I'm taking a moment away from the political blogging to rant, if you don't mind. Last night TNT aired another insufferable movie awards show, the Black Movie Awards (http://www.tnt.tv/title/0,,612806,00.html). Interesting enough, I thought, until I saw the list of nominees. Sorry, but if "Are We There Yet" gets nominated for Best Picture and Cedric the Entertainer gets nominated for Best Actor for "The Honeymooners," that tells me that the person in charge of quality control was asleep at the frickin' wheel. So, I decided against watching it. It was a taped show and the award recipients were announced last week anyway. Fortunately, the winners reflected real quality (Terrence Howard, "Crash", etc.).
When I came to work this morning, a coworker (who's Black) asked if I watched it, knowing in advance that the answer was no. She proceeds to pat herself on the back for "supporting Black causes" by watching last night. "One day," she says, "you'll get a little more black." I asked her what "cause" she was supporting by watching the show and she said "helping the show get good ratings." Now I don't know for sure, but I don't think basic cable ratings matter a whole helluva lot. But somehow, in her mind, her blackness is in direct proportion to the amount of black films and television shows she watches. Now, I'm all for supporting the Brothers and Sisters who are out there trying to make it. However, I'm a little quirky in that A) I watch what I want to watch, not what a group prescribes that I watch, and B) I try to avoid absolute shit whenever I possibly can. The Black Movie Awards, as far as I'm concerned, is a non-event. "The Honeymooners", "Are We There Yet", "G", "Coach Carter", it all looks like shit to me and I'm not going to waste my own time and money watching them. Neither, however, did Ms. Thang. She saw none of these "films" because, well, she just doesn't have the time. Her blackness is not called into question, however. She will likley buy them when they come out on DVD....maybe...or maybe not.
But all of this brings up an age old question: what makes a person Black, or "Black enough"? I'm half Black, a quarter Irish, and a quarter German. I identify myself as Black on forms unless "biracial" or "multiracial" is an option. At the end of the day, the world views me as Black. I attended the Million Man March in 1995, was a part of the Black Student Union on my majority White college campus, listen to (among other things) Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Kanye West, Aretha Franklin, The O'Jays, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Public Enemy, Kirk Franklin, and B.B. King. I read James Baldwin, Richard Wright, E. Lynn Harris, Terry McMillan, Eric Jerome Dickey, and Bebe Moore Campbell. Two of my heroes are Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, whose autobiography changed the way I viewed race in America. I love Richard Pryor, Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac, Bruce Bruce, Earthquake, and Rickey Smiley. Ernie Barnes and Romare Bearden are two of my favorite artists. I've seen Patti LaBelle, Eddie Murphy, Prince, and Luther Vandross in concert, in some cases multiple times. And yet somehow, my blackness is called into question on a regular basis amongst the Negroes I work with. Is it because I don't see very many Black movies (at least not the first weekend; I'd like to be able to hear the film, thank you very much), don't watch UPN and the WB, or listen to and regurgitate the Tom Joyner Morning Show daily? Is it because I also listen to Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, and George Strait, and I watch NASCAR? Is it because of my biracial heritage? Or maybe it's my White wife. That kills black women everytime. Of course, they're the same black women who would likely tell me I'm too lightskinned to date them but, ironically, see no problem with black women dating white men because of the "lack of good black men out there" (a rant for another time).
I'm not sure what the problem is, and to say I don't care would be lying because I wouldn't have wasted the past 20 minutes writing this if I didn't. But at what point do we put aside the petty differences of skin color and see each other as human beings? Why hate each other because of skin color when, if we come together as people and get to know one another, we can find so many other reasons to hate each other? :)
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My guess is that folks being as naturally lazy as they are would rather hate for "surface" and shallow reasons like skin color than look deeper and hate for a legitimate reason like say...the kind of TV shows and movies one likes. :) :)
And BTW, who the f**k is Bruce Bruce???
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