It was recently brought to my attention that black people all see the world the same way. Until now, I’d been under the misguided notion that amongst black people there was diversity of thought.
Thankfully, a well-meaning white woman set me straight right on Facebook and informed me that we *gestures to all the blacks* share the same opinion on virtually every issue. Imagine that! And, for that reason, a talk show should NOT be hosted by a group of black women because what’s entertaining about that?! She astutely deduced that we’d all just be nodding along, agreeing with each other. ‘Like begets like’, so she wisely suggested that what we need to do is add a ‘hot tamale’ to bring some ‘flava’.
Television Tess patiently and graciously explained that The T Talk Show lacks ‘diversity’, and after a bit of a cautious start, courageously expressed that she isn’t talking about nationality, age, religion, education, career, family composition, sexual orientation, politics… NOPE. In order to have TRUE diversity, there must be white people. Oh also Asians. The fact that there are only black women means that the open audition process had to have been ‘rigged’. (Maybe a Commission of Inquiry is needed? I’ll look into it.)
She pledged not to watch a show that ‘lacks compass’, is ‘shallow’, and ‘has no value’. I mean, how could it have value without white people? (Sidenote, she is quite an incredible woman to have such a deep understanding of this without coming to any shows or knowing any of the hosts personally! #whitegirlmagic)
When someone pointed out that the target audience for the show is black women in the Caribbean, she exclaimed that that is ‘the most racist agenda she has ever seen’. Our show is going to ‘segregate and not unify’. Say it ain’t so! Oh, and she absolutely CRUSHED the argument that black and brown people suffer from lack of representation on TV because ‘Jeffersons’ and ‘Good Times’ came out in the 70s. #dynomite
So, in all honesty, how do we turn this around?
Pilot episodes have already been filmed. The audiences were full and they said they enjoyed watching (RACISTS!). But we MUST go back to the drawing board. Clearly the producers weren’t thinking. It was foolish of them to believe that five black women with wide-ranging life experiences could provide varied, interesting and insightful commentary on socio-political issues and pop culture.
Throw the whole show away. Television Tess has spoken.
And after all, Oprah is her ‘she-ro’.
