Dear Whoopi,
About three weeks ago you said something on the View that I felt compelled to respond to. I wanted to write this earlier. Unfortunately, I struggled with some health issues and was unable to respond in a timely fashion, but I now am able to address a few of the issues that you raised and will endeavor to do just that.
About three weeks ago you and your co-hosts on the View started talking about the comments of Stacy Dash. I must admit, I know very little about Stacy Dash and had never even heard about her until this controversy. I don't really want to discuss her comments much. Instead I want want to focus on your comments. The first one I would like to talk about is when you said, "The reason there is BET is because networks wouldn't take a lot of the shows that have an all black cast."
I had two initial reactions to that. First, it is not true that other networks are reluctant to put on shows that have all black casts, and even if they were, who cares? Now let me elaborate on both thoughts.
First, networks have given us many shows that have all black main casts. This includes such famous shows as Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show and Family Matters, just to name a few. It is true that for a while there were almost no new shows on the major networks with all black main casts. So why did the first decade of the new millennium have almost no shows with almost entirely black casts? Well, the truth is that almost all of the shows with all black casts, and to be honest most of the shows with all white casts, are family sitcoms. Family based sitcoms were all around in the eighties and many more started in the nineties, but towards the end of the nineties a lot fewer of the family based sitcoms were around, particularly on the major networks. As a result there were fewer of the all black shows. It's that simple.
In the last five years or so we have seen the family-based sitcom has made a comeback with the major networks and as a result we have also seen a comedy based around a black family. If the family-based sitcom continues to progress we will see many more shows based around the black family.
The second thing--actually, it was the first thing that came to mind, but the second that I am mentioning right now--was 'So what?' Now that may seem harsh, but it really is not meant to be. The argument is that people need to see people who look like them on the screen. It will help them relate to what's going on. Let's just for a moment say that this is important, why does this need to happen with an all black cast? Just as a mental exercise, I went through every show I watch, and they all had black characters in them. Let's see, I thought of Law and Order SVU. There is Detective Tutuola. That show has other minorities in it as well. I also thought of Grimm which has Detective Hank Griffin. I won't go through all of the shows I thought of, but there were many of them, and the overwhelming majority of them happened to be police detectives. That should tell you something about my personal tastes in television programming. But I could think of minorities in roles of doctors and lawyers and in a whole host of other roles. If young blacks need to look up to inspirational black characters on TV shows, there are many to choose from without shows with all black casts. I challenge you to think of five shows discounting family sitcoms that do not have at least one black character among their stars. I couldn't. Perhaps you just know TV and pop culture better than I do. That's likely.
On this segment of the View you kept on talking about "people that look like me," both in the need for black youngsters to have someone who looks like them and in the attitudes of the people who watch Fox. First of all, what does that even mean? I mean we can look like someone else in many different ways. I am pretty sure that you ladies were strictly talking about race and I believe that is short sighted. Even though I am white, in some ways I look more like Laurence Fishburne than I do Tom Cruise. Now I am no dead ringer for either man, but I don't like buzzwords or phrases. Let's be honest. When you use that phrase, you are only talking about race, not about facial structure hair styles, facial hair, height or weight. That is a bit ironic too. Because I bet you that a really tall white person might be able to identify with a really tall black person more readily than an average-sized white person, just as I imagine some really short black people can more readily identify with really short white people than average-sized white people.
The idea that everyone needs to see people on the screen that they can identify with is important, but the ladies on the View seemed to believe that identifying with someone was wholly a product of race. Perhaps it just seemed this way because you used someone else's statement as a starting point and you all were trying to refute the idea that we do not need BET and other similar outlets. Perhaps if you had gotten into this discussion another way, you would have acknowledged the fact that we can identify with people from racial and cultural groups other than our own, but from that segment it looked like the only people that young black people could identify with were other black people. This is a dangerous message to our children.
I know when I was growing up I loved a show called Star Trek: The Next Generation, I don't know, perhaps you have heard of it?" On this show my favorite character in the show, and for some reason the character I could relate to the best, was Geordi La Forge, who as you well know was played by LeVar Burton. We can identify with more than another's race when we are watching TV shows and movies. Now of course there needs to be opportunities for actors of every background and by having racially diverse roles on television, it can inspire young minorities and give them hope that they can be successful too, but I do think you were overstating the importance of how people look in the idea of being able to relate to an actor or a character.
