Have you ever seen a black family that’s made it a few rungs up the corporate ladder? They’ve moved on up to the east side, to that deluxe apartment in the sky or that single family home in the suburbs with the bangin granite countertops? Heck, maybe that family is you.
If you’ve seen this firsthand then you know the struggle is real when it comes to maintaining the balance between looking forward while embracing your past at the same da#% time. If you don’t know what I’m talking about here are 5 easy ways to figure out if you’re black-ish.
1) You struggled to get your kids into the best schools then worry about what they’re learning because they’re one of the only black kids there.
2) You worry that your kids are out of touch with their blackness? And by blackness I mean more Langston Hughes and less Lil Weezy!
3) Do people look at you like you’re crazy…. in your own neighborhood?
4) You have natural hair but the stores in your neighborhood still don’t sell natural hair products.
5) Have your kids slid past the regular sports like basketball and football to play hockey (field or ice), rugby or other sports their cousins that they go see in the summer have never heard of?
If you answered yes to any of these then you just may be black-ish!
Recently, Ronnie and I had a chance to sit down for lunch with Tracee Ellis Ross and a few friends of ours here in Atlanta. During our conversation, Tracee shared more about a new show that she’s on called Black-ish. Tracee stars as Rainbow, the wife of Andre ‘Dre’ Johnson played by Anthony Anderson. The couple who are the parents of four kids (this sounds familiar) worry if success has brought too much assimilation and moved them away from their cultural roots.
We were invited to an advance screening here in Atlanta and I can honestly say the first episode was hilarious. The funniest moments for me were just the looks that Dre’s father, played by Laurence Fishburne, gave him every time his kids said something that didn’t equate to proper blackness lol.
From work, to marriage, to parenting this is a show that I think a lot of black folks will be able to relate to and that’s why you should watch it. Not because you’re hoping it’s the next Cosby show (it’s been over 20 years so let’s stop saying that every time a black show debuts), not because the cast is amazing, but because the show is honestly funny and if you don’t jump on it right away you already know the deal.
Shows with casts like this are few and far between so we need to support them but only when they provide quality content and this one hits the mark. I have a stiff internal meter for shucking and jiving and it didn’t go off one time during this show.
Black-ish, it’s comedy and good comedy at that so make sure you tune in tomorrow night (Wed. Sept. 24th) at 9PM ET/8PM CT to see for yourself. Check out the trailer below.
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