Revolution Televised.pdf

6 Reading the Roots of Resistance
the NAACP, this idea of a positive black identity takes on a variety
of forms depending on the politics of the black individual or group
in subsequent history.
The concern with how the white world viewed the black world
became even more critical when African Americans were represented
on mainstream American television. The first shows to star
black people were Amos ’n’ Andy (1951–53) and Beulah (1950–53),
which motivated African Americans, the NAACP in particular,
to confront the television industry, because they believed these
programs harkened back to stereotypical notions of blackness and
would have a negative impact on the black community seeking full
integration. The importance of having positive representations of
African Americans on television became a part of the critical discourse
from television’s inception. After a period of relative invisibility
in the 1950s, black civil rights images were given some emphasis
in the 1960s in the news and in a few integrationist shows such as
I Spy (1965–68) and Julia (1968–71). The 1970s proved to be the
era in which African Americans were integrated into fictionalized
television as never before. I illustrate the manner in which these
racial projects and the concern with uplifting the race shaped the
criticism of television in the 1970s. I argue that the harsh reproach
and dismissal of fictionalized television characters from within segments
of the black community in the 1970s arose from these underlying
political ideologies.
In order to reinterrogate television of the Black Revolution, I
follow the path laid out by such social historians as Robin D. G.
Kelley. In Race Rebels, Kelley looks at the politics of the everyday
and the “hidden transcripts” of cultural production in order to obtain
a more detailed picture of a historical moment. Interpreting the
work of political anthropologist James C. Scott, Kelley argues:
[D]espite appearances of consent, oppressed groups challenge those
in power by constructing a “hidden transcript,” a dissident political
culture that manifests itself in daily conversations, folklore, jokes,
songs, and other cultural practices. One also finds the hidden transcript
emerging “onstage” in spaces controlled by the powerful,
though almost always in disguised forms. 14
Using this framework, one can consider the hidden transcripts created
by African Americans who participated in television’s produc-