Open Letter to Rainbow Push and the National Congress of Black Women

I publicized your protests of the Viacom annual meeting and when one of the visitors to my blog asked me what happened following the protest, my research indicates nothing happened . In fact Ron Allen of NBC said that you were “drowned out.” I call on your organizations to approach the top five advertisers for Viacom and appeal to those advertisers to pull their advertising from all Viacom networks, including BET. Viacom has no incentive to change its policies and programming until they have an economic reason for doing so. Imus isn't off the air because MSNBC and CBS Radio were good corporate citizens, but because his advertisers bailed. How long do you think it would take for Viacom to see the error of its ways if Proctor & Gamble pulled all of the ads on Viacom networks?

I publicized your effort despite the fact that a month ago, I e-mailed both of your organizations to alert you to disparaging comments that the comedian DL Hughley made about the women of Rutgers during his appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I provided you with links to the video clips of Mr. Hughley’s comments. I didn’t receive any response from either of your organizations, not even an automated e-mail indicating my e-mail was received. The only organization to respond was the National Action Network, and that was only after serious prodding from readers of my blog, What About Our Daughters, where we ran “Sharpton Watch” until he responded. I didn’t bestow one of my blog “watches” on your organizations at the time, but I am going to rethink that decision in light of the Mr. Allen’s description of your protests at the Viacom meeting.

We don’t want to start our own organization. We don’t need another organization when there are perfectly good organizations with the resources and institutional knowledge to be effective in combating negative portrayals of African American women in popular culture. Multiple organizations would be wasteful. Therefore, I am content to publicize the efforts of organizations already in existence, however, I have to wonder if the National Congress of Black Women and Rainbow Push aren’t merely exploiting the current attention on the issue of the degradation of Black women for additional exposure and increased membership dues and corporate donations.

If you are going to hold yourselves out as championing the cause of combating negative portrayals of African American women in popular culture, I think you have an obligation to do so in an efficient and effective ways. The assault on the images of Black women is far to damaging to engage vanity protests when what we need is meaningful activism. We hope you will aim your efforts towards advertisers instead of media companies. After two decades of going after Time Warner and Viacom, isn’t it time to change tactics?

Terribly disappointed,

Gina
WhatAboutOurDaughters.Org
“Combating negative portrayals of African American women in popular culture.”