For the last week or so, I have been knee deep in NBA Playoff games. While watching the fourth game of the Rockets/Blazers series I saw a trailer for “Next Day Air,” a comedy starring Donald Faison (Scrubs) and Mos Def (Be Kind Rewind). Based on the trailer, the movie looks like it’s going to be one of those “Soul Plane”-type comedies where they just perpetuate black stereotypes to make a quick buck.
As soon as the trailer was over, I knew that I had to write about this movie and how bad it’s going to be, how it was going to set black people back 20 years and all that jazz. But then I started thinking a little more about it.
I began thinking about how, as a black person, I have to deal with problems that include, but are not limited to, representing my entire race every time I step out of my house. How I have to differentiate myself from other ignorant people that share the same skin color as me. How I have to go above and beyond the call of duty in everything I do in this world just to make the playing field even.
Whether or not those things are true is beside the point because they are truths I have to deal with on a daily basis.
On one hand I wouldn’t mind going to see a movie like “Soul Plane” or “Next Day Air,” but on the other hand I don’t want to promote something that puts black people in a bad light.
Honestly, I could not care less if I see a movie with black people making themselves look foolish, but I can’t, because just like me, they’re representing an entire race.
My question is why?
Why does a 20-year-old have to care about these things?
Can I just ignore all the woes that affect the people that fill our nations projects and ghettos? Am I a sellout if I don’t carry that burden? Am I wrong for not wanting the burden? I wish someone could answer my questions.
I’ve also been seeing a lot of commercials promoting the second installment of “Black in America” done by CNN. This time it will be looking for solutions to “the most pressing problems facing Black America.” I watched the first “Black in America” and I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t known going in.
Are black people so screwed that we have to have all of these in-depth documentaries to show us how to improve our lives?
I get tired of watching countless hours of discussion on what needs to be done to fix the black community. I guess if it was easy, we wouldn’t being having specials like “Black in America.”
To be honest, I think the show was meant for people who had to have absolutely no knowledge what’s going on in the inner city.
But, to me, I feel it’s kind of like that old Harold Melvin song, “If You Don’t Know Me by Now.” If you’re just now figuring out about what most black people have to struggle with on a day-to-day basis, then you’re never going to catch up in this human race.