‘Black-ish’ is Tone Deaf on the Issue of Colorism

[TMC]

http://blackgirllonghair.com/2017/03...e-of-colorism/

The Johnson family is what many would consider light-skinned, with the exception of Diane, played by the adorable Marsai Martin. (Three of the actors who star in Black-ish — Tracee Ellis Ross, Yara Shahidi and Miles Brown — are biracial in real life.) I’m not sure if this casting was intended, but it provides a rich opportunity for exploration of color and blackness.

But for a long time, Black-ish only (and very briefly) touched on colorism in an episode where Bow grapples with her disdain for Junior’s white girlfriend, as she remembers being a mixed race youth struggling to fit in with both the black and white crowd.

But it seemed the show might take another swing at it in a recent episode titled ToysRn’tUs, which tackles black representation in media and culture. When Dre casts a fair-skinned black family for an ad campaign (that his assistant jokes looks like the DeBarge’s) his co-workers note that he has an affinity for lighter skin. Dre takes offense at this — as many black people do when accused of colorism — but never reflects deeply. Instead he kneejerk reacts by re-casting the family as West African in traditional garb. Cue the lame jokes about them being Somali pirates (who, incidentally, reside in East Africa) and then the show kind of sputters to an end with Dre sheepishly admitting that sometimes he gets carried away in his pursuit of equality.

I understand that Black-ish is a comedy, but this is an unsatisfying finish for a show that dedicated an entire episode to why it’s okay for black people to use the N-word.

As the episode ran I wondered why, when Dre was considering how to re-cast the black family, it didn’t occur to him to put in people who looked like his own daughter.