!
>what station/media outlet can survive by simply catering to 4%
>of a population?

How old are these people?

I know my parents and their friends (black parents and elders have more money than the children they support) don't want to watch UPN and the like.

So if you're coming up with an ad for "Swiffer", and you want to show it on Gospel Sunday on BET, do you call in Slim Thug to do the voice over? Do you call in Mos Def? Obviously not. You get Claire Huxtable or Lynn Whitfield, or someone that the people with the money identify with.

I see you trying to box black people into a box, but I actually know black people, and don't exist in some sort of fake racially distorted vaccuum in which every black person is represented on the videos shown for 106 and Park.

>>I guess that comes from looking @ black issues from white
>>eyes, and thinking that there can only be 1 way to look at
>>it.
>
>- once again, that is simply your frustration talking - hell,
>you wouldnt be debating anything if what we were saying wasn't
>true.

Actually, anytime I see people make dumb arguments I have to stifle myself to not comment on them.

I know tons of black folks, from criminals I work with, to their church going grand parents who pay their legal fees. I know teachers, lawyers, mechanics, unemployed mf's, homeless cats....

Blackness is diverse.
To think otherwise is to close your eyes from the way of the world.

>>As to Suave, the sheer fact that Bill Cosby's attitude
>towards
>>lots of issues in black american life is shared by nearly a
>>majority of black folks, should tell us all that it's very
>>difficult to figure out what black people are about - and
>that
>>it;s silly to generalize in this context.
>
>- well an overwhelming majority of black folks that agree with
>cosby are OLDER than my generation. anybody that knows
>anything about the media knows that it has to cater to the
>group that spends/GENERATES the most money and thats
>teenagers/young folks.

Actually, what marketers want is to attract young people who have oodles and oodles of disposable income.

But if you stay on the topic and look @ the products that pulphustler was trying to promote, your generation is not going out in droves to scoop up some koolaid.

So you really have to distort what is being discussed in order to arrive at your foregone conclusion.

look @ BET, they have gotten rid of ALL
>of their programming for "adults" because teenagers watching
>the bullshit boosts those ratings and im not mad @ them,
>ratings are the ONLY thing in the television industry. this
>isnt 1995...

And you know this because you sat in on the Viacom BET meetings, which were of course open to the public.

>>The article however goes out of its way to show how much
>white
>>industry, in this case advertising, is unwilling to
>>acknowledge the diversity of black, insists on obvious (ie
>>stereotypical black cues), and only if it's consistent with
>a
>>white understanding of blackness.
>
>- once again, u are waiting on an outside influence to "help
>us out"...your frustration and whining stems from the fact
>that black folks are complacent and apathetic towards this
>"problem" which they dont see as a problem at all.

Actually I'm not waiting on anything.

What is going to change the minds of black people, the ones you're talking about, about how they want to live their lives is not going to come from Madison Avenue.

It doesn't come from Church, cause half the mf'ers out getting drunk and fucking on Saturday night, clean up for Sunday morning.

It doesn't come from school, cause we've seen how much those things have been an abysmal failure.

It's certainly not popular media, cause black people as a whole didn't suddenly start making moves when PE was running the airwaves.

Life is far more complex than that.

There's no one domino to tip over, an everything falls into place.

You keep stressing personal responsibility, but you fail to see how little value PR is to folks who are still stuck in the same environment.

The good kid still goes to poor schools and might catch a stray.
Those same good kids go to college and can't compete with their suburban counterparts.
The suburban black kids get tracked into sports and music and not math and science.

And their 'educated" parents encourage lil Darnell to run track, and not run the debate team.

I could go on and on, but whatever problem you want to talk about, has lots and lots of factors - none of which lead to some sort of clear solution, that "if only black people did...."

The thing is black people are doing that shit, in millions, and it's not getting them anywhere.

now what?
k. orr