Yes, Rashida Jones is Black
It takes one to know one, you know?
Life happens in a vacuum. It always has — no matter how much we might like to posture on social media by urging friends to donate to charitable organizations or snapping selfies in our new #quarantine face masks, we’re doing it for our own sake before anyone else’s. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ve sucked a few of your close friends into your vacuum with you. You’ve got a virtually impenetrable bubble that lets your thoughts and opinions bounce off walls and echo. If it’s the only opinion I’m hearing, then I must be right!
This existed long before we sheltered in our houses and apartments last month, fearing an invisible threat and sanitizing our groceries. We have always sought out those who look like us, who sound like us. We want to be liked. We want to feel as though our opinions, no matter how sideways they may seem, are validated by those who feel the same way. Rather than persuading others to join our tribe, we seek out those who don’t need any convincing. There’s less work to be done there. We want disciples.
On April 17, we received our latest installment of media to be devoured. It was all beamed into our streaming devices and we, combating Quarantine Brain and getting over our frustration at the grocery store being out of yeast (are any of you actually eating the photogenic sourdough loaves coming out of your ovens?), stretched out our necks like baby birds, ready to consume the worms of Netflix’s labor.
One of those worms, which Netflix is touting as a new jewel in its overcrowded crown, is the series #blackAF, created, produced, and starring Tyler Perry 2.0, Kenya Barris. Much like his shows that preceded this one (black-ish, grown-ish, and the even more unfortunately titled mixed-ish), the show is a fictionalized account of Barris’s life — only this time instead of having Anthony Anderson play a heightened version of himself, he’s decided to have it come straight from the horse’s mouth. In another move lateral to black-ish, Barris’s wife is a mixed-race, light-skinned Black woman portrayed by an actress that’s the daughter of a music heavyweight. He has a motley crew of kids that all fit prescriptive character tropes found on any given sitcom. #blackAF is black-ish, but this time around, they all get to say fuck. It’s Netflix, baby!
I should add this before I go on any further: from the moment this series was announced, I was skeptical. Back in 2014, when black-ish launched, I tuned in like many other Black people, and briefly enjoyed what I saw. It felt like a Cosby Show for a new generation (and, giving what we were learning about Bill Cosby at the time, was a welcome addition to the pantheon of Black television). Barris compounded on the Cosby comparison and quickly created a spin-off, grown-ish, that follows the family’s eldest daughter Zoey to college. However, the chronicle of a wealthy Black family quickly pivoted from being something for us, and turned into something palatable for those who weren’t us. black-ish flirts with turning into an after-school-special, with moral lessons tacked on like bows at the end of each episode (this isn’t to say that The Cosby Show wasn’t also guilty of the same crime, but there was much more humor and far less formula). It became clear to me that black-ish was a show to help hold the hands of white people who wanted to learn more about Black culture. Honestly, I don’t think having shows like this is a horrible thing. I think it becomes an issue when they’re meant to represent the Black experience as a whole, and become encyclopedic in the process. Has anyone ever pointed to Married… with Children and said “there it is! The entire white experience!”?
All of this to say, I don’t trust much of what flows out of Kenya Barris’s pen. I think that he’s very good at providing his perspective: that of an affluent Black man with a mixed race wife who has spent his entire life catering to the white gaze due to the job he has. I don’t think that perspective should be ignored. It’s a bit difficult to swallow when it’s the only thing being offered. Sure, filet mignon is great, but I don’t want to eat it every night. I don’t want to be told that it’s the only meal that represents me (that’s calamari, thanks).
But for a moment, let’s put the series as a whole aside. I will confess to watching the first episode with my sister, albeit spending most of our time chatting over FaceTime rather than paying attention to anything the show had to say. I can already hear my journalism professors jumping down my throat—there’s no use in pinning something to a show you haven’t watched! I’ll probably get around to watching the rest of it at some point. After all, I have nothing but time.
Quickly after the series launched, Twitter percolated with opinions, as it does. The show, hashtag built into its title, trended. Most of the takes offered were negative, with Black Twitter citing some of what I mentioned above. The consensus was that it was “corny.” Again, I can’t speak to much of this. I’ve only seen one episode (that I thought was corny), but I can’t say I disagree. It was what followed that made me decide that I should probably have an opinion about all of this.
Soon after the show itself started to trend, one of its stars shortly followed: Rashida Jones. Now, reader, if you’ve made it this far, and you know me, you’re probably thinking, “this is where Simone turns this into a laundry list of reasons why she’d die for Rashida Jones.” You’re not entirely wrong. Long before getting told I look like her felt like a weekly occurrence (I still don’t see it), I’ve always liked Rashida Jones. In all honesty, if I were to ever meet her, I would probably start crying. Seeing people who look like you represented in media means a lot, and, odd as it sounds, she was one of the first people I remember seeing on TV and making the connection of oh, that’s me. There are more of us out there. Something about seeing someone who I could identify with on TV felt good. It still does. Women like Maya Rudolph, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Zendaya give me that same feeling of lightbulb over the head, Leo DiCaprio pointing to the TV in a beer-fueled, caught-by-surprise stupor, because hey! That’s me! (I have a friend who has noted my obsession with celebrities whose success is due largely in part to their more famous, (sometimes) more talented parents. Is there a support group for us somewhere?)
