black in america is way too gray

i just finished watching cnn's four-hour series on being black in america and i don't think the all-news network really got it.

to be fair, i was forewarned about the inadequacies of this project by a fellow scribe. reported by award-winning journalist soledad o'brien, i was told that the documentary jumped all over the place and had no point. as much as i had hoped my friend would be wrong, he was not. because the piece is so poorly edited it makes it hard for viewers to fully invest themselves in the stories.

and when that happens you just don't care.

also, one of the problems with documentaries of this ilk is that while they routinely attempt to chronicle the struggles, the pain and the strife endured by the people being profiled, they rarely capture their resolve. that's one of the reasons we have been able to survive being black in america.

another issue i had was with the panel of "experts." there's one exceptionally youthful looking harvard professor who comments on nearly every segment from education to hiv/aids to religion and faith. what, cornell west was unavailable? skip gates was on holiday? angela davis said no? no disrespect to the brother from harvard, new voices are needed. but even though the aforementioned people are used ad nauseaum by media entities from around the globe, at least they're old enough and learned enough to know what they're talking about.

and more importantly, they have a certain cache, credibility.

additionally, there's no significant mention of the impact of hip hop or mega churches have had on the culture. how can that be?

towards the end of the third hour i was still wondering what the point was. it kind of felt as if cnn were trying to say: "hey white people, looky here. black folks are a-0-k, too!" my great fear, however, is that cnn is marketing this project to the wrong audience. black folks already know what it's like to be black in america and none of the stories presented were at all enlightening.
and, for the random white person that watches this, it's quite possible that black in america will reinforce all of the stereotypes he or she subscribes to.

thus, they won't see anything new either.

yet you have to give props to the cnn marketing machine. even though i believe it is selling us a hunk of hype, so far it has done so very effectively. interest has been generated and details of the special have gone viral.

too bad it won't live up to its potential.

like my cousin the anchor woman said, it's almost as if cnn has proclaimed this the year of the black and put together this program to prove themselves enlightened. well, if the network had been smart as opposed to simply enlightened, it would have selected six or seven of the most compelling stories and spread them out over five nights so that the backstories of the people involved could have been more fully developed.

had they done that, we might have cared about those folks.

in a private conversation following the presentation of the series to the nation's television critics last week, o'brien explained that one of her goals for the series was to explore the disparity between blacks and whites and why it exists. i'm not sure that's something that can be fully examined or comprehended in four hours, especially when there are no references to the middle passage.

for me, being black in america isn't just about limited opportunities due to overt discrimination and racism. it isn't just about buying a big house in the suburbs and driving expensive german cars. and it's not just about overcoming drug addiction and poverty.

it's about the journey.

it's about having merry christmases, wonderful easters and happy birthdays despite your circumstances. it's about maintaining hope and faith in the eye of the storm. and, as nikki giovanni once wrote it's about realizing that "black love is black wealth."

that's what people need to understand.

kudos to cnn for trying. but unfortunately the powers that be got to the station too late and missed the train on this one.