Even now, there are two Americas: one for brown people, one for whites. The difference is that we choose it today
All in Commentary
Even now, there are two Americas: one for brown people, one for whites. The difference is that we choose it today
Here we go again: Zimmerman's legal team is playing up the 'black thug' stereotypes to potential jurors and the public
Today, the only way some Americans get insight into what life is like for a black family is by watching snippets of the Obamas on the nightly news. No English-language network program centers around a black family — or an Asian or Hispanic family either — except Fox’s “The Cleveland Show.” And that’s animated.
I never thought that I’d have to search so hard on television to find a family that looks like the one I grew up in. My TV experience began in the age in which “The Cosby Show” was the king of television viewing among black and white families alike. Twenty years later, after the Huxtables went off the air, not one show on any of the major networks can even remotely challenge its place as the standard of black family life.
I thought things would be different by now. The Trayvon Martin story flared up exactly four years after Obama’s famous campaign speech on race in Philadelphia, a speech that made so many of us believe that Obama would launch a serious, enduring dialogue. But the election of the first black president hasn’t made it easier to talk about race in America. It’s made it harder.