Decent Black People

[Smartboy]

I looked over the schedule and found that tomorrow morning's episode is "Baby of the Family". When this episode was made, I was fifteen years old and living in Piscataway, New Jersey. My crush on Julie had already been around for upwards of two years. In any event, I remember the premise of this episode being Samantha's anger at Nell for not letting her go on a camping trip with boys. She attempted to get even by convincing Joey to wear black face when he performed at Nell and Addie's church. Nell could not believe her eyes when she saw little Joey coming on stage with the black makeup on his face! She gave Joey a big lecture about how he was making fun of black people. She could not believe her ears when Joey explained to her that Samantha had put him up to it. She confronted Samantha and Samantha, in turn told Nell her side of the story. Nell explained to Samantha that, in the process of trying to get revenge on her, she was also insulting the members of the church and showing disrespect to a lot of decent black people. I think that Samantha deserves a salute for apologizing to Nell, admitting that she was insensitive and being willing to make amends. For some reason that I do not understand myself, Nell's use of the term decent black people has stuck with me for the past thirty-one years. Sharing this memory with you is just another attempt to stimulate some conversation about this fine series.