Columnist – John Sammon
Hollywood has done what Jim Crow rednecks in the South couldn’t…kill the Civil Rights Movement. They did it by keeping racism alive and well, but with a more subtle touch. Watch your TV set. Look at the African Americans on television.

How white they look. Light skins. Straight hair. Thin lips. These Anglo features are the in-way to portray African Americans, using those actors who are apparently the least offensive to white viewers.

In other words, if you can’t beat ‘em…join ‘em.

You think I’m crazy? Watch shows like America’s Top Model. The MC of the show is a gorgeous gal of color (but very light color) with hair that appears as straight as it almost is auburn.

This is what they want.

She looks like a mixed blood. And no, I have nothing against mixed racial backgrounds. I do have a problem with flooding the airwaves with African Americans who are white imitations.

This desire, to allow on TV African Americans who have white features, isn’t written down in any board room of the networks as a rule. It just is. An unwritten standard, or what hippies in the 1960s used to call a “happening.”

This is like racism in Mexico. We’ve become like Mexico. Mexicans pride themselves on not being racist, but they are. Many of the Latino women seen on their television have dyed blonde hair. Blondes are big in Mexico, as they are here.

This is what they want in Mexico and here.

Swarthy Mexicans of Indian blood are usually not beauty role models on TV in that country.

Does Brittany Spears look Latino? From their TV you’d think so.

It worked! It worked! Watering down the Civil Rights Movement. Why? Because no black people used to be seen on television at all (except for Amos and Andy).

Black people see themselves represented on TV, and they assume they’ve made significant progress. They haven’t.

Inner city schools are still far behind white affluent schools. Jails are still filled with black men.

Most Americans won’t vote for Senator Obama because of the color of his skin, and don’t want people of color to move into their neighborhood.

But since black people can see themselves on TV (the whiter variety of African Americans), they assume the best.

This subtle form of racism is hard to flush out for what it is.

The Republicans learned it early-on and have been doing it for years. They are always eager to promote an African American like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (her hair is straight too) to some high post as a token, to diffuse criticism of the party’s traditional racist stance.

This is ironic since the Republican party was once the party of Lincoln.

Thick African lips, wide nose and kinky hair are definitely not in vogue on television. But nobody except me calls the networks on it. Since I’m the only one, I thought I would.

It’s wrong. To tokenize and make people of different color imitations acceptably white enough almost to white viewers.

It’s wrong.

But it sure achieved its purpose. Cooling down and silencing critics in the Civil Rights Movement.

It must also prove the old adage that tragically still apparently remains true from the days of the first slave-taking slave-killing European explorers.

If you give ‘em (natives) trinkets, it makes ‘em happy.

By John Sammon
Copyright 2007 Sammonsays.

References:

1. On Negrophobia: Psychoneurotic Obstacles to Black Autonomy (or Why I just love Michael Jackson).

2. Republicans and Race — We shouldn’t avert our gaze at the issue of race because we’re unwilling to tarnish Ronald Reagan’s image.

3. Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White.

4. Race and the Rise of the Republican Party, 1848-1865 (American University Studies Series IX, History).

5. Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man?.

6. Black is Brown is Tan.

7. The Skin I’m In: A First Look at Racism.

8. Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil.

9. Black Skin, White Masks.

10. How Did You Get To Be Mexican.

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