I doubt there’s any one who would argue that reality tv is of benefit to society. Actually it’ll be much easier to count the people who would make this argument than it would to count the people that oppose it. Yet, reality show after reality show keeps popping up on the television. It done got so bad they have started making funeral based reality shows. Y’all they started making shows about people’s funerals. We are so willing to watch anything that the people in the shows don’t even have to be alive any more!
Anyways, there’s a reason reality shows keep getting made and why people keep watching. A major reason is because people like feeling better about themselves by looking at people who are worse off than them because it’s VERY easy to feel great when you’re comparing yourself to this:
Even though the Lord calls us to not compare ourselves to each other, we still do it and we do it in the biggest way by watching reality tv…which is why reality tv is still on and I deem it a necessary evil. It’s in no way, shape, or form good, but we (and when I say we I mean America) still hold it close to us so that we can feel that at least our lives aren’t that bad. So here are a few other things we keep around because they serve some other sheisty purpose.
Overt Racists
We all know how to spot an obvious racist. All you have to do is listen to Rush Limbaugh or Donald Trump or google the Klan or just google racist tweets and you will find thousands upon thousands of overtly racist things being said whether it’s calling the President a monkey or somebody whining about how Trayvon Martin in the end really was a thug. Either way it’s not hard to tell who is not here for the Blacks and Hispanics. Overt racists serve another purpose other than just annoying the living crap out of most people; they are also the perfect way to hide racism in its most insidious form which is by its institutionalization. So as long as Billy Bob and ’em are running around screaming “WHITE POWER”, the racists who killed Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, and Kimani Gray can always say at least we ain’t lynching y’all no more…
To y’all i say:
The Romanticization of the Past
In one of my classes a fellow brother in the struggle said the reason Blacks aren’t where they should be is because we haven’t come together like we used to back in the day. And if only we did that now then we wouldn’t be discriminated against and we could all prance around the United States enjoying all types of happy Black unopposed freedom. As awesome as the Civil Rights Movement was, not every one was on board. Martin Luther King Jr was stabbed by a Black woman who felt he was ‘”stirring up too much trouble.” Oh that sounds lovely.
Same goes for people who believe the 50s housewife life was just the best thing ever. For one, only middle class white women lived that life and they were so bored out of their minds that some turned into alcoholics and prescription pill addicts. Two, most women were cleaning the houses of or watching the kids of these oh so bored housewives, so yeah I, as a Black middle class, mildly educated woman, am not about that life. Or people who refer to the Pre-Civil War days as the “good ol’ days”. Yes, that hard labor picking cotton and perpetually trying not to be raped by master was such a wonderful time had by all! -_-
We have to stop romanticizing past days and automatically assuming life was so much better then. The major purpose of romanticization of the past is to distract you from doing real work on the present. If you spend most of your time hoping and wishing to get things back to the way they were you will do nothing but move your cause backwards…literally. Your cause will be going backwards. Focus on the now and plan a better future.
The Illusion of Change
This is also referred to as mimetic reform which means “measures that respond to insurgent demands without devolving real power or redistributing significant resources” (Katz 87). Basically promising change and not really doing it. Good example would be if you and your homies saw an injustice, like homeless people gathering near a wall in your neighborhood, and you talk to those homeless people and discover the reasons that lead to their poverty (poor post war rehabilitation, absurd debt, drug dependencies that were never properly treated) and so you and your friends start writing letters and protesting and marching and the whole city jumps on board. FINALLY, the mayor does a press conference and says we’re going to do something about the astounding amount of homeless people in these streets, we’re going to help them get back on their feet. So you and your friends are satisfied that you got come change going! All the people who protested with you go back to their homes feeling accomplished and like they can be the change they want to see in the world.
Days later, you go back to that wall just to check and see how many homeless people have been taken to shelters and how many have begun the process of being rehabilitated back into society and you notice that the exact same people that were there the first time you went are still there…except now they have tents and blankets. Was something done? Yes. Was it enough? By no means. The illusion of change has one purpose: to keep the angry mob calm and to make it seem as if they’ve gotten what they wanted but in the end not much has changed.
Someone To Point The Finger At (i.e. the poor)
A couple of nights ago i saw a post on Instagram about those on welfare and I got so angry that there may have been steam coming out of my ears. Now granted, this was sort of my fault because I was on Instagram in the first place, and that social media outlet is the single most out of order and ratchet piece of media I have ever encountered. Folks put all kinds of things on IG and don’t give two flying flips what you, their professors, or their employers think about it!
Weed is illegal?
Why of course I’ll post multiple pictures of me smoking and consuming all kinds of other frowned upon substances. But the coonery of Instagram is it’s own post…back to what I was saying.
I saw a post about people on welfare having to take drug tests and how the states that have done this were “eliminating worthless leeches from our society”. Yes, because poor people aren’t letting America be great. Not war, not terrorism, not racism, not sexism, but poor people and their poverty and their need for help are the reason why American is hemorrhaging money like it’s a 2009 automotive executive. The poor are such an easy scapegoat for America’s problems that it’s comical to even say it any more. So to the guy who created that IG post:
Anyways that’s all I got! What y’all think? Any other necessary evils you all can think of that exist and persist? I’d love to hear them.
