So Halle Berry and Tyler Perry have been tapped as the hosts of the NAACP Image Awards next February. Anybody excited yet? I didn’t think so. The ceremony will kick off the venerable organization’s 100-year anniversary. So now would be the time to make this award show have more grit and relevance. And not just be a forum where you’re nominated for an award just because you’re black or brown. How about you need to be a person of color and good, hell great?
Y’all it’s a new day and a President-Elect Obama will be in office when this show airs. So I am asking the NAACP to embrace the idea of change. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is already struggling to remain relevant to the Obama generation and younger and the way the award show has run has not raised their status one bit. I hate to say this but if they’re not careful the show will go the way of the Soul Train Awards where a lion’s share of the nominees fail to show up. It would be a shame to see that happen.
If the organization was forward-thinking, they’d use the opportunity to make a statement on the lack of diversity in television these days (or better yet the derivative roles that are often available to actors and actresses of color). Or how about how reality television portrays or casts our people? Who needs another award show? Everyone is bored by them all (large and small).
In fact, the awards don’t need to be televised at all. Instead, they could use that airtime to present some quality programming a la “NAACP Presents”. There is no reason we have to wait umpteen years for something like “A Raisin in the Sun” to be televised again, the organization could make strong black programming an annual event. And it wouldn’t always have to happen in February (or on cable). What a concept!
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