BLACK. WHITE. STILL UPTIGHT.

Back in the day, when I was in Junior High, (or Middle School as it's called today,) I remember reading a book called BLACK LIKE ME. It was written by a courageous white reporter who used a medical procedure to darken his skin so he could pass for a Black man.

I also vaguely recall a sixties comedy starring Godfrey Cambridge entitled, WATERMELON MAN, about a White man who woke up one day and to his horror discovered he had turned into a Black man. Flash forward forty years, and we now have BLACK. WHITE. a new documentary series on FX in which two families, one Black and one White, through the magic of Hollywood make-up, exchange races.

The White family; Bruno Marcotulli, his wife Carmen Wurgel, and her daughter Rose Bloomfield (yes, they all have different last names - how moderne is that!) leave their mono-ethnic lives in Santa Monica behind to share a Los Angeles home and trade races with the single-surname Sparks family, Brian, Renee, and their 17 year old son, Nick from Atlanta. They spend hours a day being transformed (still, the only ones who look convincing, at least physically, are Rose and her mother Carmen) and they set out to see what it's like, and how differently they will be treated because of the color of their skin.

On one of his earliest forays into the world as a White man, Brian is stunned when a shoe clerk in the pro shop of a golf course, actually takes off his shoes and puts his feet into the pair that he is considering purchasing. He immediately attributes this to racism, since he's never been treated with such deference when he's bought shoes as a Black man.

I find it less as a matter of race and more a matter of grace. I always had my shoes changed by salesmen, Black & White as I grew up in New York. Times have changed, and so has the idea of customer service - it's not automatically a racial thing. When Brian returned to the store as a Black man, the salesman didn't change his shoes. That didn't necessarily prove anything, because it was a different salesman. The episode begs the question, are Black people hyper-sensitive about race?

On the other side of the coin, Bruno thinks racism is in the eye of the beholder. He constantly expounds his 'skewpoint', that a positive attiude and a respectful demeanor are all that's needed to combat racisim. He pontificates on and on about how he can't wait until someone comes up and calls him a "nigger" to his face, because he will act like the word doesn't bother him at all and thereby diffuse their power. Bruno believes that's all Black people have to do, just get over it! (Trust me, Bruno, as one who has experienced this many times, you don't have a clue!) He's a classic pompous blowhard, but his attitude and smug indifference is rampant today.

Bruno's theory also points out the weakness in the premise of the show. Putting a person in blackface will not make them understand being Black any more than dressing a woman in mens' clothing and letting her strut around will make her understand the experience of getting a hard on. It's totally superficial. You are who you are underneath, no matter how much you are coached on Black speech or how to walk White.


Even with Bruno's cockeyed 'point of skew', he isn't the most irritating person on the show. That crown goes to Renee, the Black wife/mother. This pugnacious woman seems to always be looking for a fight. She's a pitbull hungry to snap her jaws shut on some pale ass - any pale ass!

In one instance, Renee and Carmen are being coached on Black/White dialect and vocabulary. At one point, Carmen says, "Yo, bitch" appros of nothing, just trying out her Black dialect and using one of the words on the list. Renee rolls her eyes and seethes. Later, she confronts Carmen, who tries to explain that she thought it was one of the ways Black girlfriends refer to each other, (which is not entirely untrue.) But schoolyard bully, Renee refuses to entertain Carmen's explanation, threatening that if Carmen ever calls her a bitch again she's going to find out who she's f*cking with! She keeps provoking Carmen until the woman winds up in tears. I was livid watching her pummel this woman who is at worst a bleeding-heart liberal who admits how isolated from Black people her life is, and craves a learning experience so she can grow. Carmen did not call Renee a bitch, but the fact of the matter is, in my opinion, Renee is a BITCH, in the worst connotation of the word.

Renee and her husband gang up on Carmen again when Carmen refers to a young, Black female poet as a "beautiful creature." They zero in on the word "creature" completely disregarding context or the spirit in which Carmen was trying to honor the poet. Are we as a people so closed off, and adamant about race that we can no longer discern intent or content? Perhaps that is what's truly fueling the racial divide today. If a person can't reach out without getting their fingers chewed off, why reach out at all?

There is a bright spot in the show for me, and that is Rose. She is an articulate, sensitive, smart and open young woman who is trying to use this experiment to learn, share and come to a better understanding of another race/culture. She looks the most convincing in her transformation than anyone on the show, yet she refuses to try to "act black" or pretend to be anything she's not. She joins a Black poetry workshop, and on the day the group first meets, they are asked about some of their favorite music artists. In the midst of those representing Kanye, Mary J and Tupac, Rose has the courage to keep it real and say, "I like The Cranberries." She is undaunted by the reactions of those who's only reference to 'cranberries' is the juice or can-shaped "sauce" that is as staple on many Black tables at Thanksgiving, (It ain't Thanksgiving without it to me. I love the way it jiggles yet holds the shape of the can. And how slice-able it is! But I digress...)

Rose observes, and remains refreshingly honest at all times. She finally, out of respect to the revelations and passion of the group and it's poetry, reveals to them that she is a White girl in blackface. She bravely opens herself up to their questions, criticisms, and the prissy reprimand of one of the "gayest" professed straight men to ever walk the earth. Still, she accepts his queeny tirade with grace, and wins the acceptance of the group, and the start of what is really important in the midst of all this razzle dazzle, the possibility of nurturing new friendships and new understanding.

I will continue to watch BLACK. WHITE. For all of it's irritating elements, the fact that race is being put forth and discussed on American television is a good thing. I've come in contact with too many people, mostly White, who refuse to believe race is still an issue. They categorize films like, CRASH as "too on the nose" or "like a TV movie" unaware that they are just reveling in their ignorance. They'd rather dismiss the film, instead of challenging themselves to get to the heart of why it struck such a chord in so many of their fellow citizens.

Racism is an iceberg in our society. Hulking, cold, and all the more dangerous because of what lies beneath the surface.