TV’s racial portrayals simply a reaffirmation of whiteness

Blackness remains. In a time when the U.S. population is
diversifying at a dizzying rate, when popular accounts of race
present it as an anachronistic concern, when colorblind ideology
shapes much of our public policy and when the affirmation of
cultural hybridity and multiple subjectivities is all the rage,
blackness remains a curious, palpable presence in our land.

But what began four centuries ago as an agrarian society
characterized by small-scale, face-to-face interactions has now
morphed into an information society marked by the torrential
presence of media ““ newspapers, magazines, billboards, film,
radio, CDs, DVDs, the Internet.

And, of course, popular television.

Popular television is a key medium. But, for better or worse,
popular television also functions as a central cultural forum in
our society. It serves as a social space for the mediated
encounters that distinguish the lived experiences of today from
those of old, as a place for us to vicariously sample our fondest
desires or our most dreaded fears, as a comfort zone from which we
can identify with our heroes (particularly in episodic programs) or
affirm our differences from undesirable others.

It is also a medium where blackness permeates every channel.

In an early 21st-century racial order predicated on racial
inequality among official denials of race, television has become a
white-controlled cultural forum that offers a little of something
for everyone. Industry executives dress enduring racial assumptions
and imperatives in the garb of race-neutral, market-based rhetoric,
channeling blackness in ways that segment the audience along racial
lines and simultaneously support the myth of an America beyond
race.

To be sure, most of the programs in prime time ““
particularly the top-rated shows that appear on the larger networks
““ remain a white place in which whites can affirm the
universality of whiteness in raceless times. White characters lead
and non-white characters follow. White characters dominate not only
in terms of the on-screen population but also in terms of time on
the screen. Black characters are typically the co-workers of more
prominent white characters, who, unlike black characters from
earlier periods, enjoy relatively affluent lifestyles. These
television blacks seem content to blend into the (white)
mainstream, often abandoning family and community for honorary
inclusion in this happy realm. The specter of race rarely emerges
as an explicit concern in these narratives.

Meanwhile, prime time practices during this period still
provided black viewers with increased opportunities to affirm
cultural community ““ albeit at the margins. The upstart Fox
network had cut its teeth on several programs that featured black
characters and themes, attracting significant black audiences in
the process. Fox’s marketing strategy, no doubt, was at least
partially motivated by the long-standing realization that black
Americans comprise a disproportionately large share of the
television audience. The WB and UPN would soon follow suit,
targeting black viewers with black-themed sitcoms that were never
meant to catch on among whites.

Indeed, Nielsen data from 2002 reveal that black viewers made up
nearly 80 percent of the audience for the black-themed sitcoms on
the smaller networks. It is interesting to note that nearly all of
these shows were either run by blacks or created by them and
featured creative staffs with a critical mass of black writers. The
racial tables are turned in these programs. Blacks generally lead
and whites follow. Black homes and communities are given center
stage, while black characters dominate both in terms of on-screen
population and time on the screen.

Supporters of the prime time status quo might invoke any number
of democracy tropes to address the patterns described above. For
example, some might claim that audience segmentation along racial
lines is the benign result of consumer choice. Others might suggest
that differences between the readings of black self-representations
and the readings of similar black representations circulated in a
more mainstream context underscore the primacy of polysemy ““
a reality that supports the possibility, if not the existence, of
“semiotic democracy.” If American society were truly
race-neutral, then these arguments might be reasonable.

But American society is profoundly raced.

Black overrepresentation in colorblind times serves the critical
need of stabilizing the binary in racial formation processes, and
in so doing, framing the popular discourses through which other
nonwhite groups are situated in the racial order. Against a
backdrop of increasing racial diversity, a white-controlled
industry continues to channel blackness in ways that affirm
whiteness, while at the same time promoting the fiction of an
America beyond race.

Hunt is director of the Bunche Center for African American
Studies and professor of sociology at UCLA. This passage is
excerpted from his book, “Channeling Blackness: Studies on
Television and Race in America,” published earlier this
year.