Black Reality TV and the Rebirth of Fool

The Root ^ | January 12, 2013 | Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D.

[2ndDivisionVet]

It's official. Reality-television executives have lost their minds. The reality-TV shows featuring mostly black casts debuting in 2013 are setting back images of black folks in television at least 60 years.

While critics are obsessed with the controversial film Django Unchained, there is a movement taking place in reality television that has elevated black buffoonery to the highest level possible while diminishing black culture to the lowest level in recent memory. The images of blacks on TLC's reality shows Best Funeral Ever and The Sisterhood and Oxygen's All My Babies' Mamas are appalling. They are also reminiscent more of images of blacks in film at the turn of the last century than of blacks in television during the last 60 years.

While we're spending hours upon hours debating one film on social networks and in the media, tomfoolery is raging on TLC and Oxygen in the form of reality-television programming that has little to no entertainment value and is more exploitative than any Tarantino film could ever be. As my late grandmother would say, we are "focused on the wrong thing." The images of blacks as buffoons, jezebels, coons and Aunt Jemimas are circulating through our living rooms on a daily onslaught in the form of reality-TV promos, reruns and marathons.

As if trying to survive the damage done to our televisual images by Real Housewives of Atlanta, Basketball Wives and Love and Hip Hop franchises isn't enough to manage, here comes a slew of shows that would make the "ladies" of those shows gasp and swoon...

[2ndDivisionVet]

As if most of this isn't based on actual reality on the ground. Or does the author deny that?

[OldNewYork]

Nsenga K. Burton, PhD?

[gop4lyf]

Perhaps if people saw more of the “reality” of these folks and less of a, for lack of a better phrase, “white washed version” on tv, then maybe the hip hop culture wouldn’t be as revered as it is in suburbia.

[Mortrey]

Some Negroes name their spawn “Lasagne”, “Pornisha” and “Australia”—seriously-—Can’t WAIT to see the names of the new “celebrities” on “Real TV”. (No, not really. I won’t be tuning in.)

[dfwgator]

It’s like I said, Rap Music culture is the KKK’s dream come true.....it sets back the image of black people worse than anything.

[rawcatslyentist]

The PJ's s02e04 The HJ's

[TigersEye]

Five will get you ten these shows are produced by liberals.

[Mortrey]

Have you ever noticed that those that break into homes in “Advertiser-Land” commercials for home security systems are all white?

PC kills.

[Jim from C-Town]

These shows are like train wrecks. If you come across one the spectacle causes you to watch because of the grotesque fascination.

I actually saw a commercial for this show and it caused the loss of two IQ points. Forty more points and I would be as intelligent as the average O’Bumbler voter.

[Dilbert San Diego]

This guy has 11 kids with 10 different girlfriends??? What the heck???

Is the money he makes from the show going to pay child support????

[Dilbert San Diego]

This guy has 11 kids with 10 different girlfriends??? What the heck???

Is the money he makes from the show going to pay child support????

[Dalberg-Acton]

And all white people have is “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”?
What a gyp!

[2ndDivisionVet]

Ever seen a black criminal on any of the Law and Order shows?

[2ndDivisionVet]

How do you think this name is pronounced? La-A.

[Nowhere Man]

It’s like I said, Rap Music culture is the KKK’s dream come true.....it sets back the image of black people worse than anything.

True, I think 96% of the rap and hip/hop out there really make the stereotypes that were/are given to Blacks and their culture "more validity." In short, they are their own worst enemy, I love the the beautiful do-wop music of the 1950's, the soul music of the 1960's/1970's and disco of the 1970's and well into the 1980's. From 1990 onward, they've taken a huge step backward.

[dfwgator]

Exactly, think of all the great soul/jazz/rock music that black people have created over the years, and compare it to the rap crap. It’s degrading....today, black people probably think Motown and Stax are “White People” music.

[The_Media_never_lie]

I’m ok with it, so long as they don’t depict any more of my mountain kinfolk as hillbillies.

[xrmusn]

Ever seen a black criminal on any of the Law and Order shows?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Actually YES, I do remember one
BUT he was a college grad, plagiarist and had a father that really pushed him and the outcome was either the kid was the killer or the father didn’t want to be embarrassed by something the kid did.

ALSO, on L&O (as most cop shows) ALL the victims are drop dead gorgeous, no matter how minute the crime may be.
And all their roomates and close friends are at least 8’s.

So in TV land there are few fat, homely people unless they are jealous of the 8-10 they offed....

[Nowhere Man]

Some Negroes name their spawn “Lasagne”, “Pornisha” and “Australia”—seriously-—Can’t WAIT to see the names of the new “celebrities” on “Real TV”. (No, not really. I won’t be tuning in.)

I think I once heard somebody named their kid "Latrine" and "Placenta."

[sarasmom]

Probably not.

Florida passed a law many years ago requiring the “sperm donor daddies” be named before any “welfare benefits” the state doles out to support “the children” were given to the “sperm recipients” aka “baby mommas”.

I haven’t noticed it having any affect on the number of “baby mommas” collecting magic “Tax benefits” for birthing children they are unwilling and unable to feed, house or clothe.