The race question, or card, as it happens to be played, is
really an exercise in self-abuse, no matter what side of the fence
you happen to be on. But there’s entertainment value in self-abuse,
which is why, one supposes, reality television is so popular.
There’s nothing really interesting about those characters whose
appearance on the show was based simply on how easily they could be
understood. As an audience, we’re interested in the car crash. FX,
in its brand new series “Black. White.,” promises a train
wreck.
The plot is easy enough. Thanks to modern make-up and advances
in so-called open-mindedness, a black family (the Sparks) and a
white family (the Wurgels) agree ludicrously to live together and
teach one another what it is like to be a different color. Each
family switches over for short periods of time in order to have
what amounts to a ready-made racial experience. The producers edit
it just enough to make it a spectacle of improbability,
incoherence, and, yep, race-baiting.
For example, the white father, Bruno Wurgel in full black
make-up, appears at a car dealership wearing a jogging suit. Bruno
is warned by his counterpart, Brian Sparks, that he would probably
be ignored by the salesman altogether. When Bruno isn’t mistreated,
Brian scoffs that Bruno isn’t open to the little things he would
notice “if he knew to look for them.” Bruno shrugs, and suggests
that if he is simply nice and well mannered people won’t treat him
any differently — and accuses Brian of simply looking for
discrimination.
The Sparks family seems to think, and perhaps correctly, that
the show is primarily intended to teach white people a lesson.
Brian seems less concerned with learning about how his views may be
wrong than he is in finding out how correct he is. As Brian talks
to Bruno about being black, he repeats that Bruno simply isn’t open
to the subtle racism he faces everywhere. Bruno persistently
applies trial and error to seek out the root of why people approach
him as they do. Brian suggests that a family moves out of their
path on a sidewalk out of racist intentions. Bruno, exasperated,
points out that the family couldn’t have gotten past them without
moving.
EVEN IF BRIAN HAS BEEN edited poorly by the show’s producers, his
mentality that white people are simply not able to detect their
hidden racism is familiar ground. Campus orientation programs
around the country have been suggesting that students ought to
admit their own racism, even if they themselves don’t know they’re
racist. In this world, Bruno’s positive thinking, his belief that
treating people nicely will generate the same in kind, is
fallacious and ignorant, no matter how often he proves it.
“Black. White.” is reminiscent of a diversity seminar developed
by facilitator Jane Elliott, named Blue Eyed. There, Elliott
arbitrarily degrades a group of blue-eyed seminar attendees because
of the color of their skin. “This,” Elliott intones when through
with the abuse, “is what you have been doing to them.”
Elliott charges $5,000 per seminar (plus travel expenses), and this
past year gave one at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire.
Videos can be obtained at her website for about $300.
In an interview with the L.A. Times, show
producers R.J. Cutler and Ice Cube danced around the label
“documentary,” with Cube preferring the term “reality experiment,”
and Cutler admitting he’s no social scientist. FX Network president
John Landgraf claims any comparison with reality television is
inappropriate because that genre “feels at liberty to play
it fast and loose with characters and the realities of what really
happened.” Cutler digresses: “We never said we were telling a
comprehensive story.”
Any claim to comprehension is out of the question. The show is
only good for showcasing the worst that white guilt has to offer.
Bruno’s wife, Carmen, comes off as an out of touch mother who
proudly proclaims her parents’ work in civil rights as an emblem of
her liberal understanding, and thus exhibiting a complete lack
thereof. Carmen’s bright college-age daughter, Rose, appears to be
the only one interested in capitalizing on the opportunity to
experience what she may never again experience, even as she
recognizes its artificiality. Yet even here, Rose seems more
excited as a tourist might be, eager to immerse herself in a
culture not her own. To summarize, the white family is pushed
toward the classic stereotypical white family — a Hawaiian
shirt-wearing conservative father with an oversimplified outlook,
an attractive mother yearning to project her coolness, and a hip
teenager waiting for her parents to get with the program.
What’s worse is the treatment of the black family. Brian’s
comments are restricted to his criticisms of Bruno’s outlook or
repeating his grievances with white America, noting that he doesn’t
have to learn how to behave white, because as a matter of survival,
he has already done so. When Bruno uses the “n” word, Brian later
confides to the camera that he feels Bruno, like other white
people, all secretly want to be able to use the word without any
consequence. Brian’s wife Rene is seldom given an opportunity to
express anything other than outrage or frustration. When R.J.
Cutler resolved that it would be impossible to include everything,
he decided to discard all the parts that made these people human.
The blacks are emotionally reactive and angry. The whites are
ignorant and closed-minded.
WHY SHOULD IT BE SURPRISING, then, that the only two clear,
unmitigated voices are those of both children? Nick Sparks, a
senior high school student, is aloof, typically frowning. Rose
wonders aloud why, despite putting on white make-up, Nick still
refuses to behave white. “Because I can’t act white. I don’t want
to.” “Then why are you doing this?” “Because I wanna pass.”
The ambiguity between passing a class and passing for another
race is precious, even if it seems pretty clear Nick means the
former. Rose desperately wants to be accepted as black so she can
better understand blacks, going so far as to join a black poetry
group. Nick couldn’t care less, because like his father, he already
knows how to act white. In the end his resentment and Rose’s
obsessive complaisance wax irredeemable — and like the rest of the
show, one only wonders why on earth one would watch it, let alone
be on it.
