I'll start by explaining that I'm a fan of the show Black-ish even though I don't like the name. Its funny, smartly written and it's about a funny family who happens to be black. It's not about being black. Since they don't proclaim to speak for all black people in the show, the poor choice in name is forgiven.
Black AF takes it a bit further. It actually claims to give reasons but mostly excuses for why black people are how they are. Where this falls apart is that not all black people are the same. I'm black and come from an upper middle class family and have become a successful person too. My father wouldn't be caught dead in a gold chain, nor does he feel the need to overdress for an occasion due to some myth that a peculiar sort of insecurity got passed down via genetic memory to the current generation. Not because he isn't black but because this show is not the definition of black. This show sounds like it was written by people who have never lived a day in the life of being black in America and simply gather in a conference room once a week to speculate on what it must be like and why. If it didn't claim to be the black people's Wikipedia page, it would be a funny show about one guy's experience. There were some laughs light as they may have been. And, yes, I'd probably have watched it on occasion if I couldn't think of anything else. But the idea that this is a reference makes it a show about apology, shame an inadequacy for an entire demographic of human beings. I for one turned the show off with a deep sense of disappointment.
Here is proof that black shows can be funny without using assumed cultural nonsense as a crutch.
Fresh Prince, Family Matters, 227, Different World, Living Single, Sanford and Son, Moving on Up, Martin, The Cosby Show (yes it was funny even if current events are not), The Chapelle Show, In Living Color and the list goes on.
Referring to cultural phenomena is ok and expected and some of these shows did just that. But what none of them ever did was depict, better yet proclaim with big letters that an entire group of people essentially have the emotional fortitude of a wet paper towel and proceed to base all of its joke upon the waterlogged roll it came from. When IMDB introduces negative number ratings, I'll be back to update the number of stars I gave.
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