"Black in America" disappoints

I watched CNN's Black in America last night and was ready to turn in my black card when it was over.

Reporter Soledad O'Brien spent two hours highlighting just about negative aspect of the black community. It was basically a report on how blacks have failed. When it was over, I said out loud, to myself, "Is this all that black people have amounted to?"

As a member of the media and a minority, I try to always be cognizant of the way blacks are portrayed in the newspapers and on television. People always say reporters find the most ignorant blacks to put on television or quote in the papers. Yes, there are unintelligent blacks in the news all the time, but in my experience, those are the ones usually willing to talk. I feel safe writing that in the majority of cases, reporters just want to get the quote and head back to the newsroom. So, if the woman with the Marlboro Light hanging from her mouth, wearing a robe at 3 p.m. with a head full of rollers is at the scene talking, I'm writing and broadcast reporters are filming.

I say all that to say getting quotes from uneducated people in a breaking-news situation is different from what O'Brien did in her special, where she used a feature format to only focus on the negative. She had time to find someone or something positive. With breaking news, it happens fast and a reporter's main goal is to get the story fast.

Instead, she reported that blacks are uneducated. Blacks live in poverty. Black women can't find a good black man. One in 20 black women in D.C. have AIDS. Blacks don't have insurance, so they have to use emergency rooms. And so on.

Most of this information is already widely known in the black community, so I'm not sure what O'Brien wants us to do with it. There was no commentary on solutions to get ahead. And no mention of Democratic Presidental Candidate Barack Obama other than the section on biracial Americans.

In giving her the benefit of the doubt, maybe O'Brien hopes the documentary begins a conversation. Maybe she wanted to show the black community their problems all at once so we will start thinking about solutions.

Even with last night's special being a downer, I'm going to watch tonight's on the black man. I can only imagine how O'Brien will show my brothers.