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I must say, I was glad to see a major national news network, CNN run a series, CNN Presents Black in America about the modern lives & struggles of Black families in America. Soledad O'Brien contrasted the disparities as well as the striking similarities between the have's and have nots of Black America. As a bi-racial American, she was the perfect face & moderator for this expose, fitting though since CNN (which I've had the pleasure of touring) is based in one of America's most prosperous Black metropolitan areas, Atlanta.
Let's be real about it though, this series did not teach Black people anything that we didn't know already. Re: Black women--we already know that single mothers and the economic & social struggles they and their families face are one of the most storied representations of the Black experience, HIV/AIDS is prevalent among our women b/c they are faced with lack of preventive care, stigma in the community & lack of support from the church, plus many don't know that they are carriers of the disease. Hypertension, diabetes & heart disease run rampant due to a health care system which is inadequate to meet the needs of poor non-payers, most of whom must go to the emergency room as their only (reactive) health care option. Yes, we already know that Black women are starting to date outside their race to compensate for the lack of educated brothers due to disproportionate incarceration rates among Black men (both byproducts of the Willie Lynch Theory).
Re: Black men, we already know that corporations are more likely to punish Black men coming out of the prison system, hampering their rehabilitation in society, demeaning their self respect & forcing them to resort to undesirable means to support their family. We already know that an educated Black man starts off on a un-even playing field in which a Black man in his job search is likely to be told he is underqualified b/c he is not privileged to be part of many of the social, business or economic networks that his White male counterparts belong to in order to get "the hookup". Oh & we already know that an "over-educated" Black male is going to be branded as "overqualified," meaning, "We dont' want to pay you what you're worth & we don't want you to think you can come in an take our jobs that we own (e.g. reverse discrimination)". (Trust me I had that experience coming out of b-school, MBA). Yes, we already know that society treats light skinned & darker skinned folks differently, no where more apparent that with the touching story of Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, a foremost author & academic & his brother, serving a life sentence for an alleged drug killing. We already struggle daily with the dueling realities of hip hop culture. And the list could go on and on and on and on, but I digress lest I wear myself out with words.
So who was this series addressed to? It was addressed to the White Americans and others who still mistakenly believe that stereotypes, prejudice & racism no longer exist in our "open" & tolerant society. These are the folks who will tell you that 40 years of affirmative action (which has primarily benefitted White women--look up your statistics) is adequate to make up for 400 years of slavery and its resultant economic, social, religious & political oppression. These are the folks that will always champion "personal responsibility" as if our society bears no fault or accountability for the way things are. These are folks that believe that b/c one hard working Black man who went from food stamps to Harvard to closing in on the Presidency, must indicate that we're not as bad as we thought, that now the playing field is officially level for everyone.
Really the only thing to take from the series as a whole was that regardless of how far we have come, we still have a long way to go. Despite folks like D.L. Hughley making it from the Bloods gang as a teen to enviable position of influence in international entertainment (comedy, movie acting, sitcoms, etc) there is still another group that has been forgotten--"the rest of us".
