Greetings all,
This is a very interesting conversation and I just have to throw my two cents in.
First, on the issue of Rachel, she is not even black (well fully black anyway). She is half East Indian, and 25% something else and 25% black. So I take issue when people compare her to other black women because let's be real, most black women don't look like her. She's married to an executive at BET which is why she is still working there because in my opinion she is one of the worst interviewers I have ever seen.
Second on the issue of Martin, Martin actually hand picked Tisha to be his girl on the show after working with her on House Party. He had had a crush on her. And the character of Pam was already written to be a sort of nemesis to Martin, which explains why Gina's character is seen in a more positive light than Pam's. The casting was inconsequential.
Finally I too get upset when I watch TV and see only light, bright, and damn-near-white girls being represented. I know for a fact that there are beautiful black women of all colors and wish we could all be represented. But I have to say that it seems a lot of you seem to think that somehow growing up light skinned was easy. Trust me it wasn't. This is America. Do you think that when white people look at us they see this light vs. dark issue. If the KKK were to roll up on all of us do you think they'd discriminate on the basis of our skin tone? This is not to say that we shouldn't work on this issue in the black community because we most definitely should. The only point I wanted to make was that, as black folks, we all have it equally hard in this country.
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