The punchline: “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens.”
Do you remember when Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios Networks, Inc. and the National Association of African-American Owned Media (NAAAOM) sued Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, and accused the organizations of locking out African descendant production companies from cable show licensing deals?
During that time, Allen pointed to Rev. Sharpton’s MSNBC primetime show host gig as a “chicken dinner payoff” when compared to the revenue and capital accumulation potential that’s been denied to TV production companies owned by people of color.
It looks like Allen’s point is shining brighter these days.
Rev. Sharpton’s chicken plate was snatched from him last September when MSNBC ended his daily Politics Nation show and then relegated him to to a weekly broadcast.
You can practically call the new meal a paper plate saucer of canned sardines with a side of saltines. Some of you will still love the flavor, but may still leave the table hungry.
MSNBC removed the chicken dinner table from Joy-Ann Reid about a year ago.
And now Dr. Melissa Harris Perry, an MSNBC host whose show has been preempted by special election coverage, may have read the clairvoyant scribblings on MSNBC’s menu chalkboard, which predicts doom — or lack of respect — for her time slot in Post-Post Racial, Post Obama America.
Therefore, she walked away, citing lack of editorial control.
Perhaps I’m wrong.
Perhaps MSNBC plans to remake its primetime architecture with Dr. Harris-Perry at its center.
For of you who want to believe in such Phoenix-like possibilities, I want you to reread what I wrote a few lines ago: “Post-Post Racial, Post-Obama America.”
I suppose you can hope that a reasonable amount of protest could result in Dr. Harris-Perry seeing more MSNBC air time.
Which takes me back to my joke: “What did the MSNBC newsroom say when (if) Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry returned to work?”
song currently stuck in my head: “symphony of factory sirens” – arseny avraamov
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