NBC's Award-Winning "Law and Order" Program Attacks Mixed-Race People
The "Law and Order" police drama rerun of Sunday, July 26, 10:00 p.m. Eastern time was probably the most racist program modern Hollywood has ever produced, and the racism is considered "politically correct" because the population attacked (Caucasian persons of partially "black" ancestry) is considered an acceptable target of denigration by the liberal "left" in this country. What racist myths and stereotypes did this program take great pains to validate?
1) The entire plot hangs on a genetic impossibility – that a "pure" white woman of Danish ancestry ("as white as you can get," as one of the actors puts it) would give birth to a coal-black baby if she married an otherwise Caucasian man "tainted" with some black ancestry – whom the "heroes" of the show define as "black" with no ifs, ands and buts. What is the purpose of this racist nonsense? It is obviously designed to validate the idea that something is terribly wrong with "black" genes and, if you dare to mingle "superior" Caucasian blood with black, the "white" lineage and identity will be totally destroyed – the main argument white purists have historically made against interracial marriage. Please note that the actors, script writers and Executive Producer, Dick Wolff would not DARE to call LATINOS "black" no matter how much "black blood" they or their relatives displayed.
2) the cop "heroes" of the program refer to intermarriage between a white woman and a black man as "Scarlett O'Hara and Mandingo," and also refer to black males who mate with white women as "studs."
3) The mixed-race Caucasian who dared to choose the identity that the mirror showed him over a myth that he wasn't good enough for his own European ancestry, is denigrated and denounced in the most racist terms by two black actors who berate him for "passing" and enjoying benefits that "other" African Americans couldn't enjoy. I interpret that remark to mean that the black characters were not resentful of whites who enjoyed superior rights – as long as they were "Negro blood free" and therefore truly "superior."
4) A black attorney character tells the mixed Caucasian that he is "an accomplished liar" and "self-hating coward" because "he lied about his race." No one even once questions whether a person who looks like every anthropology textbook's definition of "Caucasian" can be said to be "lying" about his "race" when he describes himself as white. No one questions their extremely racist definition of "race." Since most middle-class blacks claim black females were "raped" by antebellum white males and white genes "forced" upon them, I would ask the black actors why they are so intent on forcing white persons into their "race" – are they thinking that "white blood" somehow "improves" the black stock? What is especially hypocritical about this denunciation for "passing," is that Hollywood is built on "passing." You can buy mainstream books telling about the hundreds of actors (including most of our great "stars") who changed their "inferior" Jewish, Slavic, Latino or whatever names and invented "Anglo-Saxon Protestant" images to make them more acceptable to the public.
5) The "heroes" of the program state as a fact that all the mixed Caucasian's "pure" white friends and business associates will turn from him in disgust when they find out he's "black" (which he's not; the "Law and Order" folks don't even have the decency to use terms such as "mixed" or "part-black.") Like "Imitation of Life" and other racist denunciations of "passing," the characters are not denouncing racism, they are telling the viewers to BE racist. You are SUPPOSED to treat a white-identified person with contempt if you find out he is "tarbrushed" because the heroes of "Law and Order" told you it's the right thing to do. Hell, the black actors told you it's the right thing to do – and every politically correct liberal knows that "blacks" are always right (unless they attack you personally because you're Jewish or gay or if they dare to mention the "shame" of Latinos' black ancestry).
6) The "Law and Order" plot even has the mixed Caucasian's first wife (also a "pure" white) rejecting her otherwise white son because he has the dreaded "black blood" in him (which, according to the "heroes" of the show, makes him purely "black"). The "heroes" of the show also state that the son should not have gone to an "all white" school. Every day you see white mothers with visibly mixed-race children, yet the "Law and Order" folks assure us that rejecting even a white child you've raised and loved because his father turns out to be part-black is natural and normal. Of course, if you're Latino, your "black blood" is never mentioned by either African Americans or white liberals.
If you're as outraged as I am, please write:
Law@nbc.com or LAW & ORDER
Wolf Films
Pier 62
Hudson River & West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011
Comment from the Netherlands about Law and order.
Hi, just i was looking for info about double blood actors, with both black and white parents, when I stumbled upon your article.
It was insightful, and this episode was recently broad-casted here in the Netherlands. I remember feeling quite uneasy to watch it, being a black person in a predominantly white society. Alas, the Netherlands is increasingly a polarizing country, in terms of race and muslim-nonmuslim tensions.
You have pointed out to me a lot of hidden racist things about that show. I often think that today, the subtle racist attitudes are the biggest problem. Not a whole lot of whites will be openly racist anymore, but often they have attitudes that clearly show a supremacy attitude.
And sometimes also blacks themselves will do that, simply because they have lived in a white culture, where black inferiority attitudes are more or less built in.
Reading your piece on this Law and Order episode, didn’t make me feel happy, and most of the time I want to avoid thinking about these things. But I commend you for speaking up about it, and we should be more aware of this.
Thanks.
Brian.