Admittedly, I do have issues with PK. However, I would have still slammed the posting; besides a black VJ (JJ Johnson), MTV had Prince, Donna Summer, Pointer Sisters, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa in rotation in its first year. Admittedly it was mostly pale, but I would question the racism as MTV pretty much limited itself to rock in the first years, and either cutting edge music or proven stars; most black music at the time was gospel, R&B, and rpa, all three of which didn't have the wide appeal they do today. In fact, rap's market value was debated until Blondie hit #1 with Rapture (1981; one of the first videos on MTV and which arguably paved the way for the rap videos).
The "documented racism" is a joke when you look at how few groups were doing videos in the first place at that time, and most of them were European; even though
Video Concert Hall had been around for a bit, which featured a wide variety of music, it was only available in certain areas. In essence, they were being done by film students and promoters that knew that they had a hit. Usually, that didn't black musicians (of course, that changed quickly enough).
So, yeah. you can say that MTV was racist; however, it was due more to lack of product than the desire to block black artists...
[Oh, and Michael Jackson was a bad example; I apologize for him (he didn't debut on MTV until 1983). I also love that one essayist made an interesting point, considering the above list: Although MTV had had black artists on before (see the above list), he noted that Michael Jackson was the first black star. Listing Rick James was also in error; in their first year or two, MTV tried to avoid the really controversial artists (Rick James wasn't seen on a lot of screens until the mid-80's due to the suggestive nature" of his videos (MTV didn't really do anything to earn its rep until Madonna came into the picture in 1983). And listing Shiela E. was just wrong (she wasn't produced until 1983)...]
RG
](/images/smilies/bang.gif "Brick wall ](*,)")
