Wednesday, November 28, 2007

where this blackgrrl stands, part one

so far, the nbc series african american women: where they stand has been a rousing disappointment. as i glimpse the black blogosphere, i'm thinking what everyone else is saying: why is this the last 2 or 3 minutes of the news? what -- cosby gets an hour on larry king to spew his idiocy about black people and we can't get an uninterrupted hour on dateline? why are they comparing black women to black men? is this about black women or not?

there's so much that they're not addressing, it's almost dizzying. here's my top three:

  1. the impact of slavery and how in many ways, we are still living through its aftermath
  2. the antebellum south, reconstruction and how that decimated us
  3. the drug explosion of the 60s and 70s, urban blight and ghetto miasma
and no, they're still not talking to me. consider this: college graduate, single, never married, no kids, yeah that's my life. but you know what? i was raised in a two parent home. as a matter of fact, my parents are still married and still living in the house i grew up in. i don't have weight issues. i don't have any health issues. i've never even had a cavity.

where's my tv special?

if we're accomplishing so much, why does all of this sound so negative, somehow? isn't it good that we're college graduates, that we're enterprising and self-sufficient and independent? why did the segment end with me feeling profoundly let down by everything they had to say?

get this, loud and clear: there are more women than men in college of every race -- period. why aren't we talking about what's wrong with white men and why there aren't as many of them in college as their female counterparts and what can we do to help them along? why has no one ever thrown that statistic up in the air?

more later.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Queen. We're having similiar discussion in our Electronic Village. On the one hand, it is nice to have the MSM (mainstream media) with any programming that is inclusive of African Americans. It may take them awhile to get it right.

peace, Villager

Queen Esther said...

you're quite right. it could take them awhile to get it right. unfortunately, i don't think we have that kind of time.

what i've seen so far makes me want to go out and get some kind of a camera and shoot documentaries about us for the rest of my life.

something has got to give.

Unknown said...

Queen, you spoke the words,

"...me want to go out and get some kind of a camera and shoot documentaries about us..."

Now that you've put it out there, you should follow-up to make it so.

Kujichagulia!
Villager

Francis Holland said...

I'm almost glad not to have access to that crap here in Brazil. I have the enviable position of being able to criticize it without actually having to sit through it.

Francis Holland said...

But, I still find myself sitting through too much of the Brazilian crap that is often not that much different. For example, on Afro-Brazilian Awareness day, the Jay Leno of Brazil, Joe Soares, had one African American guest on and she was an ex-prostitute recounting funning stories about her days as a prostitute. It'll take white culture long time to get this right all over the world.

Of course, our insistence that we are of a difference "race" makes it hard for white people to perceive us fundamentally as "people" at all.