Florida Sentinel Bulletin

The Real Scandal

BY CLARENCE BARR, II

There are days when I have no idea what I’m going to write. Then I’ll have a conversation with someone who’ll say something interesting and BAM! I am off to the races.

For instance, when I called an old friend recently, she mentioned something that inspired me immediately. In the midst of our conversation about frivolous nonsense she blurted out, “Yo, my show Scandal comes on this week. I can’t wait.”

She didn’t stop there though. She went on to tell me, “It’s the best show on television right now blah..Blah. Blah. For real C.B., you have to check it out. It’s about this Black chick (Kerry Washington) who’s having a affair with the President and who pulls all of these power moves behind the scenes. Yada.. Yada.. Yada. I’m telling you C., this show is like that. It’s going to make white boys start oing after sisters for real.. Etc.. etc.”

Since I was already familiar with the show’s premise, out of everything she said, it was her last sentence that caught my attention the most. “It’s going to make white boys really start going after sisters for real.”

Maybe it was the excitement in the way she made the statement that stood out to me. The first two things that popped into my mind were one: Does she have a secret fantasy that involves being pursued relentlessly by white guys? And two: She’s about 2,000 years too late with her prediction.

The fact of the matter is that white men have been going crazy over Black women since Marc Anthony, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra were caught up in a love triangle. Granted, Cleopatra was a second generation mulatto. But, by today’s standards, if she could sing or act, she would probably be eligible for a B.E.T. Award.

The only difference between then and now is that, up until recently, Black women weren’t too big on reciprocating the fondness. That is where shows like Scandal and a number of other programs, commercials and movies come into play.

Contrary to what my friend believes, these shows are not designed to make Black women more appealing to white men (dropping a baited hook into a deep freezer loaded with fish doesn’t make much sense). No, this new wave of interracial coupling that, more often than not usually means the pairing of the two, is meant to cause the exact opposite effect, making her qualifications for tall and handsome, a little less dark.

It may sound far-fetched. But you have to wonder, with Hollywood’s penchant for realism and with the presence of a real life Black male as Commander-in-Chief in Washington, D. C., why the producers chose to go with a setup involving a white president and his Black mistress instead?

I can only assume that, even with the illusion they try to create of being open-minded and progressive, the notion of having  one of their young white starlets like Scarlett Johansen, for example, rolling around in the sheets with Black men on prime time television would cause the kind of real scandal America’s still not ready to face.

Anyone wanting to contact Clarence Barr can reach him at: Clarence Barr, II, 43110-018; P. O. Box 7007; Marianna, FL 32447-7007. Reality On Ice is © by the Florida Sentinel Bulletin Publishing Company.