Entertainment
ABC Finally Releases ‘Black-ish’ Episode That Was Shelved 2 Years Ago
The recent uprisings have made clear that Black people aren’t just looking to name their issues, they want sustainable change. I reported on the reactions to Kamala Harris’ recent good-fortune. People are realizing that, even if you check off all of the “representation” boxes, you’ll still have to actively push back on the ways in which a person may have caused harm. The problem is that racists are going to take that opportunity to attack the most vulnerable of us. The same can be said of Black-ish, especially the recently released episode, “Please, Baby, Please.”
Kenya Barris is annoying. Everything he does finds a way to be annoying to me. He’s not a good writer. His shows are not written to be insightful, smart, not even bingeable. But how is that true if the ratings are always high? Well… White people.
Black-ish, and all of its Fool-ish spin offs, are written like after school specials. It’s a universe of poorly-scripted Blackness. It puts it’s characters in these ham-fisted situations, exaggerates their personalities, and then uses these personalities to make a “point”. Most of the Black people I talked to, some whose lives were word-for-word relayed on the screen, kind of liked the novelty of the show in the beginning, but lost interest after a while. That’s likely because they weren’t getting anything out of the show’s messages. These “points” were our lives and we already knew they existed. But White people didn’t. The same can be said of Kamala.
Kamala Harris is the kind of person that White people have never really seen. They think of us as unintelligent, under motivated, and incapable. I don’t really give a fuck, but the White people do. They are surprised, some excited and others appalled, to find that we’re somehow not all they thought we were. So Black-ish and Kamala is something new for them to explore. And watching this latest episode has made it clear that Kenya Barris understands this.
On the flip side, the Whites who are offended by our very existence put us in a moral dilemma. Either we let members of our community be publicly attacked or we step out and defend people and television shows that are harmful. That was the case with this episode. ABC pulled it from the line-up and we all jumped to its defense. In watching the episode, I feel conflicted about my old defensive tweets. Of course I couldn’t have known, but this episode does nothing for Black people. It even leaves room for people to be against Colin Kaepernick and it makes “White pride” seem like a legitimate conversation. Shouts to Yung Miami cus ion like det. The fact is, though, it wasn’t written for me. It was written for White people who actually do see these as quandaries. They need to be taught these things and need answers to these questions. And Kamala makes them feel good about themselves.
The point of the matter, here is that we’re going to be drowning in moments like this. These moments in pop culture and politics demand some critical thinking skills. But they aren’t really for us. They’re for White people. So keep marching, signing petitions, doing what needs to be done to have your voice heard, because it’s your voice that matters. Not the voices that the media and politicians allow to be heard.
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In a story published Tuesday evening, Page Six is reporting that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are getting divorced, with the two already in settlement talks. The news comes after the couple spent the holiday season separately – Kanye at his ranch outside Cody, Wyoming, Kim and the kids with her famous family in southern California.
A source close to Kardashian was quoted saying, “Kim got Kanye to go up there so they could live separate lives and quietly get things sorted out to separate and divorce. She’s done.” Kardashian, 40, and West, 43, are said to be splitting because of marital problems directly related to Kanye’s very public mental health struggles.
For several years the rapper’s various antics have caused fans to worry. After coming out as a Trump supporter, West then announced his own 2020 presidential bid under a new political party: the Birthday Party. At a campaign rally in South Carolina, he was seen rambling, debating individual audience members, and at times, crying. In various interviews, he has rambled on almost incoherently, and his tweetstorms are now infamous.
For her part, Kim has always supported her husband and has openly discussed the difficulties of their marriage. Back in June, she shared on social media, “Anyone who has [bipolar disorder] or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand… People who are unaware or far removed from this experience can be judgmental and not understand that the individual (has) to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try.”
It appears she has finally reached her limit in the union with the unnamed source saying, “She is serious about taking the bar exam and becoming a lawyer, she is serious about her prison reform campaign. Meanwhile Kanye is talking about running for president and saying other crazy s**t, and she’s just had enough of it.”
Separately, a source close to Kanye alleges the rapper is sick of his wife and her family, which might have some truth to it since he has tweeted some pretty nasty things about them in the past. “I been trying to get divorced since Kim met with Meek at the Warldolf [sic] for ‘prison reform,’” he said in a now-deleted July tweet. Recently, he hasn’t been featured on his wife’s Instagram and has largely remained out of the public eye.
With the news yet to be confirmed, the “divorce is imminent” reports are just rumors for now. We’ll be following the news as more information comes out.
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