Black Families: Real TV

While today’s class got a little heated, it still remained interesting. We were all asked to write down what we have learned in the class up to this point. The emphasis placed on hairstyles in the African American community stands out to me as an interesting fact. While I feel that everyone should be able to wear their hair in any personal style they choose, I still find the importance of hair in society to be intriguing. After that we got into another tasty chat about the NFL draft and slavery. I am not even going to comment because it will take up this entire blog.
We then listed character traits of the collective African American family, as well as the traits of individual family members, as portrayed on television. The trait that stands out the most is togetherness. All of the families we’ve viewed so far have been very close-knit, supportive families, with strong parental figures. Traits of the African American male were mixed, including lazy, dependent, sly, smooth, and athletic, while other people found them to be hardworking, independent, strong, vibrant. The African American female is said to be loving, family-oriented, independent, wild, opinionated, savvy, sassy, and hardworking.
Afterwards, we watched three shows: “The Family Crew,” “Deion and Pilar: Primetime Love,” and Coolio’s show. The first two shows depicted a very close-knit family, full of love and support. In “The Family Crew,” the father and the children baked a cake for their sister. In “Deion and Pilar,” Deion encouraged studying over playing, and even helped his son to study. He also helped his children sell cookies for a school benefit. Both also included large families, of seven and five children, respectively. The Coolio show was very different, showing a family without a mother, with the least children (four), and the least functional home life. Coolio even brought a date home! I felt that he was a poor father figure and that his children respected him the least of the fathers we saw today.
As far as stereotypes are concerned, it seems we saw large, supportive families, centered around a father figure, with the exception of Coolio’s family. This makes me wonder which of these families is more typical of the average African American family, and which of these stereotypes would be seen in the real homes of families in the African American community. Peace.

By: Brain Whitlock