Anyway, Twitter quickly did what it did best, and served as a stage for the Black community to cannibalize itself while arguing over whether or not Rashida Jones was, indeed Black. One sect of Twitter began questioning how it was possible that someone who wasn’t Black could possibly star on a show called #blackAF, another questioned how it was that these people who were presenting as all-knowing on everything Black didn’t make the connection that Rashida Jones’s dad is, in fact, Quincy Jones, and everybody else watched on as these people made themselves look like fools, in one giant circle, all night long.
Let me pivot back to the personal for a moment. I’m “mixed.” I hate that term because it makes me think of things like Dairy Queen cones and designer breed dogs, so I don’t use it. My mom is white and my dad is Black. If I thought I could turn a profit for each time someone told me I looked like Rashida Jones (which, honestly, I think is done because I’m the only brown woman with bangs that they know, and we both watch Parks and Recreation so they know I’ll understand their reference), making a dollar for each time someone’s asked me “where I’m from” or “what I am” would put me up there with Jeff Bezos. I’ve been asked if I was adopted plenty of times. Once, while checking out at CVS, the white cashier complimented me on my tan and went on to ask if it was a spray tan, because it was “so even” and she was in the process of scouting out a new place to get her spray tans done. I don’t really have a label to slap on myself when it comes to my race—but, I’m a Millennial. I’m supposed to hate those pesky things.
I’ve had my Blackness taken away from me from practically all corners of my life for as long as I can remember. White people like to lump me in with them because it’s easier and safer to do so. I grew up in suburban Minneapolis, where nearly all of my friends were white. My high school was a bit more diverse than the street I lived on, but I was sheltered inside of its honors program, where you could count the students of color on two hands. Even if I tried to integrate myself into Black circles, I was seen as white. At a young age, I just decided that it was easier to stick with what I knew. At the time, that was the white community. I have multiple friends that have at some point or another, come to the realization that I’m not white. It’s normally met with laughter, but I promise you, I haven’t forgotten that interaction.
College changed things. I met Black people who were into the same things I was. I met Black nerds, Black music heads, Black writers. I learned that the Black experience isn’t a monolith. I made Black friends that accepted me into their community with open arms and saw me as one of them, full stop. Despite all of this, it was hard not to feel othered. It’s a bad analogy, but I think it can be compared to what happens when people see an albino squirrel. There it goes! Doesn’t it look different? Quick, take a picture of it.
I will be the first to admit that Rashida Jones is a terrible strawman for this argument. She is a famous, wealthy, conventionally attractive woman who is able to point to her even more famous and wealthy father while making quips on red carpets when interviewers make this mistake. She’s also made a career off of playing characters that have been white coded or worse—written as Italian. It’s safe to say that her role in #blackAF is the first canonically Black role she’s played (perhaps more of a symptom of Hollywood’s pervasive racism, but that sounds like a nuanced discussion for a different day). But if the Black community can’t give her, the daughter of one of, if not the most prolific producers of music that is undoubtedly Black, the access, who do they give it to?
It would be irresponsible to tackle this without bringing up colorism, the divide created by white people that has ultimately made us turn against our own. In no way do I compare my experience as a Black woman to that of someone who’s complexion is darker than mine. My own sister, who’s only a touch darker than me and hair a bit more coily than my own, is viewed as Black more often than I am—but at the price of being followed around a Target because some rent-a-cop thinks she’s stealing. The passing privilege that I’m given simply because of a roll of genetic dice is one that I make a point to acknowledge all the time. However, the racism that I have experienced, while largely microaggressive, has never been immediately reneged because the person doing the damage found out I was half-white.
The very specific brand of racism faced by those who are mixed race is one that has yet to be deeply discussed in the ways we discuss racism impacting communities of color as a whole—but that’s because we’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to discussing racism. Unfortunately, the racism experienced by people who are mixed so frequently is through calls coming from inside the house.
Sometimes, when I start a new job or am introduced to new people at a party, I like to wonder which label is getting slapped onto me by the people meeting me for the first time. Sometimes, I’ll keep an internal calendar of how long it takes before that person feels comfortable enough to ask me the dreaded “so, what exactly are you?” question, and I feel the tension release, like a carbonated drink having its cap crack as it gets twisted off.
But most of the time, I feel adrift. And one can only float for so long.
