Black in America Take Two: Do You Plan on Watching?

In 2008, CNN embarked on trying to tell the story of African Americans in the United States. Let’s just say, it generally didn’t go over too well. Neither the commentary or commentator (sorry Soledad) provided a compelling, true to life view of “what it is to be an African American” as if can really be answered. African Americans are not a monolith. And the 2008 Black in America spent much of its time discussing the problems within the African American community. Some would fairly suggest that the CNN special did more to reinforce stereotypes than dispel them.

Not sure if Black in America 2 (BiA2) was developed to redeem CNN, Soledad, or blacks in America, but BiA2 is reportedly focused on successes and solutions in the African American community.

The response from the African American blogging community was relentless in its criticisms of last year’s special and several black political blogs have organized themselves to respond as a collective to BiA2. Named The Retort, the collective describes itself as a “special blog series by several black bloggers meant to examine, discuss and dissect CNN’s Black In America series as well as other portrayals of minorities in the media.” Contributors spans the full political spectrum and the commentary thus far is edgy and thought-provoking. Good luck and Godspeed. We look forward to reading more.

In case you haven’t seen the barrage of CNN commercials pitching the date and time of Black in America 2, the program airs Tuesday, July 21st and Wednesday, July 22nd at 8:00 pm Eastern. They will be competing on Wednesday night with President Obama’s prime time press conference which is scheduled for 9:00 pm.

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