F YOU'RE lucky, you missed getting a bloody e-mail promoting Ashanti's new single, "The Way That I Love You." It was disturbingly violent and, given the homicide rate plaguing many American cities, it was in unbelievably bad taste.

Some kook dreamed up the idea of sending an e-mail blast of customizable e-cards to hype the R&B singer's ballad about a relationship gone awry. Called a Gotcha Gram, the video was done in the form of a fake TV news report alleging that Ashanti's killing of a cheating boyfriend had sparked a wave of copycat murders.

Here's where it got even more macabre. Recipients of the card had the option of adding the names of their own cheating lovers, which could be written on a bathroom wall in what looked like blood. You could even upload a picture of yourself to show that you were under investigation for the murder. Recipients also got to decide how their cheating lover would be killed. That's where the gotcha part came in.

What I'd like to know is: Where is Universal Music's moral compass? Ashanti is a beautiful singer who appeals to young listeners who essentially are being given the message that if your lover cheats, you seek revenge by killing them. It doesn't matter if it was done as a parody or in jest. The irony gets lost in the mess of all that dripping blood and butcher-knife imagery. And by the way, the song isn't violent at all. That's what made the video even stranger.

Needless to say, it didn't take long before thinking folks who got this disturbing promotion started howling in protest. A nonprofit organization called Industry Ears, which was started by a former BET programmer, threatened to demonstrate during Ashanti's singing of the National Anthem during the NBA Finals. That, apparently, cooled Universal's interest in continuing this viral marketing campaign.

"It does go to show you that when you do push back against the corporate entities, that you can make a difference," said Lisa Fager Bediako, a communications-industry veteran who co-founded Industry Ears to fight against just these types of negative images. "As soon as we said we're going to mess with your bottom line by going to the NBA Final five game, that's when we got a response."

I'm relaying the Ashanti saga as a reminder that consumers do have power in terms of what's being pushed at us on TV, the radio and elsewhere. A lot of times, people click past in disgust when they catch glimpses of negative imagery on television, partly because people are wrapped up in their own worlds but also because folks don't know what else to do.

A recent study conducted for Radio One by Yankelovich, the North Carolina-based research firm, revealed that most African-Americans are dissatisfied with the way they're portrayed in the media. Most say that they don't relate to the way blacks appear on most black TV shows. Roughly 40 percent say that most television reinforces negative stereotypes about blacks. Only 29 percent of those surveyed feel that they're getting a fair shake from the media.

"Twenty years ago, 'The Cosby Show' was Number 1 on TV," said Paul Porter, former BET programmer and a co-founder of Industry Ears. "Twenty years later, the Number 1 African-American show is 'Flavor of Love.' . . . Someone taking a poop on the floor on the 'Flavor of Love.' Why is this accepted in mainstream TV?"

A former radio personality, Porter became an activist when a 12-year-old at a school where he was volunteering asked for help regarding a rap song by Rah Digga called "Beat that B---- with a Bat." Her father had assaulted her mother with a baseball bat.

" 'Mr. Paul, can you get this song off the radio? Every time they play this record, the kids keep saying it to me,' she complained," Porter recalled. "I told her, 'Look, I'm going to get this record off the radio.' Ever since, I decided to see what I could do."

These days, he focuses his ire on shows such as BET's "106 and Park" and "Rap City," both notorious for spotlighting music videos with imagery that's harmful to young minds. He also lectures parents about code words in songs such as Lil Wayne's "Lollipop," which Porter says is about oral sex, and does what he can to spread the word that consumers don't have to passively accept what's presented to them as entertainment. "The real crisis is that black folks are dying and we see all this stuff going on in the streets and we're asleep at the wheel," he said. Industry Ears - www.industry [1] ears.org - is one tool that can help wake folks up. *