Let Us Draw A Line In The Sand Now

This is a deliberate, intentional show of contempt and disrespect. This demeaning slur of Michelle Obama was developed, approved and put on the air by the staff of Fox News. No one questioned it, no one said this is not appropriate, no one said "we should not do this".

Its a demonstration that Fox News and its advertisers hold African Americans in contempt. That Fox News and its advertisers consider us unworthy of respect. Michelle Obama is an Ivy League graduate, a mother and wife and an accomplished professional woman in her own right. To use the pejorative and demeaning "baby mama" label to describe her is an obvious racist slur and Fox News knows it.

A vigorous campaign of financial protest against Fox News and the brands of the advertisers who support it is clearly warranted and required. It is now amply and abundantly clear that if we do not begin taking concerted, sustained action to make clear that this kind of blatant racial insult cannot be delivered with impunity, we will be subjected to this over and over again.

If this is how some of the the best and the brightest among us will be casually demeaned, what can we, the average African American expect?

What About Our Daughters, Black Women Vote and Electronic Village among others have successfully led accountability campaigns. Jack & Jill paved the way for the necessary tactics with the Clinton Attacks Obama Wiki. I believe a similar archive that records the offense, the program and the advertisers associated with it is needed. We need to connect that archive to a mechanism for coordinated dissemination to the black community via the black blogging community, the black newspaper community and black radio of information about the brands that supported the offensive material so that our community can express its opinion to those brands, those brands can be exposed to the majority community and those brands can be held accountable.

If we are to have respect in the media, it is abundantly clear that we must build and maintain the capability to inflict severe and lasting damage to the brand of any corporation or advertiser which knowingly supports media programming that intentionally and knowingly insults African Americans. We have practiced this type of accountability already. We have the tools. We have the technology.

Let us draw the line in the sand now. Because this shit has got to be stopped.