Actress and Fox News commentator Stacey Dash doubles down on her statements about BET and Black history month earlier this week. She said:
We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration. If we don’t want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the [NAACP] Image Awards, where you are only awarded if you are black. If it were the other way around we would be up in arms. It’s a double standard. Just like there shouldn’t be a Black History Month. You know, we’re Americans, period. That’s it.
In a post on Patheos, Dash talks about her time working on the BET show The Game.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BAxhmSUqj02/
“My problem goes back to the notion that every area of life needs to break down exactly according to demographic ratios except in those areas in which black people have decided they want to have their own space,” Dash wrote. “I don’t have a problem with black people having their own space. I have a problem with the folks at BET absolutely freaking out when other institutions don’t match up to what they think is best.”
But what people seem to forget is that the Oscars is not an all-white space. The awards ceremony was integrated long before our society was. In fact, Hattie McDaniel was the first Black person to be nominated and to win an Oscar in 1939 during the height of segregation and racism in the United States.
Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge followed suit and were far more progressive than the rest of the country. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was breaking down racial barriers before anyone.
While the BET awards celebrate the accomplishments of Black entertainers, in its 16-year history, the awards show has included white entertainers. And in the 15 years since the awards were created, white artists, actors, technicians and entertainers of all races and ethnicities have been nominated and won BET Awards, according to the Washington Post.
Dash continues to say that “BET lies to American black people by telling them that the rest of America is racist, so stick close to your own kind. Anything that promotes segregation is bad!”
It may be important to mention that BET is controlled by Viacom. Even though there are Black faces in high spaces, the company is white-owned.
Black conservatives like Dash miss the point entirely: Black people didn’t create segregation. They didn’t introduce laws that would subjugate people based on race, inhibit interracial marriage, prohibit the sharing of public spaces, etc. Black people created their own spaces to avoid dying, to celebrate themselves and feed themselves in systematic oppression.
That was Robert L. Johnson’s intention when he created the network in the 1980s.
What is funny is that Dash has utilized those all-Black spaces she has condemned. The Black TV networks and magazines. Journalist Roland S. Martin points out the outright ridiculousness of her argument.
When @TheGameBET premiered on @BET in 2011 @REALStaceyDash, it did so to 7.7 MILLION viewers, almost 3 times as many than @TheCW #Factless
— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) January 22, 2016
This is the ULTIMATE @REALStaceyDash magazine cover! A Black magazine called Pride. *mic dropped* #ByeFelicia pic.twitter.com/wBfrpuLqeO
— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) January 20, 2016
https://twitter.com/rolandsmartin/status/689879083816226816/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Dash has been in all-Black spaces for the majority of her career, but now that she is with Fox News, they are a problem.
