For the last week or so, I have been knee deep in NBA Playoff games. While watching the fourth game of the Rockets\/Blazers series I saw a trailer for \u201cNext Day Air,\u201d a comedy starring Donald Faison (Scrubs) and Mos Def (Be Kind Rewind). Based on the trailer, the movie looks like it\u2019s going to be one of those \u201cSoul Plane\u201d-type comedies where they just perpetuate black stereotypes to make a quick buck.<\/p>\n
As soon as the trailer was over, I knew that I had to write about this movie and how bad it\u2019s going to be, how it was going to set black people back 20 years and all that jazz. But then I started thinking a little more about it.<\/p>\n
I began thinking about how, as a black person, I have to deal with problems that include, but are not limited to, representing my entire race every time I step out of my house. How I have to differentiate myself from other ignorant people that share the same skin color as me. How I have to go above and beyond the call of duty in everything I do in this world just to make the playing field even.<\/p>\n
Whether or not those things are true is beside the point because they are truths I have to deal with on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
On one hand I wouldn\u2019t mind going to see a movie like \u201cSoul Plane\u201d or \u201cNext Day Air,\u201d but on the other hand I don\u2019t want to promote something that puts black people in a bad light.<\/p>\n
Honestly, I could not care less if I see a movie with black people making themselves look foolish, but I can\u2019t, because just like me, they\u2019re representing an entire race.<\/p>\n
My question is why?<\/p>\n
Why does a 20-year-old have to care about these things?<\/p>\n
Can I just ignore all the woes that affect the people that fill our nations projects and ghettos? Am I a sellout if I don\u2019t carry that burden? Am I wrong for not wanting the burden? I wish someone could answer my questions.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve also been seeing a lot of commercials promoting the second installment of \u201cBlack in America\u201d done by CNN. This time it will be looking for solutions to \u201cthe most pressing problems facing Black America.\u201d I watched the first \u201cBlack in America\u201d and I didn\u2019t learn anything I hadn\u2019t known going in.<\/p>\n
Are black people so screwed that we have to have all of these in-depth documentaries to show us how to improve our lives?<\/p>\n
I get tired of watching countless hours of discussion on what needs to be done to fix the black community. I guess if it was easy, we wouldn\u2019t being having specials like \u201cBlack in America.\u201d<\/p>\n
To be honest, I think the show was meant for people who had to have absolutely no knowledge what\u2019s going on in the inner city.<\/p>\n
But, to me, I feel it\u2019s kind of like that old Harold Melvin song, \u201cIf You Don\u2019t Know Me by Now.\u201d If you\u2019re just now figuring out about what most black people have to struggle with on a day-to-day basis, then you\u2019re never going to catch up in this human race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the last week or so, I have been knee deep in NBA Playoff games. While watching the fourth game of the Rockets\/Blazers series I saw a trailer for \u201cNext Day Air,\u201d a comedy starring Donald Faison (Scrubs) and Mos Def (Be Kind Rewind). Based on the trailer, the movie looks like it\u2019s going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[44,1959,473,474],"class_list":["post-1820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-commentary","tag-kamari-stevens","tag-question","tag-repeat-question"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-tm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1820"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15412,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions\/15412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}