80’s sitcoms do not like Black people
So back to the whole 80’s shows right quick…
So far, every series I’ve watched has an episode about the main characters being prejudiced.
I personally think Growing Pains did it better. The episode was about Mike getting a job at a convenience store. His boss showed him preferential treatment and his justification was that everyone looked after their own races (Blacks for Blacks, Mexicans for Mexican’s etc…) and that he wasn’t racist just because he did the same and he was white. I think this episode worked better because the lesson wasn’t black and white…it could have applied to anyone.
Doogie’s though was pretty lame. It featured Vinnie and Doogie at a convenience store that was robbed by a Black dude. He was the stereotypical Black person…(I can’t do anything but be a gangbanger and drop out of school because I’m Black.) Doogie shows him how all people are the same (lame) and he too can be all that he can be. In the end, in his two sentence journal entry, he questions whether or not he’s prejudiced.
Regardless of how these shows raised the issue, it made me think. How many of today’s sitcoms come close to this kind of material?
