Rousing East-Siders, Group Protests Media Depictions of Minorities

If you live in the east 60's and you like sleeping in on Saturday mornings -- too bad.

For the third Saturday in a row, locals were awoken by the shouts of protesters outside the E.65th street mansion of Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman. The group, which calls itself the Campaign for Corporate Responsibility in Entertainment, wants to change the way media companies portray black and Latino men and women in music videos , T.V, and movies. It's calling for media companies like Viacom to adopt universal standards prohibiting lyrical or visual content that is degrading, promotes violence, and stereotypes black and Latino men as hoodlums and thugs, and women as promiscuous. Sample slogan: "BET does not reflect me!"

"We're not a censorship group," Pastor De'Quincy M. Hentz of the Shiloh Baptist Church in New Rochelle, a leader of the campaign, told Media Mob. "We're all about free speech, and we believe that there are many people out their that have positive messages about the men and women of our community, and those are the messages that are being censored, by media companies that only allow negative messages about us to get out."

"I'm not a bitch or a whore!," cried one young woman. "And I'm tired of being portrayed as one!"

You can say one thing for all that noise: it sure got our attention.