Black in College

I watched the first couple episodes of “Black. White.” with the boyfriend earlier this week, and he was extremely aggravated by the attitudes of the white family. I felt bad for subjecting him to that, because he and I are very open when it comes to discussions/jokes about race. The only time a discussion got a little heated was before Barack Obama became the President-elect. He said Obama is articulate, and I had to explain why that was an inappropriate comment. He was not surprised–I think he just didn’t realize what he was saying. After dating a psychotic African girl and then an eccentric black girl right afterward, he’s most certainly aware of our cultural differences.

After one episode of “Black. White.” he was done for the day, promising that we would watch another episode later (which we never did). He was pissed at the “surprisingly” ignorant white family for expecting a bigger reaction to their newfound black existence than they got, and I was pissed at the black family for not being able to concentrate more on their own experiences, rather than spending each episode schooling the white folks. Then again, I’ve only seen two episodes thus far.

The most annoying character for me was Bruno Wurgel, who spends every minute of every episode preaching positivism. He’s convinced that the only racism black people experience nowadays is all their own creation. He thinks if you have a positive outlook, no one can get to you–not even a vehement racist who shouts “Hey, nigger!” for no particular reason. My hope is that Big Man Wurgel will soon realize that he’s not going to get the type of racism he seeks; because interestingly enough, he criticizes black people for seeing racism when there is none, and yet even in black-face, he can’t see the fear or apprehension in the eyes of the white people he encounters. I guess white people do a good job of “just being polite.”

Really, I’m not sure what the black people are supposed to get out of the show. Perhaps they’ll realize that white people have more to do with themselves than sit around hating black people? I don’t know. I think Renee Sparks was right when she said that most black people don’t need training when it comes to “acting white” because they have to do so each and every day they go to a job interview, or attend a professor’s office hours… My mother trained me to impress many white person while I was growing up–and everything she’s taught me has been extremely useful. I make sure to keep my posture straight, shake hands firmly, and enunciate each of my words, occasionally even inserting an SAT word for good measure. These tactics will ensure that I am one of very few black woman soil scientists.

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