I spoke to soon folks! A couple blogs ago in my piece Celebs and Fat suits I wrote,
"Maybe I've just been out of the loop. Can someone tell me when disguising oneself as another segment of the population, of which you do not belong, became acceptable again? I thought that was circa 88-style television. It reminds me of when I was a kid and watched talk shows and News specials where "well-meaning" white journalist would get made up to look black and then "bravely" march out into the world only to come back with horror stories about how badly their own community treated the other community. Even as a child I felt nauseated rather then inspired me".
I guess what's old is new again because the day after I wrote that I was watching Oprah and saw that the Thursday episode would be about two families who traded "race’s," to explore “race” in America.
Before I go any further I will say that the term “race” has been so misused that it is embarrassing. As I mentioned before there is only one “race”, the human “race” (which is cliché but true). “Race” as we know it today was promoted by the Nazi's as a way to justify the Holocaust, i.e. if people believed that Jews were of a different “race”, it made it easier to justify the slaughter or a “race” that was supposedly inferior and less then human. Like the horrible legacy of slavery and the holocaust, the term “race” has haunted us ever since. The show should have been titled, "Trading Cultures" or "Trading Ethnicities" but of course that title doesn't sound as catchy. And we know it’s all about catchy attention grabbing headlines in the media.
ET (Entertainment Tonight) Canada aired commercials exclaiming, "Oprah undergoes an extreme makeover and transforms herself into a white woman". Here we go again. The ET Canada plug was very misleading. It made it appear as if the point of the show was Oprah’s transforming into a white woman, which was not accurate or that simple. On the show Oprah displayed The Human “race” Machine, created by artist Nancy Burson, which has the capacity to show how one would look as another ethnicity, how one will age or even how the child of two individuals may look. Oprah was FIRST shown as Asian (boy I'm cute" was her response to the image), then Hispanic, Middle Eastern and THEN white ("I don't like my lips" was her reply), followed by Indian. How ET decided to skip over the other ethnicity's to create their sensationalized plug makes me gag. Would it have been less interesting if they said, "Oprah undergoes an extreme makeover and transforms herself into a Asian woman"? I guess so because television, media and politics rely on the dramatic tension between blacks and whites (now Christians and Muslims), while ignoring all other cultures, to thrive and further divide the world.
Anyway, back to Oprah. When asked why the machine was created, Walied Osman replied, "We created the machine because we are 99.9 percent genetically alike". After the very entertaining display the real show began. The two families were the Sparks (the black family), and the Wurgels (the white family). Both families exchanged ethnicities, and shared an L.A. home for 6 weeks, for the documentary series Black/White. It took both family hours to be made up with make-up, prosthesis and wigs. It took 15 different shades to recreate both the black and white complexions. I must say none of them looked real to me; other then the Wurgels daughter who I thought looked really cute black. I felt that the black family looked mixed rather then white and the white families complexions seemed very unnatural. But of course all the unsuspecting bigots and general public fell for it.
When the families stepped on the stage you could see that their 6 weeks together hadn't made them friends (I've stayed with people for 2 days and left feeling like family, but maybe that's just me), they did not show much warmth towards each other and both seemed eager to spill the beans. The selection of the families was very interesting, while both were very attractive, articulate, middle class families, the white family presented themselves as very "naive" (not surprising since the mother admitted she had no black friends), the black family felt very unheard from the beginning (and did not give the Wurgel's the benefit of the doubt at any time). FX got what they wanted (I assume), the "angry" black family and the "head in the clouds" white family. I have a feeling they could have found families that fell somewhere in the middle. On Oprah's message boards it is not surprising how many white viewers have already vilified the black family as defensive and "sensitive" while the white family is portrayed as "innocent" and open. While many black viewers (and other people of color) are angry at the white families inability to show support or acknowledgment of many of the black families experiences.
The show was filled with many cringe inducing, sad and frustrating moments. Some highlights were when the Sparks were forced to sit in a white focus group (disguised as white people) when one young man shared that he sometimes felt the need to wipe his hands after shaking hands with a black person. Or the telling conversation in which an older “gentlemen” in Leo’s bar (where Brian, disguised as white, worked as a bartender for a day) informed Brian (after being asked how the neighborhood was?), "It's pretty much a white area so you won't have any problems...its been insulated for some reason and we want it to stay that way". Another hair-raising discussion took place with Renee (who was not disguised as white at the time) as a white man explained passionately that; "They (blacks) segregate themselves by not wanting to fit in. They’re proud of being dumb. They’re proud of not doing good in school". It was almost humorous when he ended by saying, "I'm not prejudice myself and I don't care". Sigh...if he’s not prejudice, I must be really losing it.
The show concentrated primarily on the way that blacks were either treated or talked about. The white families experience was very different. Bruno (the Wurgels) felt that he hadn't experienced much racism in his six weeks; he came in expecting someone to approach him screaming, "Hey Nigger. You're a son of a bitch. I hate you Nigger" but "unfortunately" that didn't happen so he explored his own fascination with the N word, leisurely dropping it in conversations while he was disguised as black. Brian recognized this and did not like it; "I think most white people, not all, would like to use the word Nigger in the presence of black people without any repercussions," he explained. Bruno denied using the word gratuitously. Oprah felt equally uncomfortable, "the word should be abolished by white people and black people because the word carries so much weight". She went on to explain that videos, music (hip hop), culture gleefully promote and glorify the terms bitch and nigger around the world, "and that is what the world thinks black people are because of these images". The show did not explore racism that whites experience also which is interesting. Many people refuse to acknowledge that many cultures (Black, Asian, Latin) display the same scorn and disinterest towards whites as whites have displayed towards them.
Carmen (The Wurgels) had the most difficult time and bore the brunt of criticism from the Sparks. Her time in the home began going down hill after she greeted Renee as, "Yo bitch," during one of their culture slang learning sessions. She truly believed it was viewed as an affectionate greeting amongst black women, (new to me) and was upset when it was not greeted well (to say the least). "I was in there trying to be black,” she explained. "But that's not being black" responded Renee. "I didn't know that" she cried back. She also came under fire when she used the word creature when describing a black woman, as a "beautiful creature." "It's a love term for me but it's loaded for them" she explained almost in tears.
Mr. Sparks was indeed defensive which seem to rub the Wurgel’s the wrong way. But Mrs. Wurgels came across as a woman who attends Yoga classes, reads books on Chinese art, wears jewelry from India, and loves paintings by Frida Kahlo but has no real relationships or understanding of people from other cultures. She spoke with so many flowery words that I realized she was more idealistic then sincere. Her liberal behavior and clichéd lingo masked the fact (which she admitted in the documentary) that she did not have black female friends (probably no Mexican or middle eastern friends either). And there in lies the problem.
I have grown up in such a gloriously multicultural background, and enjoy friends of many backgrounds that I have taken it for granted. I finally get it and realize that many people (of all backgrounds) grow up surrounded by and befriending only those of their culture. They grow up truly viewing other cultures as completely different beings. I am grateful that has not been the case for me and I will not take that for granted any longer. I think Brian hit it on the nail when he said, “It is not always through knowledge but acknowledgment” that allows people to understand another’s experience. There is no way we will ever understands everyone’s experiences but acknowledging that we do not have to live someone’s life to respect that they have experienced things that hurt them and they need it to be acknowledged is something we owe our friends, family and strangers of all colors. Let’s finally accept that difference is okay, natural and wonderful.
