by Zakariah Robinson // Staff Writer
The ABC 4th season premiere of Black-ish woke people up. Due to recent events happening in America that have contributed to social and ethnic divide, it’s time for the black truth to come to light. During the episode of Black-ish that guest starred musician and show producer Aloe Blacc, they made sure to clear up misconceptions about slavery and American history. The main topic of the episode was “Juneteenth”. June 19, 1965 was the official day of that American ended slavery. Even though we were free, we still were enslaved.
“If that [June 19, 1965] was the last day when slavery ended in the United States, isn’t that really Independence Day? How can we honestly have independence before everyone’s independent, everyone’s free?” Kenya Barris, Black-ish creator, also stated “We can’t make things worse, you know? I think the whole – the way that this happened in the first place is because we have not been open. I just saw an article about the smugness of liberality in this country. And I think that that sort of turned a lot of people off – is that we felt like this was half the country, literally split down the middle, felt a different way.”
The show Black-ish has always preached exactly what the black community feels. This episode was much needed especially with the constant dismissal of positive achievements in the black community. Kenya Barris explained how America never gave African-Americans the credit they rightfully deserve. We built Wall Street, railroads, buildings, and Chapel Hill. He used Hamilton the musical and School House Rock as a music platform, to tell their viewers about how America took advantage of slaves and profited off of their hard work.