Michael Jackson Television

Okay, I know I'm supposed to be working, but I just had to comment on that Fox show Black. White.

If I wanted to talk about how ridiculous it was, I wouldn't know where to start, and I'd be here the whole damn day.

So instead, I'll pick apart MSN's review of the show. It will simplify things.

The first thing I take issue with is this statement:

"Black.White." proceeds with open-minded seriousness as it leads viewers to a conclusion both obvious and powerful: race counts, for better and worse. Expressions of racism and racial identity change, but that bedrock truth remains."

First of all, how can it proceed with "open-minded seriousness" if it is leading viewers to an obvious and powerful conclusion? There is no open mindedness when you've arrived in advance at the "bedrock truth."

R.J. Cutler, the show's producer said, "I didn't realize how genuinely different an experience it is to be a white American and a black American."

Is that douchebag fucking serious? There would be an even lesser point than there already is to this show if he thought experiences between blacks and whites weren't genuinely different.

The next thing I take issue with is this precious tidbit: "The series' timing is notable, with race brought into renewed focus by Hurricane Katrina and the disproportionate suffering it caused for blacks in New Orleans. But "Black.White." was conceived before the hurricane, Landgraf said."

Actually, I have two problems with this statement. First the disproportionate suffering of blacks in New Orleans is due to the fact that there were a disproportionate number of blacks in New Orleans. But the actual death toll tells a different story. The black population of the city was around 67% before the storm. The white population stood at 28%. Yet the ratio of black deaths to white according to the vital statistics of the Louisiana governors' office is 48% 41%. It isn't particularly relevant to the show, but it's just one issue that proves there is no honest discussion about race no matter how you spray paint people.

The other issue I have with this statement is minor, but it irritates me. It says the series timing is notable because race issues have been brought into focus by the hurricane, but the idea was conceived before the hurricane. What does that have to do with timing? You can conceive an idea any old time, but inflicting on the public at large takes precision.

And the last issue I have is with Larry E. Davis, director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center on Race and Social Problems. He says the program "will bring (issues of race) into a context and a time frame and a reality that a new generation can comprehend, can relate to and understand," The goal is to "keep hammering away, hammering [a]way, hammering away at the problem."

Ugh. If the goal is to keep hammering away, then I have a headache. Can't people be left alone by the media to enjoy each others' company without having it analyzed and dissected into little pieces? I'm convinced most race issues wouldn't be issues if an exceedingly lazy press would actually investigate something important and quit "hammering away" at ordinary people who just want to live in peace. It opens racial wounds where there weren't any before and it gives people reason to distrust each other. I know the media thrives on one segment of the population's distrust of another, but please. This is at our expense.

And could they have gotten a more bizarre white family? The worst aspect of them (among many) is that they consider themselves liberal. This promulgates the unfortunate thought that if "liberals" are this ignorant, think how bad conservatives must be.

Most people I know, conservative, liberal or otherwise, are not prejudiced or if they are, it can be broken down almost immediately as long as you don't give them a reason to think otherwise. And seeing how inadvertent prejudice is impossible to eliminate, it seems like a pretty good place to be.

And that's pretty much how I see the race issue. If you are an ignorant fool who enjoys offending or taking offense, then I do not care to be in your company. Skin color is irrelevant. Same for friendship. But I admit that I tend to value my non-white friendships just a little more because it wasn't that long ago that it might have been very difficult to have them. But this results from gratitude for my friends, not from a hatred or dislike of my of my own race.

What baffled me about this program was the blindness of the white family. They don't seem to have any inkling that the white race is being judged by their example and even worse, that they are being looked upon in spite of their liberalism, as ignorant racists.

So if the intention of this show is to give whites a taste of their own (supposed) medicine, in that every time you see the white people, you want to scream "Nooooooooo! We're not all like that!" then it is working just fine.

If the intention is to open an honest dialogue about race relations, it fails spectacularly.

But maybe I am looking at race issues through the Houston spectrum and perhaps it isn't exactly honest. I mean, there are so many different racial mixes here, that if you were to discriminate on the basis of race, you would find yourself a very lonely person.

But as far as this program is concerned, the conclusion has already been reached. Case closed. Whites do not like blacks and that is the bedrock truth.