How far has racial representation come since the early days of TV?
How far has racial representation come since the early days of TV?
“Marketplace Morning Report” watches one documentary a month for our Econ Extra Credit project, to analyze films focused on business, economics and other themes. During this Black History Month, we’re watching the 1992 documentary “Color Adjustment,” directed by Marlon Riggs, which looks at the depiction of African American people during the first 40 years of television.
Karsonya Wise Whitehead, founding executive director of the Karson Institute for Race, Peace & Social Justice at Loyola University Maryland, spoke with “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio to pick up where the film leaves off, with a survey of today’s media landscape. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
David Brancaccio: From “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” early on, to “The Cosby Show,” what Americans tended to see if they weren’t watching the news were images of Black people that were, I mean, the film shows, comforting to white people, intended not to dwell on injustice and conflict. And beyond that, the documentary shows how mass culture like TV could be a mainstream values reinforcement device. Here’s a clip. It’s cultural critic Patricia A. Turner in the documentary:
Patricia A. Turner: The most successful shows depicting the African American experience in America are shows like “Cosby” that reaffirm the American dream and hardcore middle-class values, where you work hard, you are rewarded with good looking children, good looking wives, nice cars, nice households, and that image is the one that’s perpetuated.
Brancaccio: Professor Whitehead, here in 2025, what do you think: different or similar now?
Karsonya Wise Whitehead: I don’t think it’s changed as far as we would like it to change. I think that the problem that happens in the media is that when we see progress, so what they call redemption, there’s always regression. So when we look at all the trends that happen the media, yes, you can find the shows that kind of speak to your experience. I’m talking about the greater representation, the greater media representation that people are flocking to. Some of the images, you’re either completely washing the images out. We don’t talk about race at all, where you have a very diverse cast, but they don’t deal with the fact that race is a constant in our society. Or you have this amazing erasure of Black folks from the narrative, saying it’s just about the story, so we don’t actually have to have diversity. Or you go so far to the left that you’re trying to figure out where the greater things that can apply to what we’re dealing with at this moment.
Brancaccio: Now, we’re coming up, I was just looking at the calendar coming up, really, on five years since the murder of George Floyd. And among the many industries that responded in the wake of that was the entertainment industry. Promises to bring in more diverse content creators, showrunners, you know, important people, people toward the top, as well as the rank and file. You’ve seen the surveys, is that happening?
Whitehead: It happened. I always use this past tense, because one of the things that happened after the, unfortunately, state-sanctioned murder of George Floyd, you had companies, you had businesses, you had organizations who began to understand the power of both the African American gaze and the power of the African American dollar. So it was this push that if there was not more representation, if the stories were not more fully represented on the screen, then we were not going to support them. We were going to say there was an issue. We know there was a concern around being canceled, there was a concern around being boycotted, that you had the entertainment industry begin to respond to. My concern is that now that we’re five years out, now that we see this, kind of this push in a different direction, will the entertainment industry continue to be the place that uplifts multiple perspectives, whether it’s having more people of African American descent who are behind the camera, who are in the production room, who are writing the stories? It’s not just being in front of the camera with that one or two actors showing up. It’s about being able to be a part of the creative process all the way along.
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