Parenting While Black ... and Middle-class on TV by Lisa B. Thompson

Parenting While Black ... and Middle-class on TVby Lisa B. Thompson | NewBlackMan (in Exile) | The OpEd Project
Save for Hulu or Nick at Night reruns, American TV viewers are hard-pressed to find black middle-class images unless they’re looking at that deliciously entertaining classic, “The Cosby Show.” So much is riding on Wednesday night, when prime-time gets a little “Blackish.”
ABC’s highly anticipated wry, new situation comedy “Blackish,” is about a black suburban upper middle-class family starring Tracee Ellis Ross, Anthony Anderson and Laurence Fishburne. As a welcome addition to the lineup, it also would be a real advancement for colored people to see a show about the black middle class without a laugh track.
This year also marks the 30th anniversary of Bill Cosby’s black middle-class family sitcom featuring Cliff and Claire Huxtable and their five brilliant, gorgeous children, once the most popular program on TV for viewers of all races. Even children today who catch episodes become instant fans. 
Unfortunately, till now, American television has yet to replace it with another show about a middle-class black family. In fact, images of black middle-class families have disappeared from the cultural landscape, reinforcing false notions only one authentic black experience.  
While it is true poor and working-class African-American families strive to make ends meet, black middle-class families also face overwhelming odds. The black middle-class also confronts the state of public education, employment challenges, residential segregation, health disparities, systemic violence against black children and the toxic public discourse about black families. 
So imagine a contemporary drama that extended representations of the black family? It could feature storyline with the father, an attorney explaining to his teen honor roll son how to deal with the police to avoid being murdered by a racist officer. This show could also have an episode depicting his partner, a stay-at-home mom who must deal with the other mothers at their child’s school assuming she’s a nanny. The storyline could include an extended family member who finds herself challenged by the dating world as a single black professional. 
To provide a multigenerational touch the show could also have a scene when the grandfather, a retired chemistry professor, shows up to pick up his granddaughter from school and the principal assumes he’s the new janitor instead.
While some of these storylines might seem extreme, they represent some of what middle class African-Americans experience daily. This show need not be dedicated to rehearsing all of the social ills and racial slights facing the black middle class, after all that would make for a pretty depressing drama. Nevertheless, an honest, smart, complex and sober account of black middle class life would go a long way toward dispelling the belief that middle-class blacks lead a life disconnected from less-affluent members of the black community.
Depictions of black, middle-class experiences ultimately must allow society to not only see a fuller expression of black life but also a different view of the black struggle for full humanity and citizenship.  
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Lisa B. Thompson is the author of Beyondthe Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class and the play Single Black Female . She is an associate professor of African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin where she is an OpEd Project Public Voices fellow. Follow her on Twitter @playprof.