RACIAL ADVANCEMENT ON TV:
IS THE PROGRESS DEPICTED WELL-INTENTIONED FANTASY?
I've been noticing over the past several years a tendency for the
Media to depict racial togetherness in a manner that doesn't come close
to representing reality. For example, almost every prime-time
television show features romantic inter-racial relationships, most
notably between its Caucasian and African-American continuing
characters. While there are certainly more such situations in our
current life than in former decades, is it as prevalent as depicted? As
commonplace so as not to be noticed or rarely discussed?
Here is a partial list of such shows on CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and CW, just from the last few seasons:
Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, ER, House, Boston Legal, Gossip Girl, Dirty Sexy Money, Bones, One Tree Hill, Everwood, Lost, Heroes ,The West Wing, Desperate Housewives, Chuck, Kings, Lipstick Jungle, 90210, Cold Case, Ugly Betty, Privileged, October Road and Brothers and Sisters.
In Brothers and Sisters, Sally Field's character, a
middle-aged suburban widow, quickly falls for her son-in-law's campaign
advisor, who is black. Likewise, her son-in-law, a moderate Republican
U.S. Senator played by Rob Lowe, decides with his wife (Calista
Flockhart) to aggressively pursue an expectant African-American woman
to adopt her child.
In neither of these instances is there much, if any, talk about the
implications. As if society were totally color blind, in particular the
adoption situation, considering that almost everything else in the
Lowe-Flockhart relationship refers to what is good or bad for his
political career.
In 90210, the lead family has adopted an African-American,
the son of a friend who has died, and no one bats an eyelash when he
appears on the Beverly Hills campus alongside his adoptive white
sister. Nor is there anything even remotely odd as he pursues and
becomes romantically involved with a white girl at the school.
Nor when One Tree Hills' Antwon Tanner, as Skills, has an
affair with Barbara Alyn Woods, who plays Deb Scott, the white mother
of Nathan Scott, one of his best friends. It's the age difference
that's the shocker. When Deb breaks the relationship off it is because
she will never bear him a child. And, of course, even though it is set
in North Carolina, Skills immediately takes up with another white girl
without any thought or notice.
Again, I'm not saying we haven't evolved in our civil rights, nor
that inter-racial relationships are not around us, but to the extent
shown on TV series? In Gossip Girl every grouping has a
rainbow assortment of races. Equal opportunity bitchiness on Twitter,
Facebook and MySpace with the main high school clique consisting of
white girls, black girls, Asian and Hispanic. As if life conforms to a
quota system, which for the most part just isn't so.
The list goes on. Vanessa Williams, our first African-American Miss America, who in Ugly Betty dates mostly white men. Tom Berenger's character in October Road is immediately taken with an African-American small town college administrator. Private Practice
star Kate Walsh's series brother, played by Grant Show, has an affair
with her African-American medical practice partner played by Audra
McDonald. All with nary a mention.
Why do they do it in such great numbers, when it goes against statistics, according to a 2007 piece by Harvard professor Roland G. Fryer, Jr:
White female-black male unions, though they increased from 0.1% in
1970 did so to just under half a percent in 2000. In the case of white
male-black female marriages it remained under a tenth of a percent.
Among married whites, 0.4% choose to marry blacks and among married
blacks, 4.6% intermarry with whites. More specifically, almost 6% of
married African American men and 2.9% of married African American
women have a white American spouse.
According to Table FG4 of the U.S. Census Bureau in 2006:
................................... White Wife.......Black Wife...........Asian Wife
White Husband............50,224,000..........117,000..............530,000
Black Husband..................286,000.......3,965,000................34,000
Asian Husband..................174,000..............6,000...........2,493,000
There is also a tendency to cast African-Americans in professional
roles in far greater frequency than societal reality. On legal shows,
there is a preponderance of lawyers and judges, whereas the 2008 Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey
indicates in the category of lawyers that only 4.6% are
African-American, and judges and magistrates comprise only 6.8%. Many
black bosses are depicted, yet the BLS indicates only 6.4% are in
management occupations and only 3.9% are employed as chief executives.
In the category lumping together physicians and surgeons, the BLS
says that 6.2% are African-American. Statistically, almost 85% of all
doctors are in non-surgical practice, which means that a bit less than
one percent of all surgeons are black. Yet, Grey's Anatomy,
which takes place in one hospital, features African-Americans in key
surgical roles: the head of surgery, chief surgical resident and, in
the first two seasons, one of the chief cardiac surgeons.
So, why is this? Is it a desire to be cool or to help speed up the
progress by promoting racial integration into all walks of society? If
so, it's a laudable exercise, but is it good drama? What would be wrong
addressing prejudices as they exist instead of presenting a fanciful
display that most viewers know fully well doesn't exist? It's great to
have lofty goals and there've been great films and television dramas
and comedies, which have drawn attention to injustice and
discrimination and move us in the proper direction. However, portraying
an inaccurate balance almost does the opposite, giving us reassurance
that things are okay and that discriminatory practices fed by racial
prejudices are in short supply.
Yes, we live in an era of the first biracial United States President
and two recent African-American secretaries of state. But there's
currently only one African-American U.S. Senator out of six in our
entire history, and there are only two black governors, one of whom
ascended to the office, out of only four in our nation to date.
In the case of Barack Obama, he is almost always mentioned in our
country as an African-American, though interestingly abroad, such as in
Britain, he is referred to as biracial. I mention this, because until
adulthood there was little in his life other than outward appearance to
identify himself as black. He didn't grow up in a mixed household; his
Kenyan father was almost entirely absent. He was raised in Hawaii and
Indonesia by his white mother and white grandparents, attending school
mostly surrounded by whites and Asians and Hawaiians.
Yet, in spite of his cultural upbringing and the fact that he is
equally Caucasian, he chose to emphasize his African-American side when
pursuing a career. Why? Yes, he had African-American features, but how
much experiential identification did he have with the community? Even
if he determined to explore and embrace that side of his heritage, why
do so in the fullest sense, working in Chicago black neighborhoods and
attending a black church unless it was evidently more gainful to pursue
success in a white world as a brilliant African-American man than to
have attempted to do so from the middle ground? He was surely aware
that life was full of prejudices -- even in the nineties and at the
turn of the new millenium.
They are still among us, but the Media continues to distort reality,
as it purports to portray progress by disproportionately reflecting
aspects of our society in a dramatic context.
Our attorney general, Eric Holder, Jr., who is the first
African-American to hold that office, gave a speech in February marking
Black History Month, widely reported on CNN, MSNBC and FOX News, a
portion of which reinforces my position. He, somewhat controversially,
pointed out that we are "in too many ways, essentially a nation of
cowards." Holder said we often shy away from discussion of race, and
reminded us that outside of the workplace there isn't much socializing
between blacks and whites. "On Saturdays and Sundays," he said,
"America in the year 2009 does not, in some ways, differ significantly
from the country that existed some 50 years ago. This is truly sad."
You'd never know that watching TV.
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