CBS’s “60 minutes” rebroadcast a piece last Sunday on the tendency of some African American communities to frown on snitching to police. 

It noted a perverse (my word) code of honor that says you don’t tell, even on known violent criminals — especially on known violent criminals — a code reinforced by rappers in real life and in their music.

The piece also mentioned a reality series by Black Entertainment Television that focuses on the days leading to the incarceration of the rapper, Lil’ Kim, who did time behind bars on perjury charges related to a shooting.

The tag line for the show, “Lil’ Kim: Countdown to Lockdown”: “She’s going to prison with her mouth shut and her head held high.”

BET is run by a former Greensboro resident, Debra L. Lee, a super-successful and intelligent Harvard Law grad who was handed the reins of the network by Charlotte Bobcats owner Robert Johnson, BET’s founder.

She can do better than this and in a column I wrote last year that I hoped she would.

Fat chance.

The National Association of Black Journalists last week awarded BET “Thumbs-Down” recognition for its “its depiction of black images in the media, lack of news and public affairs and the network’s neglect to broadcast the funeral of civil rights icon Coretta Scott King in 2006.”

A more recent concoction of bad taste, “Hot Ghetto Mess,” did not exist when the dubious BET award was determined. Too bad. The network might have gotten two thumbs down, eight additional fingers and a pair of toes.

In the wake of blistering criticism (ya think?) BET has changed the name of “Hot Ghetto Mess,” to “We’ Got To Do Better.”

Lipstick and a touch of mascara on a pig.

The new series, says the Hollywood Reporter, is a compilation of viewer-submitted home videos and BET-produced man-on-the-street segments that show African Americans “in unflattering situations that typically illustrate the excesses of so-called hip-hop culture.”

BET contends it’s a way of pointing out through comedy how destructive and foolish these excesses can be. Yeah right.

BET doesn’t stop there.

Not content merely to offend, the network has chosen to shock and awe our sensibilities with an alleged PSA that encourages viewers to read a book — as in “read a mother-blankin’ book, nigga.”

Lee, a Dudley High graduate and a mother, is not putting her considerable talent and intelligence to good use.

I bet she wouldn’t show this stuff to her own kids.

She’s got to do better.