The Black Informant

NAACP should acknowledge TV gains

By BRIAN LOWRY

(variety.com) “HERE’S A NOVEL THOUGHT: Before the NAACP launches another campaign against television’s perceived ills, would it set the cause back to pause and savor the group’s recent victories?

Apparently so. Because after fatuously contending that Michael Richards’ comedy club tirade is “a symptom of a much bigger problem” and emblematic of “an underlying current of racism in America,” the NAACP scheduled, then canceled, an event this week to assail the TV industry for insufficient minority representation.

Certainly, TV still exhibits its share of shortcomings regarding race, but the NAACP chose a dubious time to level such criticism against television, coming in the midst of a very good fall for people of color based on those symbolic measures where the medium ultimately wields the greatest influence.”

[...]

“THE NAACP has singled out low employment levels within TV’s executive and producing ranks as its next potential crusade, while the Rev. Jesse Jackson pithily lambasted news for being “all day, all night, all white.”

Whatever the raw numerical data, though, once again, the symbolic advances are hard to overlook. As a prime example, consider producer Shonda Rhimes, an African-American, who presides over TV’s hottest series in “Grey’s Anatomy” — a program that effortlessly displays a thoroughly diverse universe.”

[...]

“Because there are never enough entertainment jobs to go around, the business’s insular nature makes breaking down barriers difficult — one of the hard realities of any closely knit club where merit can be subjective, and nepotism and connections frequently dictate who receives keys to the kingdom. As a consequence, the NAACP and other lobbying organs have every reason to keep reminding industry honchos to cast a wider net than the children of golf buddies and those they encounter at private-school PTA meetings.

Lobbying groups diminish their moral authority, however, when they appear unwilling to acknowledge when real strides are made, including those programs that convey messages about our ability to live and work together.” (more…)

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Unfortunately folks like Jesse Jackson and the NAACP in this day and age exists only to convince America that Black folks are just one crack of a whip away from rejoining Chicken George and Khunta back in the cotton fields of the South. Why comment further here?