Dirty Laundry
Black.White episode 3...
"What does racism mean, Nick?"
"A'on kno."
"Instead of spending all this time trying to get through to Bruno, I should have been talking to my son."
When this exchange took place during episode 2, I was hopeful. Finally the Sparks family was realizing that they had failed to educate Nick about his history, about the people on whose back he stands, about the stinging reality of the race and class inequities in this country. I thought that they would start having some conversations that were long overdue.
Sadly, this never happened. Rene and Brian don't appear to be able to communicate anything of substance to Nick or anyone else. Even more sad was that within the first 15 minutes of the third episode it became obvious that their conversation needed to be about something far more pressing.
"Nick is 16 years old with an 8th grade education and he's been expelled from school."
(Um...y'all....your slip is hanging!)
Two years ago, Bill Cosby spoke out about the sad state of affairs that is the undereducated, disrespectful inner city teen. He scolded the parents of the BET generation for not instilling a sense of pride in their children; for allowing them to internalize the hyper-sexualized, misogynistic, violent stereotypes that have become the norm in music videos, movies and television shows targeting black youngsters; for not insisting that they take their education seriously.
These comments came as quite a surprise to a lot of people, as it is human nature not to want to publicly discuss the problems of your own social/racial group. No one wants to air their dirty laundry out in the open. But, as Mr. Cosby pointed out, "your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day. It's cursing and calling each other nigga as they're walking up and down the street. They think they're hip...they can't read, they can't write, they're laughing and giggling and they're going nowhere."
Well, the Sparks family's dirty laundry is showing every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday night on FX. And they don't seem to realize it.
Over lunch, Rose casually remarked that Nick embodies the stereotype and appears to be proud of it. And his parents don't seem to notice.
When he bought the $150 watch, their reaction evoked different responses. Bruno was excited to have a front row seat to the black-face-tongue-lashing. I, on the other hand, was extremely disappointed. There was never a time when the Sparks adults explained to Nick why he shouldn't have a flashy, expensive watch. They did point out that he didn't have a job, but then the question becomes where did he get the money? Why does an unemployed 8th grade dropout who lives at home need more than $20 in his pocket at any given time?
When he slurs his words & uses slang, they don't even bat an eye. I was in college before my mother would stand for me speaking anything other than standard English. Until then, I had to demonstrate to her every day that I was capable of being bilingual & that I knew when to use the "other" language. But the Sparks parents don't seem to be the least bit bothered by Nick's broken English. And they have demonstrated that they don't know how to correct him.
When he failed 5th grade did they have anything to say? How about when he failed 8th grade? Or when he was expelled for having the knife in school? I wonder if these people can ever manage to say anything of any substance. If those past, off-camera conversations were anything like the one all of America witnessed last week, I can see why Nick is having difficulty getting it together.
adult - "You need to go to school, get an education, go to college."
child - "Why y'all so concerned 'bout me goin' to college?"
adult - "Cause I'm yo daddy, that's why."
Yeah, I can totally see why he doesn't get it. His mother seems to think that HE is going to take the initiative to re-enroll in school or start working on his GED. I'm not sure where she got this idea. Nick is a child and he has proven that he is an irresponsible one. He also doesn't seem to have any interest in school. He is not even ashamed that he was expelled, or that he is 2 grades behind. Perhaps she should take that matter into her own hands.
Perhaps the Sparks adults need to sign up for the "Bill Cosby Parenting Boot Camp".
Or maybe they are watching themselves on TV now and realizing that their collective slip is hanging, their business is all in the street, and their dirty laundry is being aired in High Definition.
Black.White
TV
"What does racism mean, Nick?"
"A'on kno."
"Instead of spending all this time trying to get through to Bruno, I should have been talking to my son."
When this exchange took place during episode 2, I was hopeful. Finally the Sparks family was realizing that they had failed to educate Nick about his history, about the people on whose back he stands, about the stinging reality of the race and class inequities in this country. I thought that they would start having some conversations that were long overdue.
