Ok, most of us have had the opportunity to view or, at least, hear about BET’s new Television show The Quad. BET describes the show as…

“The Quad takes viewers inside the culture-rich world of Georgia A&M, where newly elected president Dr. Eva Fletcher has her hands full managing a modern-day HBCU and its entering freshman class. As she juggles those demanding responsibilities — and a messy personal life — her rebellious daughter Sydney tries to make her mark on campus. She’s an up-and-coming rap artist, who leads the first-year students along with Bojohn, the school’s first white starting quarterback. Eva’s allies include history department Dean Ella Grace and football coach Eugene Hardwick. Eva must learn to deal with Art Diamond, the charismatic yet ruthless head of Georgia A&M’s prestigious marching band.”

From reading this press release it was obvious to me that this show was going to be drama filled and basically equal in quality to the rest of “Black Media” or “Reality” Shows of today. I wasn’t expecting anything close to my personal HBCU experience to be revealed in any real way. But for some reason most of the folks on my timeline wanted this show to be a documentary on all that is heavenly about HBCUs and to deliver Drumline 3 for the band heads… Well the band heads should know better by now! We have had to deal with Drumline 1&2! We should have known that the band director, band members, band anything was going to be wrong as sin and not anything close to being real… Yet here we are complaining about all the musical in accuracies, made up unrealistic hazing scenarios, and petty mess that does not happen (ok, maybe some of it happens) in HBCU band programs. BUT… It’s not completely our fault because BET advertised this show as “The Real HBCU Experience”. It was a set up from the beginning… Everyone who fell in love with BET because of their broadcast of The New Edition Story,  was anxiously awaiting The Quad and expecting the same pinpoint accuracy. It didn’t help that BET was doing stuff like this either:  http://gamurecruitment.org/ They really had people thinking GAMU was a real school in the weeks leading up to the premiere! LOL! So of course people would expect the dial to tip more towards reality than the usual corporate executive’s depiction of Black Culture… But it was exactly the latter, once again. So who should we blame?… BET for doing exactly what VH1, MTV, Lifetime, or any of the other channels are doing?… Or ourselves for falling for it… AGAIN! 

Then this happened!…

Hampton President Slams ‘The Quad’ in Letter to BET President

“Devoid of any reference to academics, The Quad is about a president who is promiscuous, trustees who are unwilling to deal with a rogue band director, and a band director who condones criminal activity on the part of his drum major,” Dr. Harvey wrote. “The Quad will lead many to believe that HBCUs exist because of their marching bands; that our presidents are unethical; that our boards are dysfunctional and have misplaced priorities; that our faculty, students and administrators are driven by sex, alcohol, marijuana, low self-esteem, parties and a preoccupation with music; that it is acceptable to disrespect women; that university policy can be set by a band director; and that there are no standards of conduct or penalties for bad behavior. This depiction seems more analogous to a disgruntled, adolescent and unrealistic point of view that some may have. It also feeds a false narrative about the irrelevance of HBCUs.” – Dr. William R. Harvey

You may remember Dr Harvey from here:

Hampton University’s Harvey supports Talladega College’s performance at Trump inauguration

This is where I’d sip some tea if I had a cup…

So  we all know the controversy that stemmed from the Talladega Band’s participation in the Trump Parade. And many of you lit up timelines for days on just how much you disagreed with their participation and how much you were in support of Howard University, several of the DC area High Schools, and schools from around the country that decided not to participate in the parade. So with that being said, here is my question…

Does Dr Harvey lose credibility with his argument against BET? He cited a concern with the promotion of sex and disrespect to women, among other things, within the show. Some have noted that Dr Harvey said nothing against the past comments made by President Trump that promote sex and disrespect to women. They feel that his support of the Talladega College Band’s participation in the Inauguration of President Trump is promoting those same things he blames BET for promoting. What do you say?