Step 6: Consume Black Media

No need to wax-poetic on this one, it’s straight forward. If you have Netflix or Apple TV or other streaming services, most of them are literally trying to shove you in the direction of black cinema or television this week. So watch some. Engage with the heart-wrenching documentaries outlining the lineage of injustice experienced by black Americans of all walks of life AND watch a feel good movie (like Hidden Figures - still my favorite movie to recommend to anyone looking to learn and grow on a day where they don’t have the stomach for harder documentaries) - but watch SOMEthing. I personally love shows like Black-ish or even edgier shows like Black AF on Netflix. I’ve heard great things about Atlanta and Insecure, and assure you they’re on my list to tackle as well.

My hope isn’t that you’ll love these shows or even watch the entire seasons. My hope is that you will grow by engaging with the trials and tribulations of black protagonists, and understand some of the nuances of their journey.

Without at all diving into the larger cultural conversations about the legacy and horrors of Bill Cosby, I will say this: America was a better place for black people when the most popular show on television was a portrayal of a successful black family - with a lawyer and a doctor as parents, in a household where education was paramount and college was an expectation, not a surprise occurrence. That show did more to push racial quality forward than having our first Black President. Kids like me, interested in hard-work, violin, and other pursuits often presumed to be reserve for the white child, suffered fewer claims of “acting white” in those golden years of television. (I promise you, those claims returned when black excellence was replaced on prime time television with caricatures like Carlton on The Fresh Prince or Steve Urkel on Family Matters.) With the Cosby Show and it’s spin-offs we finally had a national portrayal of black folks, revelatory in their heritage, and plugged into a wider and diverse cultural landscape. It felt to be special and yet most importantly was portrayed to be perfectly ordinary.

One of my biggest soapboxes in my life, sincerely not being hyperbolic here, is that increased media portrayals of black life, black promise, and black humanity will be the cornerstone of building a nation where we don’t as a reflex see black youth in long white t-shirts as felons in training, where we don’t bat an eye at the peculiar black child eagerly asking for an extra credit assignment, where we don’t make as many limited assumptions about the life experience of the black citizens we encounter. While I think there are miles to go on this front, so much progress has been made. Black media is out there, so go dive in!

Watch and ask yourself questions. Not all of it is good or great, and I won’t suggest that just because black skin played a role in its creation you should love it. But watch it. Be conscious of stereotypes portrayed, dive into the life experience of the protagonists and antagonists alike, and unlike the real challenging work of some of the other steps, have some fun with this one!