Revolution Televised.pdf

Conclusion 173
In the early 1990s, black presence on the small screen increased
commensurately with the increasing visibility of African Americans
in other fields of popular culture. The 1990s signaled the continuing
rise in the popularity of hip-hop, which spread to the suburbs
and altered the musical tastes of white suburban youth, as well as
their clothing, language, attitudes, and icons. In professional sports,
basketball, with its primarily African American NBA league, sought
to overthrow baseball as America’s favorite pastime, and Michael
Jordan became a central icon of Americana. Yet, at the end of the
decade the media again began to report the disappearance of the
black image from network television, a situation that continues
into the new millennium. Why did this occur? This is a complicated
question, and a thorough analysis of the contemporary television
landscape is beyond the scope of this book.
However, using the methodology proposed in this study of television
during the Black Revolution allows one to answer questions
about contemporary African American representation. For example:
Does television still hold the potential as a site of resistance for
African Americans? Is contemporary television a space that allows
for the presence of vernacular black popular culture? How do contemporary
social and political factors within black society influence
the reading of contemporary African American television texts?
Many of the concerns with contemporary television mirror those of
1960s and 1970s television and of every other decade since the inception
of television. The conversations converge around two central
issues: the lack and the quality of black images. In this new century,
African Americans still debate these two core issues.
Political groups that push for the end of federally supported programs
such as affirmative action base many of their arguments on
the supposedly now irrelevant nature of these interventions. Apparently,
full integration has occurred, and such programs are unnecessary.
On a more fundamentalist level, the widespread proliferation
of white supremacist web sites on the Internet and the violent acts
of white militia groups indicate that various U.S. factions believe
that the white man is losing the country to the minorities. 9 Minority
groups have apparently achieved so many gains that they are
literally, and unfairly, taking opportunities away from whites. Yet,
the nation’s most powerful tool of communication does not reflect
this so-called integration, equality, and diversity of the American
public, far less the diversity of the African American community.