I just don't find the Huxtable family or the Fresh Prince's family to be realistic. Having blacks act like rich, snooty, stupid white people was an amusing concept for a while.
It's realistic, as there are millions who live just like that even if the majority don't. It's like that for all races though, so why focus on failure? What good is it to focus on those who have fallen? Focus on success, as that is what everyone does.
Think of Diff'rent Strokes, or Gimme a Break: two black children raised by a white millionaire; a white middle-class family with an obese black woman thrown in for comic relief?
Analogously, there is a debate going on in literary circles right now about a few publishing houses successfully reaching young black males; the stories are essentially melodramatic tales of the gangsta life.
Only half of black males are gangsters, and that half usually ends up in prison, drops out of school, and can't go to college due to the criminal record. I have compassion just as you do, but there is nothing we as a society of successful winners can do to help those who lose. Society is very unforgiving, so why focus on the losers when you can focus on helping the winners? Republican's have it right, if you focus on helping the winners, it creates a culture of success, if you focus on helping the losers you perpetuate a culture of failure. Kids who are in gangs, can be helped until they go to prison, and then it's too late. In general the best way to help keep kids out of gangs is to offer an alternative culture to the broken culture, and thats your job. The fresh prince, and the cosby show, these shows can show people how it's done. Tupac himself looked at these shows if you watched his documentary, and this is what motivated him to get into acting. It was the successful people who he saw on TV that made him want to be an entertainer.
Imagine if the flip-side was that the only other blacks in literature were in Harlequin romances, valued for their lack of inhibitions or long phalli. What would be needed, then, are authors like Alice Walker and Randall Kenan, who write tales that are more human in which the only reason to remember that the characters are black is to frame the cultural values in a way that somehow makes sense to any reader.
You are attempting to appeal to compassion, I can understand compassion, but compassion is not going to win you success. If you want to aim for success, highlight success, and emulate success. Why on earth do you want to highlight the ghetto, and slavery, this is not success. Highlight the people who got out of the ghetto either by working their way out (Cosby's biography), or focus on people who have through talent survived it (Tupac, Will Smith), why not focus on those who are strong? Why focus on those who are sinking?
If, for instance, there was no The Color Purple or Meridian, if there was no Let the Dead Bury the Dead, and the only fair treatment of blacks was, say, Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, how would blacks be viewed in a literary context?
I understand, but once again you are appealing to compassion. There is no compassion for black people in this country, you should have learned this from Katrina, so try to appeal to rationality. It's rational that successful people shall like successful people, compassionate or not, everyone respects Oprah, Bill Cosby, Barack Obama, Will Smith, Sean Combs, because these people have displayed rational success. Why not highlight the most successful and then encourage people of all races to look up to these people as heroes? Why focus all your energy helping people who are unable to help themselves or others? Once a person goes to prison, they don't get a second chance, it goes on their record, they can no longer get financial aid, or a legit job, the best they can do for work is security. If you want to help people of this sort, of this class/tribe, focus on guys like Suge Knight, or Tupac, and while most people are afraid of this sort, it's possible for soldiers to join the military, or start legit businesses, or be artists. Promote success.
The idea that we need more "real" black people on television is not one I would disagree with. There's a Family Guy joke in some episode or another about a television show called Mmm-Hmm, or some such, in which three black women sit around the kitchen table saying nothing but, "Mmm-hmm", and "Mmm-mmm!" and then we hear the canned laugh-track. Given how simplistic so many manifestations of racism are, it seems a difficult proposition to ask an artist to capitalize on the continued reinforcement of stereotypes. It is surprising to me to consider how much influence Eddie Murphy has had in white people's minds about how blacks live and function. Sure, the dick-in-the-sink bit was funny, but it's not the whole of black history.
Bill Cosby unlike Eddie Murphy, was what all men, of all races would want to be. He has no criminal record, he married and stayed married, he has a PHD, he's funny, and he is rich, basically he is a genius. Then you have guys like Tupac who came from nothing but managed to make movies, music, and poetry of the sort that would be considered genius. What I'm saying is, that there are geniuses, talented people, great people who are black who get ignored so that gangsta rap culture and people like 50 cent can raid the TV screen. 50 cent in my opinion has no talent, he can't act, his rapping is not as good as Tupac, he does not really seem to have any depth to his thoughts, even his name is ridiculous, 50 cent? His name makes him seem like half a man. This is an example of slave culture.
What about shows like Close to Home? In that, most of the criminals are white, the prosecutors are mostly white, and the prominent black face is an assistant to the white assistant whose cases the audience follows.
I like the wire, I like to watch realistic shows about the ghetto. The biggest mistake people seem to make is, people actually seem to think that black people in the ghetto want it to be a ghetto, or have no emotions. The truth is, black people want to get out of the ghetto just as much as a white person would, and black people fear the crime in the ghetto even more than a white person would, and no, black people don't like to live next door to criminals anymore than a white person would. Once people can see the full diversity of the personalities in the community, people can begin to grasp what really happens from a human point of view. Why does any human deserve to live in a ghetto? If a white person can see what the ghetto is like from say, Bill Cosbys eyes, Will Smiths eyes, 50 cents eyes, Tupacs eyes, and many other perspectives then finally people can begin to understand exactly the perspective. I think the wire is a good show because it shows this. I think gangsta rap, especially the rappers on TV all the time like 50 cent, make it seem like being shot all these times is a normal event, and something to brag about. People who get shot, usually get shot for a reason, and if a person is going to brag about getting shot it reveals their bad character. The average black person would not brag about being shot, the average black person would leave town and never come back after being shot, and likely would never discuss it.
Do we complain, then, that most of the criminals are white? What of the valiant white woman seeking justice with her valiant black assistant?
I don't care about the race of the criminals, all I'm saying is, race does not matter. Crime is a human problem, and in order to understand it, we have to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of people living in ghettos and among criminals. Some people live in fear, and the police work with the criminals in some cases to bully anyone who stands up. Fear is a human emotion, how many people would stand up to organized crime, white, black, doesnt matter.If a white person fears the black gang member, the black person fears the black gang member even more, because they get to live next to the person.
Does anyone have a complaint with, say, the episiode of CSI: Las Vegas in which the victim was Laotian, the killer was Laotian, and the laundry-facility boss who exploited them all was white? Is that multicultural enough?
My larger point, though, is that it really does depend on what you watch: the topic article seems to be viewing a narrow spectrum through polarized lenses.
As a general disclaimer, Missing Persons ... that one's Without a Trace. My bad.
