I recently watched the first episode of FX's new series, Black. White., in which a white family and a black family "trade races" to see what it's like to live in another person's skin.
I'm interested to see where the series goes. The premise, though thought-provoking, lends itself to over-simplification of a very complex issue. For example, the white father (Bruno) asserts that the black father (Brian) experiences racism on a daily basis because he's actively looking for it. Bruno says that when he's walking down the street and people move out of the way, he sees it as a courtesy whereas Brian sees it as an example of bias. Brian counters that Bruno, have not spent his entire life as a black man, doesn't know what to look for and isn't used to seeing the signs of very subtle racism.
My problem with the argument is that, for the most part, we don't live in a society of blatant, obvious racism. People in Los Angeles aren't going to yell out the N-word just because they see a black man walking down the street. Yes, people of color are going to be more sensitive to slights, both perceived and actual, and white people aren't going to see what's there if they don't want to.
Additionally, any question of race in this day and age needs to also be a discussion of class. After the debacle of hurricane Katrina, Kanye West famously said that George Bush doesn't care about black people. I honestly don't think that's accurate. I think that George Bush doesn't care about poor people. Our racism today isn't one of skin tone, it's one of education, income, and opportunity. It so happens that these divides also fall neatly along lines of race, and the question of why that is should be central to any of these discussions.
The show has an opportunity to address some of the underlying causes for today's form of racism, but I don't yet know if they'll do so. Instead, we may end up with an interesting, but ultimately superficial exercise that is only skin deep.
(I couldn't resist.)