CNN's Black in America is a welcome addition to TV, but it has a major problem to me in that it does not represent middle class African Americans.
Much of the telecast shows Blacks who are downtrodden, or have had something "done" to them by the "system." It's a one-sided view of Blacks that does not help in really understanding African Americans. Not every aspect of Black culture or the life of those of us who are is negative, and I feel that the general life of middle class Blacks was ignored.
(Post also at Zennie's Zeitgeist)
Comments
There are several points about Soledad and the documentary that saddened, and even angered me. I will list just a few with some respect to brevity of my points.
1. How can you depict the black middle class and only talk about traditionally white colleges (i.e. Syracuse, SMU, Arkansas, Juliard), and not mention the institutions that created the black middle class in America (i.e. Morehouse, Howard, Fisk, Tuskegee)?
2. When you did show what you called a "black middle class" family, why did the two children (sons) who were married, were married to white women?
3. When you mentioned the AIDS epidemic in the Black community, your statistics were "cherry picked". Why did you not mention that the highest incidence (new cases) of HIV in the black community is amongst young, black men who have sex with men (CDC, 2008)?
4. In your depiction of the black middle class, you showed families who had moved to neighborhoods that were predominantly white. Why not show the many black middle class neighborhoods in Atlanta and PG County Maryland?
I was very upset that what was shown as Black in America could be seen in Anytown, USA on the nightly news (violence, AIDS, and unhealthy relationships). Soledad did NOTHING to tell the positive, historical, triumph of Black America. Instead she played to over stated stereotypes that further exacerbate the problems of racism and hate we suffer in this country already.