Honkeys be trippin'

I've been signed off sick throughout this month, so unfortunately you have the choice of going out and having my illness being doubted by any co-worker that sods law would dictate that I am likely to bump into or I can stay inside and watch crappy day time tv ( ok there is a third choice and that is to knuckle down and work on any of the projects that I have lined up). So crap tv it is, but as a person too broke for subscription tv, my choice of programs is limited and to be totally honest shit. I don't want to watch old people selling antiques to pay for a loft extension, I would much prefer to see a program in which junkies sell stolen goods to pay off a dealer. I don't want to watch a show about people who want to move to Spain to escape the rat race. I want to see a program where someone has to move to a country in which we have no extradition treaty to get away from the police. Anyways I'm going off topic here, the few daytime shows I can tolerate are strangely the ones I've seen time and time again these shows are Friends and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and it was from watching episodes of Fresh Prince that I came to this conclusion, racism is an ongoing theme of Will Smiths launching pad.

When you watch Fresh Prince, you get transported to the early 90's, a world dominated by inoffensive rap music, brightly coloured clothes and fade hairstyles. But don't let that distract you from the real issue here. Firstly the white characters in the Fresh Prince are one dimensional carbon copies of each other. According to the book of Smith, all white people are nerdy people who can't dance and wish nothing more than to be African American. Whether it's Will and Carlton's rich classmates or colleagues of Phil. They have one thing in common, they use African American slang in a way that makes you cringe. Will actually seems like the most racist character in the show, his childhood in "Philli" growing up in an area mainly inhabited by fellow African Americans probably has a lot to do with this. Where as the kids of Bel Air (Carlton, Ashley and Hilary) seem to integrate to the point where they are almost colour blind, but Will seems to hold some bigoted opinions, constantly berating Carlton for not acting "black" because of his republican beliefs and his love of Tom Jones. The best quote to prove this would be a poem Will recites to Carlton in front of his best friend Jazz.
"Roses are red, violets are blue, me and Jazz are black, but Carlton what are you?" Will seems to have very defined rules of how young African Americans should act, and Carlton does not doesn't fit in with this stereotype.

But before you think that I'm making this statement because I am white. I'm not there are other racist characters in Fresh Prince. Those characters are called police officers. It seems like almost every time Will got in trouble with the law there was an air of racial motivation behind the arrest. Would he have been nicked if he was white, maybe not, but it is it right to tar all cops with the same brush. Maybe it's justified with acts perpetrated by officers of the LAPD in the 90's but I bet there was also a lot of officers that weren't racist and found this portrayal quite offensive.

I guess the point I make here is kind of pointless I could do the same with 'Only fools and horses' , but from time to time it's kind of gratifying watching an old show and viewing it through different eyes.