This animated version of the 1619 Project has been making the Twitter rounds over just how blatant Disney’s newest “The Proud Family” reboot shoves the narrative right into kids’ faces.
There was no good reason to reboot The Proud Family – it was a staple of the mid-00s Disney lineup and was remembered for being goofy, slapstick, with larger-than-life characters – the black Even Stevens.
It echoed similar media for the black community at the time, from Eddie Murphy movies to Big Mama’s House, Martin, all of which streamed downhill from Sanford and Son and In Living Color.
That black community no longer exists a generation later.
They’ve been replaced in every possible way – in the housing market and the job market by Latino immigrants – and in the cultural market and entertainment market by a new wave of White Guilt Entertainment.
In the 70s there was “Roots” – a prime time show about the horrors of slavery watched by whites and blacks alike – illustrating what things were like then and the clear gap in what has changed since.
Now the focus is on perpetual grievance minstreldom, media that shows black police violence on an unending loop, distracting from real erasure of black culture and wealth by imported workers and digging up centuries-old racial enmity to distract.
It’s filtered through all aspects of culture and is corporate-approved.
Computer, enhance.
A Target wall banner that was manufactured for pennies on the dollar in some poor country proclaims “OUR STORIES ARE BLACK HISTORY” without a hint of irony.
According to Target:
Designed and founded by Roachele Negron, rayo & honey creates typographical “goods with positive intent,” resulting in home decor and wearable artwork with modern affirmations rooted in Black culture.
But according to an older piece on Roachele Negron and her “cultural black and Puerto Rican heritage”:
My pennants provide words of inspiration that come from familiar places—hip-hop music, conversational slang, Black and Latino pop culture references, mantras, and wondrous quotes that can hopefully establish a connection of cultural consciousness.
Perhaps Target made a mistake, or Latin erasure is real.
Such inanities don’t matter to the culture at large, however.
In Lizzodom, proclaiming the evils of white Americans can be uttered within the same breath as “thick thighs save lives” – a grossly impudent reminder that the most dangerous threat to the black community in current-day America is obesity.
This reality that every other African-American is clinically obese might be a little too hard to stomach.
Telling fables about the past and ignoring the realities of the present will ensure that black history has no future.
