This post is in response to a post I just read on Black Voices “Did Tyler Perry Kill Black TV”
First of all it feels like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders it feels good to feel a passion to blog again!
Ok IanCogneto makes a good point in his post “Did Tyler Perry Kill Black TV” while he doesn’t say that Tyler Perry is directly responsible for the disappearance from black tv shows he does notice that it is a huge coincidence.
Now while I don’t disagree, I have to ask the question, isn’t this what we asked for? Now before you get upset with my statement I want you to think about this on many of the major TV shows and broadcast on TV currently there are powerful black actors playing roles in those shows. CSI (Lawrence Fishburn), House (Omar Epps), V (Morris Chestnutt). Remember wanting to get rid of separate but equal… well they say be careful what you wish for.
The problem with this is while its great for the actors that do get gigs it seems like there must be a lot of black actors looking for work. What I am really surprised about is the fact that there are no activist out in the streets over this… Wheres Al Sharpton… Jesse Jackson…the NAACP.. somebody anybody… where are you? Oh thats right… they are all stuck watching black reality TV and God awful award shows.
People the only way we are going to get change is to either demand it or take it… Personally I think that we are way to talented a community not to do more, and with the way media is changing we can make it work for us. Why aren’t we creating more content, I say if hollywood won’t support us we should support ourselves. We don’t need hollywood support to make a web broadcast and thanks to Roku you can watch internet video right on your TV for free.
I’m not an actor just a tech geek and military paralegal, I don’t know how to make a TV show but I know how to get things working on the internet, if someone out there has an idea or a show I am willing to work with you to get it online and figure out how to get it to this and other devices to get it out to the masses. Or if you know of people creating web TV shows spread the word, we can sit forever and complain about the system not being fair… or we can get out and make changes… I for one am willing and ready to make the change, but I can’t do it alone, its going to take us coming together as a community.
