Just Another Black Face in the Crowd - Part 1

Back in 2003, I sat on my discount furniture, bought during the hay days of graduate school, and looked around my living room to see my collection of African art and literature as I watched an episode of The Cosby Show on TV Land. After a good late night laugh reminiscing school days, I continued channel surfing and saw several commercials with Lil’ Kim strutting her stuff, packed in white cotton and far more conservative than I have become accustomed. Then, I see the D-O-double G, Snopp Dogg making a cameo followed by spots for The Wayne Brady Show, Whoppi, The Tracy Morgan Show, and My Wife and Kids. I looked around some more and eyed my collection of Outkast, Mary J. Blige, Sade, Prince, Jay-Z, India.Arie, and Marven Gaye CDs.

These observations triggered my recollection that for first time in the Billboard Top 100 history Black artists performed each of the top ten songs. There also was a variety of events showcasing our wonderful intellectual, economic, athletic and artistic accomplishments coupled with the presence of powerful officials like former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Dr. Condoleezza Rice. More recently, we inagurated Barack Obama, our first African American President.

In contrast, on TV, movies, billboard and magazine advertisements, I have noticed a pattern. It is far from a scientific examination of the real world, but I saw in Old Navy and AOL commercials something that has been a mainstay of my young existence. I can’t remember the first time I recall noticing it. Maybe it started when I saw Lieutenant Uhura (Michelle Nichols) on Star Trek, Isaac Washington (Ted Lange) from The Love Boat or Diahann Carol as a young widow with a small son in Julia. As a child of the seventies, shows including Sanford & Son, That’s My Mama, Good Times, What’s Happen!!, and blaxploitation films with well-known icons Jim Brown, Pam Grier, and Richard Roundtree among others were permanent fixtures in my mind.

Throughout childhood and as a teenager, several images were gathered, safely tucked away, frozen in time, back in my memory banks. Some of my fondest memories come from watching Willis and Arnold (Different Strokes), Tootie (Facts of Life), and Emmanuel Lewis on Webster. Like many Americans in the 80s, I witnessed the Michael Jackson tidal wave – the first African American to have a video play on MTV. I took special interest in listening to Prince. Although Prince’s uniquely androgynous sexual appeal starkly contrasted the growing urban rap/hip-hop movement, unlike Michael Jackson, Prince always had the backup of being a ladies man. Michael Jackson and Prince had the common allure to attract both White and Black audiences.

Back to my point, every teen flick from American Pie and I Know What You Did Last Summer to popular TV sitcoms like Friends, 90210, and The O.C. have that lone, black character walking in the shadows, damn near invisible, virtually unseen or overtly obscene. In recent years, a noteworthy face of Sean Patrick Thomas, who starred in Save the Last Dance and Barber Shop, has become more familiar on the silver screen. Still, his first claim to fame was on Cruel Intentions, which made him the poster child for the infamous Rent-a-Negro.com and BlackPeopleLoveUs.com websites preserving the prototype of the token Black man whose non-abrasive mix of bold gallantry and sex appeal has been charming and anodyne to White American audiences.

As each of the aforementioned images raced through my mind, I wondered out loud late that night and formed a seemingly simple question: How does someone become just another Black face in the crowd?