First, the idea that there is only one essential way of being black is incredibly problematic. The sad thing is that they think of themselves and bill themselves as a modern day Cosby Show. The amazing thing that shows like the Cosby Show and A Different World was that they showed the incredible diversity of African Americans. They showed our humanity and how just like every other group of human beings, we are influenced in our personal development by not only our racial identifiers, but also by our socio-economic, educational, geographic, religious and familial realities. What Black-ish misses and what those shows embraced, is that one of the primary things that unite black people is this country is that regardless of socio-economic status, skin complexion and other life choices, black folks in America have a shared history and current reality of struggling against stereotypes, institutional and legislative racism, and continued barriers precisely because we continue to be judged by the color of our skin, more than by the content of our character and the uniqueness of our journey. Black-ish serves to validate the stereotypes that keeping it real means that all black people play the same sports, live in one type of neighborhood or that fried, fried chicken is a black thing, rather than perhaps a southern thing. It questions whether the bi-racial mother is really black at all. Who gets to decide that? The sad thing is that the producers, writers and actors seem to miss is that it is not fried chicken or playing basketball that defines who 10 million diverse black people are.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 00:21:55 +0000
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