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7.23.2008

The ladies over at What About Our Daughters slay me. And more importantly, they do it while shedding light on an underreported subject: African American women and girls. You know how Nancy Grace loves to devote hours of airtime to missing (white) girls and children? Did you know she does it while completely ignoring women of color who have gone missing? Well, WAOD blows the trumpet on injustice regularly. And they still manage to maintain their humor. They pretty much hit the nail on the head as to why I wouldn't watch CNN's 'Black in America' special even if I had cable:

Will Black women be misrepresented yet again? Will CNN try to pull an ESSENCE and depress the heck out of us all or try to prey on our paranoia? Will they scratch beneath the surface and go further than the epidermis or will we just hear the same pablum regurgitated in the tradition of NBC New's African American Women Where they Stand also known as "Black women it sucks to be you!" Or are Black people inherently difficult to please and all other networks should avoid trying to tell Black folks who they are? Man I miss Ed Bradley. Now HE would have put together a heck of a series on Black people and not just rehashed and reheated the panels from Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Folk's Union presented by Exxon Mobil, McDonald's and Rudy Ray's Rib Shack and Waffles.
Seriously (also, Rudy Ray's Rib Shack and Waffles? *dead*). Because CNN ruins everything, it was inevitable that they'd do their best to ruin blackness. And as I've said time and time again, as there are no blacks who are also women, it's sure to have lots of hand-wringing about the endangered species: black men. If you catch it, let me know how awful it is. I refuse to subject myself to it (no matter how many chain e-mail messages I get from black people reminding me to WATCH CNN'S BLACK IN AMERICA SPECIAL TONIGHT). I don't care how cool Soledad O'Brien is, either. Bah.

7 new thought(s):

La said...

*sigh* I too am refusing to watch it. I have an inherrent issue with the state of black america being made by white people. I too am receiving all the email chains and it pains me that no one has asked the question as to whether or not we should support something that prob won't represent us at all. But then again, are we so thirsty to see us reflected in entertainment that we will take whatever we get?

However I am a HUGE fan of Soledad, lol

Jameil said...

yeah i was gonna try to watch it but seviche and project runway beckon... i know it'll be on rerun on cnn all week anyway. i'll be aight.

the joy said...

Lol like Jameil, my "real" shows come first. Jon and Kate+8 is on! I think I'll tape it. There's 2 shows: the black woman and family, and the black man. I feel that a lot of it was taped in Atlanta, for budget sake, but if they don't mention "young black woman who supported her family financially during this wack economy" I won't feel represented. Its probably gonna skip right over young black women.

Adei von K said...

wait, who said soledad is cool?

Truth said...

The show was such a wasted 2 hours of nonsense about things we ALREADY KNEW!!! And please give me a break with the Rand family and how they seemed to feel so freakin' HONORED to have a white great great grandfather who had children by his black mistress Ann. BIG DEAL! we all come out of slave master's home so it would have been more enlighting for the Rand family to focus on finding their great great grandmother Mistress Ann's family! That show SUCKED big time...

the joy said...

I'm sorry, they mentioned young black women. One with a baby by one deadbeat guy and twins on the way by another.

Sponsored by McDonalds.

shani-o said...

@ Wife: Exactly. We've just lapped it up. Ooh look, we're on TV! Spare me.

@ Jam: Yeah, they're playing it this weekend again. I saw the ads on mute while I was at the gym.

@ Joy: Yeah, young black women tend to get the shaft in these situations.

@ Adei: well, she USED to be, lol.

@ Truth: I'm sorry you had to suffer through it! That's what I keep hearing from the folk who were really excited about it: it was disappointing.