Thursday, April 21, 2011

Turn That TV OFF!




Roughly six months ago, I blogged that we need to turn off Reality TV garbage and start paying more attention to our political and economic reality.

And judging by the feedback, you'd thought I said kidnap and duct tape grandma. One nasty e-mail stated, how dare I mess with their guilty pleasure - well read the following:

See Link - TV

Blacks ages 18 to 49, the data show, have been TV-ing it at a record-setting pace - on average clocking in a whopping 7 hours and 12 minutes a day.

That's more than two hours per day above the national rate of 5 hours and 11 minutes, and just shy of four hours per day more than the amount of TV watched by Asian-Americans, who clock in a relatively meager 3 hours and 14 minutes a day.


Read on:

This isn't trivial. While so many of us in the black community decry the state of our still-separate-and-unequal public educational system, which doubtless needs improving, and while we blame overcrowded classrooms or uninspired teachers for failing to prepare a large quantity of our children for competitive college careers, we tend to overlook the reality that there are very simple - and painfully obvious - things we can do in our own homes to improve our children's chances for success.

The national African-American high school graduation rate hovers somewhere around 50%. What if for two of those seven hours of daily television consumption, more black parents chose to read stories to their children at night? What if for two of those seven hours per day, more African-American students chose to study vocabulary or work through extra arithmetic problems?

That would only be bringing black America's television viewing habits in line with the national average. What if the number were chiseled down to rival that of the typical Asian household? Is that so terribly far-fetched a goal?


I could not agree more with the author. Turn that damn TV OFF! Pretty please...

4 comments:

  1. Comment by JEFF TURNER 41 Comment
    We all need to watch less TV, it is mostly worthless..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Comment by Yolanda Comment

    Yes, turn that Tell-A-Vision Off....that's the Beast!!!..

    ReplyDelete
  3. may god continue to bless u in every special way....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for all of your analysis

    ReplyDelete