I want to switch to another point that was made in that segment. When your group was talking about Stacy Dash, someone made the point that it was on FOX, and you all assumed that she was making the statement to play to the audience of angry people. You said later on, "You were describing a lot of angry people's worst nightmare. Turn on the TV and not seeing them." First of all, I have never been on TV so every time I turn on the TV I see someone who is not me. All joking aside, I think it is pretty clear what you meant, and I find it both personally insulting and not very accurate.
First, I want to say I do not watch Fox News because I do not have cable. To be honest most of the TV I watch is through online sources like Hulu and Netflix. But I am a conservative and a Ted Cruz supporter. I have been to a Tea Party demonstration and believe in their principles and am an avid listener of talk radio. So I believe that you would include me in the group you were talking about. First, are we angry? Certainly, some of us are, but I do not think that as a group we are any angrier than the left. I have heard some pretty hateful and angry things coming from the left so I don't think any political ideology or party has a monopoly on anger, hate or malice. Unfortunately, that disease is affecting Americans' hearts everywhere and in every class and race. I believe in love. Unfortunately, too few today seem to be using love as the powerful instrument that it can and should be. That is why God gave love to us. To use as a powerful tool to bring the human family together and to Him. It is also why I am writing this letter. I am trying to bring people together and not divide us further apart. I have been trying to write in a civil tone and perhaps help someone understand where I am coming from.
Whoopi, here is another thing you should know about me. Like I said before one of my favorite shows was Star Trek: the Next Generation, and one of my favorite characters was Guinan. I thought your performance in Ghost was the best of that movie. I believe that you are probably the second best dramatic actor who started as a comedian following the late, great Robin Williams. Your performance in The Color Purple was legendary. I personally never cared much for Sister Act, but my mother loved that movie and probably watched it more than a dozen times. She is also a conservative and watches Fox News.
Now I realize that you did not say that everyone who watches Fox News feels that way. You just said a lot of angry people. Earlier someone had mentioned the angry people who watch people who watch Fox News were being pandered to, so I have to assume you were saying that a lot of Fox News fans felt this way. I am not saying that there aren't some who feel that way. There are obnoxious screwballs in every group, but I bet you that as a percentage of the viewers, it is a very small amount. Look at the success of some of the primarily black shows in the past. Look at things like the Cosby Show and Family Matters. The shows with black casts that a lot of white people both watched and loved. You don't think that there were a lot of conservatives that now watch Fox News that used to love those shows? There are!
Fox, like ABC and NBC, is not just a network but a family of networks. Fox has made a show against the grain. It is one of the few shows that has a black main cast, but is not a family based sitcom. You can make a drama with an all black cast if that drama is either set in a nearly all black neighborhood or it revolves around an industry that is nearly all black. That is the case in Empire. Yet Fox viewers have loved this shows and in its first year, it was one of the top five rated shows on TV. Maybe you would argue that Fox News and Fox have different viewerships, but I do think there is a lot of overlap.
There are many conservatives out there who are like me. They have been Whoopi Goldberg fans for many years. We have demonstrated that we don't mind watching people who 'don't look like us.' You are insulting so many of your own fans. Do you realize that when you make those kind of accusations?
Another interesting aspect of this is the idea of the market and providing to people what they want. We do live in a free market economy and I believe in giving people what they want. I love the free enterprise system, but there are limitations to what we allow in the free market. If they want to provide entertainment about black people marketed to black families, that's their right, particularly if there are people who want to view it. But does BET give equal opportunity to everyone who is off camera? Are people applying for their camera positions and marketing jobs given equal treatment or are only blacks hired for those positions? This is an honest question. I have no idea what their hiring practices are. If they give preferential treatment for non=acting jobs, to one race over another, than it seems to me that BET is breaking the law. That is illegal.
There are many things in that are justified in the free market system that are not right and that I personally would not be a part of. Just because it is legal does not make it moral, even if it is filling a need for consumers. I would never be a part of a company that sold pornography. It's legal and there is a market for it, but I do not think it is moral. Now I am by no means comparing BET with pornography. I am just saying that just because there is a market for it doesn't mean we should fill that market's needs. I am not even sure how I feel about BET one way or another.
Let's stop name calling. Let us all try to disagree in a civil way without assuming that those who don't agree with us have some nasty motives. There are a lot more things I could say about this exchange, but I have already written more than I was intending. Perhaps I will say more about the subject on another day.
Thank you for your time,
Shane Swenson