Coretta Scott-King, the iconic widow of slain civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was laid to rest on Tuesday. Coretta, as she has been so affectionately called furthered the cause of her husband after his untimely death and made sure to keep the struggle for civil rights at the forefront of American society.

You see, Coretta (she attained one name status long ago), was concerned about the direction of this country and hoped that progress and strides could be made to reach the elusive equality her husband fought and ultimately gave his life for.

Progress, hope, and optimism. That was Coretta.

It was for these reasons that CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel (!!!), broadcasted the funeral live for their viewers.

“You can find me in DC…” - Notorious B.I.G. “Kick In The Door”, 1997, Life After Death

Not on Tuesday you couldn’t.

Because BET decided “to offer a different experience for BET viewers.” (link via Poplicks)

Sometimes I feel as if I’m beating a dead horse here, or preaching to the choir, or kickin’ tires and lightin’ fires.

However, how is it that TVOne and the Black Family Channel (a station I didn’t even know existed), both stations catered to the “black experience”, would decide to broadcast the funeral but BET, the one station with the most reach, opts to run music videos.

And let’s be real, its BET, it isn’t as if they were running a political analysis of Bush’s budget proposal. They did run a 30-minute taped tribute later that night, but whoopty damn doo.

“If BET erred, we erred on the side of giving viewers a different choice… . We wanted people to have access to this wherever they were - at work, at home, traveling, at school. The online experience would give them that.”

No…you erred on the side of being yourself. It seems like they intentionally TRY to do things that are in direct conflict with what makes sense. I swear, if we ever elect a Black President…BET will probably decide to go to a country music format.

Non-sequitor? Clearly. That is BET in a nutshell.

So BET ran the funeral online.

By a show of hands, who here actually goes to BET’s website???

*crickets*

And excuse my fuckedupedness, but why would you? In fact, hold on one second…

*going to BET’s website to see what’s actually on there*

Umm…feel free to whistle while you twerk…er…work. Ah fuck it, it’s BET…that’s what you saw instead of the funeral anyway.

*back*

Just like I thought…there is no good reason to go to BET.com. It isn’t like there’s any news there or anything. News that affects black people. No, you can just go to BlackAmericaWeb for that…and even that isn’t all that stellar.

It’s strange, when I think of finding out what’s going on with black people in America, BET doesn’t even come onto the radar. Hell, they quit running “Day-Late-And-Dollar-Short” News last July. Apparently people still watch BET though…and I’m not shitting on anybody’s religion, but okay. However, deciding to run the feed on their site, largely a HAZMAT-like destination, and offer on their TV station videos and Burger King (guess that was close enough) commercials…which reaches a vastly larger audience, was…how do you young kids say this nowadays…

…oh yes…stupid as the fuck.

And the justification…even worse. I feel like they have the staff of chimps that the careerbuilder.com commercials are using, running shit.

And I’m not calling black people monkies. Plus, I’m not white…you can’t fire me.

To be fair ABC, NBC, and CBS all streamed the funeral on their website. And you know what, I’ll bet people watched it there…from work. I go to abc.com. I got to CNN.com at least 4 times a day. I watch TV on my computer ALL the time at work…while I’m, ya know, working.

“While acknowledging that BET “has not satisfied what every viewer would want” in regard to King’s funeral, the network provided “an informative, enriching experience,” (Michael) Lewellen says.

The experience won’t hurt BET’s image, he insists.”

You got that right, jack. In fact, I don’t even think anybody noticed. Or cared. Hell, I only found this out, after the fact. You can’t hurt an image that’s high point is BET:Uncut.

You just can’t.

I do however wonder about which “informative, enriching experience” he was speaking of. It’s BET…when was the last time you watched BET and you felt more informed or enlightened?

I’m well aware that BET is well within it’s rights to not show anything substantive on its station. And they exercise that right very well. In fact, I’d say they were tops in the industry at pointless programming intended to do nothing to further the cause of its intended audience…however…

…it’s Coretta.

An icon of not only Black, but American culture. Hell, four US presidents were there. Including the one “black” President we’ve had…President William “Slick Willie” Clinton.

And BET aired the Ying Yang Twins.

So, with that, I’d like to suggest that when the NAACP gets together to change their name (hopefully sometime before I die), BET also be invited to the Re-Naming Committee Board meeting and come up with something more appropriate.

Like, NUT. Nothing Useful Television.

At least that would be honest.

In other news, Kanye got robbed at the Grammy’s in the Album of The Year Category. I’ve heard U2’s album, it wasn’t that great. I just hope that this causes Kanye to once again, create an album that can’t be denied. Because at some point, the RIAA is going to have to acknowledge him.

And somebody tell Sly Stone that McDonald’s wants its Golden Arches back.