I feel like this conversation comes around at least once a year…
Can we stop pretending gun violence and other morbid, frightening, or “hard” occurrences are things typical Black youth or typical “real” people deal with? Yes, some of us do. But that’s not reality for a good proportion of us. We do regular shit just like everybody else. We have first loves and make bad decisions with them or because of them. Our youth is full of transgression involving lies and deceit. We hurt feelings. We get our feelings hurt. We bomb tests because we didn’t study hard enough or at all… or were too prideful to ask for help. We get part time jobs that we don’t take seriously because it’s just McDonald’s. We’re influenced by the people around us. We never know how awesome we are in the areas that matter and put too much stake in the things that don’t. We pull pranks, some of which go to far. We worry about college or (if that’s not on your radar) where we’re going to work when we finish high school. We go to our friends about sex. We complain about doing chores. We get jealous because one kid is getting more attention. We act out. We assert our independence in weird kid ways.
like.. Rudy sneaking to wear that dress when her mother told her not to was just as “real” as Carlton taking those pills to stay awake (not knowing it was speed). The Banks and Huxtables were just as real as Winslows who were just as real as Evanses and Will’s mom on Fresh Prince.
We didn’t all grow up poor. Some of us had two parents that were very supportive. Some of our parents were teachers, some medical professionals, some janitors, some unemployed. Some of our parents were married when they had us and some were single. One of the things i loved about Fresh Prince, A Different World, Living Single, and Martin was that they highlighted how we all come from different backgrounds and one experience isn’t “more authentically Black” than the next. I hated Good Times because they acted as if life was just HORRIBLE on all fronts for a Black family in the projects and don’t get me started on JJ Evans in general… But other than that, I can honestly say i saw pieces of myself and loved ones in all of the shows listed above as well as Family Matters, The Cosby Show, Girlfriends, Reed Between The Lines, The Sinbad Show, Thea, Roc, Moesha (before Ray-J), South Central (the series)…
The collective of these shows embodies the diversity of our experiences and the similarities or similar storylines among them, the commonality. Yet Black people have developed this sense of pride in suffering to the point where we’ll call a show unrealistic because nobody was shot or stabbed or hooked on drugs or had a baby as a teenager…
completely dismissing or erasing the huge number of us for whom that simply was not our story and deeming us “not real” or, I guess, “less Black” in the process.
sidenote: GOTDAMNIT I MISS THE 90s