Ed itor's Note
is perceived. It’s a reality in this
country with its deplorable legacy
of white supremacy and degrada
tion of black life, mind and body
that African Americans have and
are perceived in many ways: as
brutish heathens, floundering
idiots, passive Uncle Toms,
jezebels, criminals and religious
If Americans are
really serious about
eradicating Its prob
lem with race, then
they could start by
By Jonathan Friday
Anyone who knows me
well, knows that I love to watch
television. Multiple episodes of
“The Cosby Show,” a late-night
hour of “The Golden Girls,” and a
little of“Moesha,” “Will &
Grace” and “ER” are vital parts
of my week. Even though these
programs, in my opinion, are
some of the best, television
has gotten a bad rep’ over the
last decade or two, and justi
fiably so. But TV offers a lot
more than lascivious sex and
unmitigated violence; it can
be enlightening and inspiring
as well. And that’s just one
reason why I look forward to
February.
This month, the
Grammy's will air and the
nominations for the Academy watching TV that
Awards will be handed out.
(Good luck, Denzel!) But
despite these events,
February is also important
because it is Black History
Month. It’s during this month
that television offers a great deal
of both entertaining and enlight
ening programs depicting the
Black experience in this country.
It’s still sad to say, however, that
we are inundated with these
“types” of programs only once
during the year. But hopefully, the
recent actions of the NAACP will
help remedy this.
It’s great that the NAACP
realizes the importance of images
in popular culture. Images are
powerful representations of an
idea, person or subject; and con
sequently, those representations
can alter how anything or anyone
doesn’t propagate
racial messages.
radicals, just to name a few.
So, what the NAACP is
trying to do, through its TV boy
cott, is to force the major net
works to depict African
Americans in a real way. That is
to, in fact, show African
Americans in day-to-day life, as
they already do whites in pro
grams like “Friends,” “Fraiser”
and “Spin City” The NAACP is
also working to motivate the net
works to eliminate the highly
stereotypical images that go along
with some of the African-
American characters already on
TV, which would force new and
non-static interpretations of Black
life into the homes of black and
mostly white TV viewers. The
programming during Black
History Month might aid in doing
this, but truthfully, one month of
“Black TV” will not change cen
turies of harmful ideas and
images of Black life. Only mas
sive re-configuration of the
hearts and souls of the main
stream will do that. Our gov
ernment can’t do it, contrary to
popular belief, and countless,
discussions about race, where
no one is really candid, won’t
do it. Which is not to say that
TV programming is the
panacea for racism. But TV at
its best, like other artistic enti
ties, can work a lot of magic by
grasping our attention for 30
minutes or an hour and in that
time frame that convey ideas
through easy to understand pic
tures and sounds, give us
knowledge about certain
things, and hopefully, challenge
our viewpoints and ideas.
If Americans are really
serious about eradicating its prob
lem with race, then they could
start by watching TV that doesn’t
propagate racial messages. Or
they could do what the NAACP is
doing, and that is to stop watch
ing. If they don’t, then maybe we
will know that the majority of
Americans really aren’t that seri
ous about ending racism at all.
Jonathan Friday is a history major who
can he reached at jfridavl@eniail.unc..
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Black Ink