Randominity

Girl, you need to quit reading my mind. Because I've caught that show a few times, and I've been doing a ton of research about people of color on television for my race class.

I'm writing a paper on Af-Amer character stereotypes in prime-time drama, and "Black, White" was interesting for bringing out the real-life corresponding stereotypes. Funnily enough, every time I bring it up with people, the first words out of their mouths are "you do realize you're white? How do you expect to accurately portray a stereotype you've never experienced?". I think it's ridiculous to imply that I can't write a paper on race because I've "never experienced racism".

Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ! How do you think I got treated while I was still dating shadowofhissoul? How many times do you think I got bitched out by black/biracial women and told to "find a white guy"? How many stares do I get wandering around Cheltenham and taking the C bus at all hours because I'm white and I happen to work at Cedarbrook?

Ugh. I hate being pigeonholed. I hate being told I'm a certain race. I hate being yelled at for attempting to educate myself and others.

The first few eps were very much what I expected. I want to throttle Bruno 24/7.

I still do, but I'm learning to tune that out.

But, the last episode was actually not bad--at least in terms of the white family finally beginning to purchase a clue. Rose, the white daughter, really seems to have gone into it with the right attitude, and she's been ahead of her parents since the beginning.

I often find myself frustrated with the show's inability to articulate clearly some of what's really going on. I mean, there were the inevitable discussions about who is allowed to use what words, which of course is a conversation that we need to have (I think someone's comment elsewhere pointed out that a lot of the first episodes are devoted to racism 101, and I'd be really curious if a show made it to the air that was more like a 400 level course on race relations myself, but that's another rant for another day).

But where it got interesting was that Nick, the African American son, was hanging out with his etiquette class (I shit you not. They sent him to etiquette class in his white make up, and then Rose invited the class over to their house, and from Nick's room, the other kids started to figure it out, so Nick told them, and the white kids made such complete asses of themselves in their pitiful completely unfamiliar with day to day lived experiences with black folk attempts to "be black" (which seemed to all consist solely of behaviors they picked up as stereotypes from pop culture). At some point, someone used That Racially Charged Word, and Nick didn't call them on it. One of the white classmates did, and she said that she didn't want to hear it used, but the two white boys continued to use it, over and over, despite her protests, saying that if Nick didn't object she certainly shouldn't.

Now, there was a lot going on in that scene, and later Nick's dad took him to a black barbershop where his hair guy talked to him about why using that word or allowing white folks around you to use the word was totally inappropriate. And then Nick's parents (sans makeup) went with Nick(also sans makeup) to his etiquette class graduation, and the parents came over and loomed over the table and asked the kids why they thought it was okay.

You can imagine how that went.

At any rate, what struck me most was that the show only called on the reader to make sense of the finer points of the scene. Nobody ever talked about how a member of a marginalized group, when outnumbered, may not be comfortable trying to explain the finer political points of identity politics, especially when he or she just wants to fit in. Which is why those of us who aren't in whatever group are the ones who have to step in and say, no, it's not okay when you use that language--whether it's racially charged, or ethnically charged, or sexual orientationally charged . . .

I mean, I've been at those family gatherings, when some blowhard from the other side of the family (a Brunoesque blowhard) starts his preconceived rants about gay people this, and gay people that, and I get badgered over and over, and mostly I want to deck him or run away. And not a single person came to my rescue.

And when you're right in the middle of the emotion of the moment, if you're not used to it, it's hard to step outside that emotion and engage in a rational conversation, and my reading was that Nick just didn't want to engage in that discussion, so he let it go, hoping it would go away. But it didn't.

Because Nick's body language told me that he was uncomfortable with them using it, but that he didn't want to make a big deal. Or maybe that he didn't have the tools to do so. Or how quick the two white boys were to delight in being able to say it on camera, and how uncomfortable the white girl who objected was.

There was a complex discussion to be had there, but it wasn't had, because this is television, and complexity doesn't fit into neat segments between commerical breaks.

And the selection of the families seems to set up so much of the discussion. The muscician that Bruno went to see seemed so much more thoughtful in his responses to Bruno than the discussions that we've seen, and we got so little of their interaction, and I totally wanted to see more of that.

I saw the promos, and the makeup wasn't good enough to convince me of the premise.