The Empire Effect

I had fallen off the live tweet, must see Wednesday night viewing habit for Fox TV’s hit show Empire that I so religiously followed during season one. Gone were the days of my East Coast/West Coast pow wows with my sister of episode recaps and “Wait Girl, we can’t talk until you see the show,” as if we didn’t have more pressing family matters to discuss. The Season One finale left me gob smacked, outraged even. Jamal a gangster? Boo Boo Kitty sleeping with Hakeem? And the beginning of Season Two with Chris Rock trying to play a hard core crime capo that was worthy of Keyser Soze fear, just by speaking his name? Oh hell no, they done ruined my show!

Recently, my sister asked me if I had caught up with the current season and I answered a petulant “no” as if my boycott represented some higher calling socio/political artistic stance, to which she replied “You’ll watch all that other stuff, why not this?” Meaning all those shows with all white to predominately white casts. And she was right. But I guess it’s like doctors watching Grey’s Anatomy or politicians House of Cards or lawyers The Good Wife. When it’s about you, you want it to be perfect. Perfect in your eyes, perfect just the way you want it, forget about everybody else!

And the other night I caught up, I binged and renewed my love affair with the boy you’re not supposed to like, but can’t help. And I woke up the next morning, happy. Happy because I remembered why I fell in love the first time. I get to see myself, I get to see us black folk in all our sacred and profane glory, and it’s fun! Okay, I don’t come from a rags to riches music industry family, negotiating the world of Hip Hop and Wall Street to maintain eminent dominance and pass on my legacy to whichever of my problematic 3 sons, a la Dynasty or Dallas style, but I could. And that’s the point.

The reflection or lack thereof. Aside from Power, on cable channel Starz, which should also get its props and came before, these are the only drama shows on network and “mainstream” cable TV featuring predominately black casts that I am aware of. (Shout outs to WGN’s Underground, BET’s Being Mary Jane, OWN’s Greenleaf and Queen Sugar). The statistics on lack of representation in Hollywood for people of color and women are appalling. This USC Annenberg study is an eye opener.

I’m reminded of a dear friend of mine Nansi, a Chinese American woman who on discussing our childhood memories told me a poignant story of how her father had to break it down for her that she would never be a Radio City Rockette because there were no 5ft. 10” Asian dancers in the kick step line (there could be now). And when I decried the lack of Black TV personalities she countered with “At least you had the Jacksons, all I got was Pat Morita.”

No disrespect Pat (RIP), but he had to represent all Asians, even though he was Japanese American and Lucy Liu didn’t come along until we were adults.

And I felt that punch in the gut with her. That I’m just a kid, or a girl or a boy or a woman or a man who just wants to be me, full of possibilities, without the limiting labels and perceptions that tell you, you can’t be this thing because we don’t see it. And it’s odd because you see you in your mother, your father, your family, your community, so how could I be invisible? How could I exist only sometimes and often not at all when I come from a rich heritage, a long through line of ancestors that have survived and thrived despite our oppressive and painful history whose vestiges linger today and still need to be dealt with humanity and grace?

Dr. King may not have had Cookie and Lucious Lyon in mind when he gave his historic “I Have A Dream” speech but I’d like to think he would have a sense of humor about the possibilities of “my country tis of thee,” a place we all belong, whose stories, all stories deserve and need to be told.