right...kinda sounds like psychological warfare
It's just plain old "fear of the unknown", I don't think black people used to have high positions in the TV world so what got reported and portrayed were guesses and assumptions. Some of it was intentional, and still is. Normally, Black people only get sitcoms... "Those black people sure are funny... ha ha" Even though white people get sitcoms too they don't have a negative image to shed.
Martin, Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac, Jamie Foxx, etc... all sitcoms. You won't see a CSI, Desperate Housewives, etc with a prodominently black cast on TV... they will stick Ice T or Cool J in there and tell us "You better be happy with what you got..." They aren't trying to change the perception and I THINK IT'S NOT THEIR JOB. It's our job right out here in the streets. We shouldn't be on the bus and in the malls calling each other the N word and cussing, being loud in restaurants, etc.... so I can see why maybe her husband may have had a negative perception of black people. She works with me and she probably had assumptions before she actually had to get on a project with me based on how we carry ourselves in the streets. Dudes at the stop light taking 10 minutes to cross the street... smh. We have BET and WSHH and the like and that's enough bad press for a century, lol. Everything we do to rep ourselves seems to be shrouded in shallowness, materialism and negativity. Look at Cornell West and Tavis Smiley on Fox News attacking Obama looking like two idiots. Other people see the in fighting and be like "Damn... those people can't get along at all..."
If people don't know something, they'll fill in the blanks themselves. Sort of like I do about the music biz. I don't know JACK about the music biz but I can deduce things from stories and ish. If I see the same story enough, I'll "assume" it's true - that's sort of the brainwashing I was speaking on. Sort of like people that think people from the hood can fight or something, lol. Not everybody from the hood can fight, there are uncoordinated people in the hood too.
.... or like when they raise kids to believe certain hateful things... they don't know any better so when you see that kid as a grown man or woman and they're all hateful you have to wonder how a person that couldn't walk or talk initially learned what they learned. Somebody taught them that or they heard the same thing over and over and assumed it to be true.
Childrens TV is getting better though, I watch some of those shows and "everybody" seems to be represented in a good light. It'll take TV like that to change some thinking over time.
Remember when Arnold and Willis were poor black kids from the ghetto and Mr. Drummond was rich with a maid. Probably doesn't look like much on the surface but the high level message was that black people COME FROM poor places. We just laughed along though.