The Black Informant

Side One

Well after all the snap commentaries and protests and threats of boycotts the night finally came for the show that would doom ALL Black people back to the days when Chicken George roamed the plantation.

The show was a mixture of street interviews, off the wall home videos highlighted by brief comments by host Charlie Murphy. The guy who conducted the street interviews asked questions such as “When did slavery end?”, “What does N.A.A.C.P. stand for?”, “Who is Barack Obama?” and other simple questions that proved to be quite tough for the folks featured on the show (mind you, interviewees consisted of both White and Black individuals). The interviews reminded me of the street interviews that I conducted years ago for various video projects in Atlanta. Trust me when I say that it was not hard to find folks who were not knowledgeable about basic history or current events. In fact, this show favored a combination of America’s Funniest Home Videos and Street Smarts.

The featured videos (which also featured Blacks and Whites doing some really dumb stuff) were as silly as you could imagine. Again, it reminded me of a Black version of America’s Funniest Home Videos (which can be very funny minus the host–which leads me to Side 2).

Side Two

Okay, the following are things that I did not like or would change:

#Charles Murphy’s whole presentation I thought was very…strange to say the least. I did not know if he was trying to be funny or serious most of the time. I dunno, maybe it was his script.

#If he says “We got to do better” one more time…! (speaking of which, when the show states “WE” got to do better, are they talking about Black folks? White folks? Rednecks? Who?

#DEFINITELY change the title of the show. I personally think that the title alone is what threw a lot of folks off on their pre-judgment of the show.

#”Bid ‘em in” was a good short, but it just didn’t ‘fit’ for some reason, IMO.

Bottom line, I think the show does have some potential—just not in its present form.

Conclusion

I think that all the pure hell that was raised over this show was a complete over reaction (especially with Home Depot and State Farm Insurance pulling out as sponsors). As I have said on this site several times already, much of the criticism came out of this fear that when White folks see it, they will feel empowered to perpetuate Black stereotypes (as if some of us have not done a good job doing that without their help). Trust me when I say that this show would not have ‘empowered’ them. Mind you, these are the same Negroes that will laugh their heads off at the dumb actions of a White person on shows like America’s Funniest Home Videos or Jackass, but will feel some level of “shame” if the next clip features the equally dumb antics of a Black person as if this individual was hired to represent the intelligence of an entire race and screwed it up. (yep, I’ve been guilty of that MANY times).

Personally, I think we are long overdue for a Black version of America’s Funniest Home Videos–just without all the social commentary as served in HGM/WGTDB.

[updated 6:36pst]