Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Black? White? Or Shades of Gray?
Greetings everyone! El Capitan has entrusted me to guest blog for him while he is away and I must admit this is an honor. Mostly because I know it is a big act of faith to entrust your well-read blog to someone. The other reason is that I do not have a blog myself. I've always thought I would shoot off my mouth too much before thinking and write something inarticulate.
Allow me to introduce myself. My call sign is Tumbleweed. Like many call signs this one was bestowed due to a very ungraceful maneuver by yours truly while airborne. Sorry to dispel any "Top Gun" fantasies but call signs are usually given due to stupid stuff you have done. I have known El Capitan since college and we have been friends throughout our careers, despite distance and job changes.
But enough about me, onto today's blog subject.
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FX is airing a show called "Black. White". The premise of the show is to take a white and black family, place them in a house together, and throughout the season the crew will use makeup to make the white family look black and vice versa. The two families are then sent to various parts of the city and they get to experience how other people and society treats the other side.
I've just started watching so I am not sure how they picked the families and it looks like they are in the Los Angeles metro area. It is quite an interesting show and it seems like the crew tried to pick two families that don't fit "Hollywood" racial attitude stereotypes.
There have been some scenes that have caught my attention. In one scene, the white parents went into a country/western bar made up as a black couple. They received a lot of "what are you doing here?" stares. I wasn't terribly surprised, I have received stares like that walking into some places in the Deep South. However, when my Caucasian girlfriend walked with me into Little Saigon in Orange County, Calif, she received similar stares.
In another scene the kids were having lunch together. The girl asked the guy how he got kicked out of school. He said it was because he was carrying a knife in his bookbag. She asked why he carried the knife and the guy says it was for his best friend. She asks why his best friend had a knife. His reply? "He's Asian, all Asians have knives." Not true. I'm Asian and I actually carry an SIG SG551 everywhere I go (I'm kidding). This guy doesn't seem to be the brightest light bulb in the package.
Racism is racism. I don't care who has suffered more or what race people think secretly rules the world. Every ethnic group has had rough times making a life in this country. This isn't isolated to America either, it exists just about everywhere else in the world. This will only stop when people stop thinking one race is completely composed of thugs or part of an insidious "Illuminati" type conspiracy.
This show looks promising. I hope FX tries to be objective with it and show all the good and bad experiences the families will go through. I hope they will not slant events in any direction for any of the families. Should be interesting to watch.
posted by El Capitan at 11:22 PM
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