Sadly, this never happened. Rene and Brian don't appear to be able to communicate anything of substance to Nick or anyone else. Even more sad was that within the first 15 minutes of the third episode it became obvious that their conversation needed to be about something far more pressing.
"Nick is 16 years old with an 8th grade education and he's been expelled from school."
(Um...y'all....your slip is hanging!)
Two years ago, Bill Cosby spoke out about the sad state of affairs that is the undereducated, disrespectful inner city teen. He scolded the parents of the BET generation for not instilling a sense of pride in their children; for allowing them to internalize the hyper-sexualized, misogynistic, violent stereotypes that have become the norm in music videos, movies and television shows targeting black youngsters; for not insisting that they take their education seriously.
These comments came as quite a surprise to a lot of people, as it is human nature not to want to publicly discuss the problems of your own social/racial group. No one wants to air their dirty laundry out in the open. But, as Mr. Cosby pointed out, "your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day. It's cursing and calling each other nigga as they're walking up and down the street. They think they're hip...they can't read, they can't write, they're laughing and giggling and they're going nowhere."
Well, the Sparks family's dirty laundry is showing every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday night on FX. And they don't seem to realize it.
Over lunch, Rose casually remarked that Nick embodies the stereotype and appears to be proud of it. And his parents don't seem to notice.
When he bought the $150 watch, their reaction evoked different responses. Bruno was excited to have a front row seat to the black-face-tongue-lashing. I, on the other hand, was extremely disappointed. There was never a time when the Sparks adults explained to Nick why he shouldn't have a flashy, expensive watch. They did point out that he didn't have a job, but then the question becomes where did he get the money? Why does an unemployed 8th grade dropout who lives at home need more than $20 in his pocket at any given time?
When he slurs his words & uses slang, they don't even bat an eye. I was in college before my mother would stand for me speaking anything other than standard English. Until then, I had to demonstrate to her every day that I was capable of being bilingual & that I knew when to use the "other" language. But the Sparks parents don't seem to be the least bit bothered by Nick's broken English. And they have demonstrated that they don't know how to correct him.
When he failed 5th grade did they have anything to say? How about when he failed 8th grade? Or when he was expelled for having the knife in school? I wonder if these people can ever manage to say anything of any substance. If those past, off-camera conversations were anything like the one all of America witnessed last week, I can see why Nick is having difficulty getting it together.
adult - "You need to go to school, get an education, go to college."
child - "Why y'all so concerned 'bout me goin' to college?"
adult - "Cause I'm yo daddy, that's why."
Yeah, I can totally see why he doesn't get it. His mother seems to think that HE is going to take the initiative to re-enroll in school or start working on his GED. I'm not sure where she got this idea. Nick is a child and he has proven that he is an irresponsible one. He also doesn't seem to have any interest in school. He is not even ashamed that he was expelled, or that he is 2 grades behind. Perhaps she should take that matter into her own hands.
Perhaps the Sparks adults need to sign up for the "Bill Cosby Parenting Boot Camp".
Or maybe they are watching themselves on TV now and realizing that their collective slip is hanging, their business is all in the street, and their dirty laundry is being aired in High Definition.
Black.White
TV
posted by Piscean Princess at 9:45 AM
2 Comments:
Nick is hard to watch although not harder than Bruno.
I was disappointed when the father told the white kids from the etiquette school that one of the reasons they shouldn't use the N-word is because somebody might beat them up. I think they really are struggling with the parent child relationship.
Rachel - I was disappointed in Brian's comments to the etiquette class, too. But I wasn't the least bit surprised. Brian was unable to articulate to his own child why HE shouldn't use the word or let those white children use it in his presence. I'm not sure the barber did much better, because I kept hearing a lot about "my generation", "your generation", as if the word has lost meaning because of the passage of time.
I re-watched episode 4 yesterday and heard something I missed the 1st go-round: upon hearing his son's attitude about the white kids calling him "N", Brian told his wife, "We should have brought the neighbor's kid." LOL!
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