Black In America.

I must take this time out to say I am thoroughly and utterly upset about the special “Black In America” that aired on CNN last night.

Maybe my expectations were too high or maybe it was just trash. You tell me?
The number one problem I have is the breakdown of Part I and Part II. Why is that Part I is entitled “The Black Woman and The Family”, while Part II is entitled “The Black Man”….There are problems that as a black woman I face that are totally separate from the family, and really have nothing to do with the family. I understand that black single women and children are the family, and that is the problem in itself. The Black man is being shown as a separate entity from the family. Whether he is the father or the son or the brother, he is included in the Black Family.

So after watching I asked myself, what was the thesis? and…. Why did they start the special with a family that found their white grandfather (who cares)? I mean how many black people don’t have other cultures/races in their background. I don’t know about you, but Im not trying to be accepted by white people on the grounds that I have white in my family. That aspect of Black culture was nothing new. Let’s just start there.

The extent of my problems with the show was so wide I am not sure what to touch on. It should be said that I am Black in America, and feel that special did not depict me at all; especially as a young Black woman in America. The special just gave a bunch of stats that showed where Black people were, but did not show how they got there. The case was not cracked. I mean for goodness sake they did not even talk about institutionalized racism which causes all these discrepancies between Blacks’ and their economic status. Nor did they even show solutions. At some point we have to be able to talk about what is being changed, instead of what is continuing to go wrong. Okay so AIDS/HIV is the number one killer of Black women, so what are you gonna do about it? You aren’t going to provide them with medicine to keep there life going. There is a direct correlation between poverty and health. So if you don’t have the money, you don’t have the medicine plain and simple. Okay so Black children have a high drop out rate, so are you going to improve their schools? Or were you even willing to show these schools they are dropping out of? Until America is willing to make schools equal, don’t show me that crap. I am totally disgusted.

And excuse me for a moment if you are of mixed race: But what did the interracial piece have to do with being “Black in America”. I mean the fact that we only had two hours (and a total of four), and you decided to spend a great deal of time on being of mixed race. What was the point? The special only catered to Barack Obama, and the speech he gave on race. Now all of sudden America is suppose to care about what it is like to be Black, and if they watched that they still don’t get it. I think it is a valid issue(being of mixed race), and should be discussed. Especially if the special was given more time to show a spectrum of Black people. But that is just not the case.

I really could go on, but im not going to stay on my soap box…I will say that today I almost started crying about this special, and my Aunt even told me she couldn’t sleep because of it…..But I must say the special did show what it is like to be “Black In America”….It got your hopes all up(black people anyway) that things were gonna to be good, and they were gonna finally air our story, and America would understand our plight…but then you watched and realized they still don’t get it, and they never will get….
So at this point i just dont give.