Black White

So last night I watched this new show on FX called "Black. White"

I really liked it and will try watch the whole series. There is this one character on it though, a white guy named "Bruno" who is a "soft racist" idiot. He would probably break my nose for characterizing him as a "soft racist" but I think its an accurate tag. He thinks that the racism black people experience is all in thier minds and that if they don't enter the world with the pre-conceived notion that they will be discriminted against, they will find that life isn't as hard as they claim it is and will be much happier.

While there may be a little something to this (Bruno's black counterpart Brian, does come off at times seeming a little too paranoid about the subtleties of body language), I couldn't really blame Brian for being occasioanlly oversensitive about race in this country. I can't say how many genuinely racist encounters I'd have to endure before I started getting over-sensitive about it too.

I don't like the white family they picked for this only because I think they (primarily the adults, Bruno and Rose) went into it without any realistic ideas about what to expect. They are obviously trying way too hard to come off as an "enlightened" white couple, all the while insinuating that black people are imagining racisist discrimination. If Bruno and Rose weren't so deluded I think they would be expecting thier white to black switch to be much less fun than it might be for the blacks to go out as whites. Instead, Bruno and Rose are being totally fake and are pretending like they'd like to live the rest of thier life as "beautiful black people" instead of just being who they are. In this sense the black family is much more real. As soon as Brian and Renee (the black adults) saw each other in thier white make-up, Brian swoops in for some affection and Renee, half-kidding, rejects him saying, "you're not my type." While yes, it is racist for Renee to imply that she can't be attracted to her husband as a white guy, at least her reaction was real, which I can respect much more than the well intentioned, but sickly-sweet fakery of Bruno and Rose.

So far, in the first episode, we saw only one genuine example of naked racism from some random fucktard patron at a bar at which Brian got a bartending job. There also was a very conflicted kid who acknowledged that he sometimes has trouble reconciling the racist environment he was brought up in with what his adult mind knew to be morally wrong, but I'm not sure if that qualifies as an example of racism so much as personal growth. Anyway, it has me wondering if they are going to show any strong examples of "reverse racism" in later episoodes. I'll stay tuned.

One last thing about Rose and Bruno. I grew up in the lilly-white Northeast. I had never even had the opportunity to have so much as a conversation with someone black until I entered college. Needless to say, I was exceptionally ignorant about race, even into my adult years. Not willfully so, in fact I was very aware of and motivated to shed my ignorance. Fortunately I had a friend my first year in college, Scott, who was patient enough to put up with me, but clever enough to effectively educate me about race issues, without alienating me by beating me over the head with them.

Anyway, the point is, I can relate to where Bruno and Rose are coming from. Again, Bruno and Rose are clearly operting from a position of the best intentions, but they are ignorant. I watch this show and cringe nearly every time this Bruno guy opens his mouth. Its actually fairly painful to watch, but I find it entertaining regardless. I feel the same way about Michael, the office manager character played by Steve Carell in the NBC show, "The Office."