If you’ve been reading the Boondocks newspaper strips for any length of time now, or watching the cartoon series on Cartoon Network’s limp-wristed adults-only block Adult Swim, you’ll know that Aaron McGruder loves to take on BET. So it should come as no surprise that McGruder’s Boondocks cartoon included a couple episodes that took swipes at BET and founder Bob Johnson.

What may come as a surprise is that these episodes were never aired.

Turner Broadcasting pulled the episodes following threats of legal action by BET, but these two episodes are to be included on DVD box sets being released June 10th. This of course makes me wonder if BET’s still planning to sue… but anyway, I’m pretty upset about all this. Maybe McGruder’s commentary hits pretty close to the mark if BET is willing to go to court over it… or maybe BET top brass just can’t take the heat.

Included in these episodes was a sequence in which current chairman / CEO Debra L. Lee—her cartoon equivalent was named “Dr. Leevil”—announced before a board meeting:

“Our leader Bob Johnson had a dream, a dream that would accomplish what hundreds of years of slavery, Jim Crow and malt liquor could not accomplish—the destruction of black people.”

Strong words from McGruder, Ms. Lee…but when you refuse to address these words and resort to legal action to silence them, you don’t help your case very much.

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