#Progress
I finally decided to sit down and give Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire a shot. Being a television junkie, it was weird for people to hear
that I didn’t watch two of the most popular shows. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. I watched a few episodes of both when they originally
aired. A few reasons made me stop
watching each show but only one was shared between the two… My Blackness. Watching the period pieces of Mad Men and Boardwalk,
which took place in the 1920’s and 1960’s respectively, once again exposed me to
images of stark and unapologetic racism.
Racism has and unfortunately will always be an emotional subject for me
and I chose not to volunteer to put myself in a bad mood when I wanted to watch
some television. Since binging on
my Netflix and DVR, I’m still trying to get into Don (a bit slow) and I got a
bit hooked on Nucky (now waiting for Season 3) but both required a concerted
effort to ignore the pain and simply enjoy it as entertainment.
An experience that I recently had while watching the Tonight Show had the complete opposite
effect. Episode 11 of Season 20 or
as I like to call it, “the best Leno show ever”, had Jay Leno first sitting
down with Michelle Obama and then later, Gabby Douglas. Now having black people on late night
TV isn’t a new concept but more than likely, they are promoting a movie or are
the night’s musical act. Not that
there’s anything wrong per se but it gets a bit exhausting having to deal with
the same stereotypes over and over again.
Watching these two “non-stereotypical” black women was without question
a breath of fresh air and a much-needed example of progress. Michelle embodies the concept of
smashing the glass ceiling and Gabby gives us a reason to have hope for our
next generation.
It’s impossible not to juxtapose what I experienced watching
those two shows with what I witnessed on that Late Night couch. The
images of those fictional black characters and of those very real black women
are now etched in my mind forever.
We as a country and a people have come a very, very long way and it must
be acknowledged. There’s no way that
I see what I saw the other night without legitimate progress. I’m not saying there’s no racial
inequality but I refuse to act as if it’s 60 years ago where my ceiling is
relegated to “the help” and I could be referred to as “boy”. It’s time we (and by “we” I am
specifically talking to people in the black community) put more of an effort to
look through the windshield rather than the rearview mirror. If a true injustice occurs, then focus
all of your attention there but the word “injustice” cannot have infinite
interpretations. (Just to clarify:
I’m for Trayvon Martin demonstrations but against protesting a Mary J. Blige
fast food commercial.)
The past will always be there and there’s no realistic way
to avoid it. You cannot accurately
re-tell the past through art or academics without giving weight to the good and
the bad, but I realized that being alive to see a black man get elected
President and watching Americans like Oprah Winfrey transcend her skin color,
makes it easier to stomach the negativity. Progress is definitely the medicine to heal these types of
wounds. Television’s most valuable
television franchise had a comedian who was the host, the First Lady of the
United States and a 2-time Olympic Gold medalist and American hero. The fact that two of the three of these
people were black is noteworthy.
However, the fact that neither of them were the comedian is why I wrote
this post.
Check out the interviews here.
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