Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The African-American community heavily criticized the first installment of Soledad O’Brien’s Black in America CNN special. The prevailing opinion was that African-Americans had been portrayed, for the most part, in a negative light.
Starting tonight and continuing tomorrow (July 22 & 23) at 8pm ET as Black in America 2 airs on CNN let us view the special with a critical eye and ask ourselves whether what we see is a fair depiction of our brothers and sisters in America.
Feel free to share your thoughts here on blackfood.org.♦bf
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:03 am
I watched most of it last night and realized that CNN and Soledad O’Brien have absolutely NO overstanding of what it means to be black in America. African-Americans were either portrayed in a negative light (alcoholics, coke addicts, welfare mommas, basketball obsessed dummies) OR they were portrayed as middle class, affluent people with no connection with the “rest” of their kind. CNN and Soledad should be ashamed!!!!!
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:15 am
I forgot to add that if bashing African-Americans wasn’t enough…CNN had to go to South Africa and bash Africans. South Africans were portrayed as poverty stricken, AIDS infected people. To add insult to injury…apartheid was just “mentioned” in passing. CNN’s aim – to perpetuate a negative image of the ENTIRE African race. I was ABSOLUTELY disgusted!
July 25th, 2009 at 4:24 am
Black in America 2 highlighted that issues affecting the most “at-risk” persons (our children) in the Black community require the immediate attention of progressive Blacks. It was clear to me that making provisions for Black children who are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder through boarding schools established outside the “hoods”, staffed by caring and competent Black teachers and caregivers would be a great start to combatting these issues and breaking the cycle of ignorance and poverty.