-Brini Weenie aka the NOLA rat aka @kewl_briize
“But suppose you suffer for being a Christian. Then don’t be ashamed. Instead, praise God because you are known by that name”- 1 Peter 4:16
P.S.-I’m rolling out something new soon so I can’t wait to share it with all y’all!!!
B.Alexandra's Cosmos 
Lately the evil of having an opposing view has been huge. If I disagree with u Im being a hater . We can’t have disagreements anymore, no more stimulating conversation, no opposing views. The world is at a loss for thinkers…
Oh yes. Folks aren’t trying to hear something that they don’t agree with.
I have “literally” been racking my brain to find the answer to the question posed in this post. I agree with all of the above. I also think that it is a way for otherwise intellectual people to escape from their overly stimulating environments into a world of simplicity and ratchetness. The brain needs rest. Trash tv is basically my time to unwind and NOT think.
I am “literally” glad you commented. I guess my next question would be whether we really not think when we watch this stuff? I’ve had several convos about the stuff in these shows and end up with more questions than I started with.
I think the concept of “necessary evil” is an oxymoron; unless, of course, evil is your goal. Otherwise, evil is never necessary.
Reality TV is only made because people keep watching it; if we stop, they will stop.
As far as overt racists, they aren’t the ones used to hide institutional racism. It’s the “liberal”, “progressive” whites who hide it because they make us think that this racist institution called America could possibly be something other than racist if we just try hard enough. The truth is, America always has and always will be completely racist, and all other races must suffer at America’s hands if America is to succeed.
This is really clear if we know our history clearly (and by “we” and “our”, I mean Black people). Yes, we should focus on the present, but history is what puts the present into focus. Without a clear and full view of history, ANY assessment of the present will be cloudy, which will cause one to repeat errors from the past….
Example… the Civil Rights Movement. Here we had Blacks working for “equal rights”… which, in a practical sense, equated to integrating our black selves into these historically white institutions of America. Once integrated into the institutions, those whites who we were begging (… I mean, protesting and picketing….smh) to equalize us actually wrote laws that appeased us while ramping up the racism that we suffer… and this is what you called mimetic reform. But, in general, it’s reform. Reform leaves us in a worse situation, but revolution leaves us in a better situation (says Kwame Ture).
However, had the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement adequately analyzed THEIR OWN history in this country (instead of America’s diluted, abridged version of black history in America), they would have known to expect nothing more than token reform from the American government, and they could have avoided this mistake. 100 years earlier, Fredrick Douglass petitioned that same American government (Pres. Lincoln was the JFK of that day… a racist disguised as a progressive liberal) to free the slaves and let them fight in the Civil War. Like JFK, Lincoln seemingly acquiesced, but in reality he only freed the slaves to preserve America (just like JFK only integrated society to preserve America from real change). After “freeing” the slaves, those slaves were in a worse situation because they weren’t guaranteed any sustenance at all as sharecroppers…. “Emancipation” was a mere reform, just like “Integration”…. Mistakes repeated because people didn’t know their own version of their own history.
I guess I said all that to say, that as long as we see “necessary evils” as necessary, we will never solve these problems that have plagued us for so long. We have to rid ourselves of these things to improve our situation.
I do believe just honing in on the past and wishing for days gone by will not get us many places. I didn’t say ignore history I believe we must treat it just as it is, history. We can learn from it but I’ve heard “the good ole days” used as an excuse to not put real effort into changing the now a few times to many. Liberal whites, i see your point there, but i guess i’d place them at equal level with the overt racists. When we are taught about racism in schools we’re shown billy bob and ‘me and (unless you’re black and conscious) you start to believe that that’s the only way racism looks.
As far as necessary evil being an oxymoron…you caught my drift.
What Erick said, plus, the only people seeing America’s conditon as “the good ole days” are probably the people who benifited from what wasn’t so good aobut those days for Black people. So it’s really important that we keep in mind, at all times, that our history, just as our present, is seperate from white people’s. When they speak or think about the past, we are nowhere in their minds, which I understand because our life isn’t really their concern. We just need to learn to do the same for ourselves. Our culture, our history, our survival is no one’s concern but our own and until we start to think black (about and for black people), then we will forever waiting for some white people to care about our needs, or our well-being or us. And waiting on that to happen we will never be free. So, yeah, we gotta take care of our own and stop expecting white people to cause it’s not gonna happen.
But I am especially here for the part about pointing fingers at the poor…for being poor…cause I promise we don’t have anything to do with half the money that these “white collar” executives and coorperations waste on investments that we know nothing about. It’s ridiculous when a government’s biggest complaint is taking care of its people, which is a government’s job. But you know, I’d really like them to go ahead and stop feeding people because as Bob Marley said “a hungry mob is an angry mob”. Empty bellies is just what we need to pop this revolution off.
And I honetly can’t take television. At all. Like, I just don’t watch it because I am convinced it robbs you of brain cells. I seriously feel dumber after I look at it. They gone have to come better if they want my attention.
Gahhhh I’m so over the poor people are sucking us dry complaint. Seriously? Get ya life.