Black Men On Television
March 17, 2006
While it is a fact, as some of those close to me know, that my grandfather usually refers to black people as “coloreds,” it’s not a term of derision and he genuinely is a good man. That said, saying the word “coloreds” does make it hard not to paint someone as a racist.
Lest anyone dwell on that possibility too long, the other day my grandfather reminded my mom of just what a sweet, if not sometimes confused, man he is. When she arrived yesterday for her usual visit to check on them and dole out medication, granddad was agitated because of the lack of adequate African-American representation on daytime television. My mom tells it:
He was sitting there, just going on and on about how somebody had taken all of the black men off the television, because he hadn’t seen one all afternoon. Grandmama [my equally entertaining grandmother] was yelling over him that she’d seen “plenty of black men” on television all day. Daddy handed me the remote, and told me to “go on and see if you can find one.” So I turned it to the channel that Montel comes on. I said “see, daddy, here’s a black man who has his own show!” Then I went a few channels down and there was an ad for the Johnnie Cochran Law Firm, and I said “see, there’s one, a lawyer.” And daddy said, “well, I don’t know how you got ‘em to show up but that’s good.” Grandmama just said “I told you so,” and I changed the subject.
I love them.
Today, my grandmother called my mom at work because she was “looking for some Martins.” Mom explained that they were Martins, and grandmama replied “your daddy wanted to get some gas in the car, but I didn’t feel like driving so I wanted to see if Jim would drive us.” Jim’s my uncle who lives in Orlando. Mom told her to go ahead and call Jim and see what he said.
Interesting Blog Matt. Very. Sometimes when people make friends, we forget that they have relatives from a different generation. I remember moving from the West Coast to the Midwest-East Coast-South, and seeing so many distinctive differences in the color line between blacks/hispanics/whites, etc. As a man of color, I don’t particularly care for many of the adjectives used to describe “myself” but I guess as society evolves we will continue to come up with new and trendy ways to describe a person’s pigment. The term “Colored” might not be a fan favorite, but sadly it might be one of the better descriptions—at least accurate.
As for “black” men on TV, I wish we had more community leaders, Dad’s, every day cats like myself, that show more than their athletic skills or how good they are at popping a cap in someone’s…Maybe I need a camcorder and a cable access show?? I’d certainly have an interesting perspective on what’s news.
BTW as for politically correct trendy adjectives, I prefer Mocha ;-)
Our granddad seems to be running a constant “colored census.” It seems whenever I’m there, he’s letting me know how many “coloreds” there are in the neighborhood now compared to when they moved in. The word alone makes my skin crawl, but I know he isn’t saying it out of hate or fear, he just feels the need to keep track, just like he does with the t.v. How odd.
One the subject of “coloreds” I thought you might like this news brodcast of a city close to your hometown. It was around St. Patricks Day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8&search=leprechaun