Black. White.

The first episode of Black.White. premiered last night. As many of you probably know, the show, co-produced by Ice Cube, chronicles an experiment where a black family is "turned white" with the help of 5 hours of professional makeup and get to go out in the world and experience life as white people. Conversely, a white family is "turned black" in an effort to understand what it is like to be black. And the kicker is, during all of this, they live together in a house in a Los Angeles suburb.

An interesting experiement, and it seems obvious that the one of the primary motives of the black family, especially for the father, is to educate the white family. He really wants them to see what it is like to be black. But the white father seems intent on proving that the racism that the black father feels is not really racism but just a result of his attitude. If you approach a situation with a positive attitude then negative situations have no power -- is Bruno's (the white father's) attitude.

Quite frankly, while watching this I thought to myself, "what a luxury to have such an attitude. What a luxury of white privilege." The problem isn't attitude. I doesn't matter what your attitude is. You can have the most positive attitude in the world and someone does something that reminds you that you are different or less (regardless of how you define yourself) that has an effect on you. I only hope his attitude changes some over the course of the show.

I am a little skeptical however, based on what I saw when the families were on Oprah a week or so ago. Unfortunately, it didnt seem like the families forged a friendship or much mutual understanding as a result of the show. And the Oprah show gave me the impression that the show was missing an important component needed to make this experiment "work." Sure the families lived together so that they could share their experiences but in a very emotionally charged situation with no one to help them work through those emotions - even now. I fear that this "experiment" didn't yield all the understanding that it could have because of it. But I will keep on watching and reserve my final jusdgement until the end.

Black.White. airs on FX at 10pm on Wednesdays. http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/blackwhite/main.html
Watch and make up your own mind!