Thursday, September 14, 2006

Momma, There's A Black Person on TV!

I remember my mom and dad talking about how when they were young, seeing a black person on tv was a neighborhood event.

They said everything would shut down, everyone would stop what they were doing, just to see that image of themselves on television.

In the 70s, 80s and early 90s, we had more black images on shows like The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show, A Different World, and City of Angels (yeah, the black medical drama with Vivica A. Fox and Blair Underwood.)

In the 2000's, we have music videos, music awards shows, reality shows about music or featuring former musical entertainers, and Girlfriends, which is my favorite show to survive the UPN changeover to the CW. (Girlfriend, by the way, is soooooo overlooked by the Emmy Awards... such a shame for such a good show to be ignored.)

So with very few black images on television these days, the whole Survivor experiment with teams based on race and ethnicity, might be an interesting thing to see tonight. Jasmyne Cannick shares her thoughts on her site today.

If you're black, you know that whole thing about rooting for the black person on The Price is Right or any other game show. I bet a whole lotta people will be drawn to Survivor for just the same reason tonight.

Hmmm.
fs

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