True Blood's Portrayal of African-American Women

For a moment, I was considering checking out the "True Blood" series, but gave up the idea after hearing about the African-American female character, Tara. I hated that she was simply an epitome of the trite AA woman stereotype: loud and rude, with no depth. Furthermore, I disliked how she was so readily and easily available for sex with the Caucasian male's character without any level of commitment, as if she wasn't worth having a real relationship with him. To compound matters even further the colorism in the casting of this woman was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Every American knows that a light skinned, mixed, or Latina woman will be the first to be cast for an African-American woman role. However, this rule reverses if the character is stereotypical or otherwise obnoxious. True Blood stayed true to that rule. Apparently, the first woman wasn't Black enough to be "ghetto."

Here's the first woman cast:


Here's the second and final:

African-Americans embrace all that is negative and destructive

They walk down the path of self-destruction...obliviously?

I was reading Clutch Magazine and was struck by an article talking about a writer at Grazia Daily UK describing afros as "ghetto fabulous." I hate hate hate when the word "ghetto" is used as a synonym for African-Americans, and even though I felt motivated to lash out at Caucasian ignorance, I realized that we share a significant part of the blame. It has become part of our culture to embrace and internalize negativity. It is as if we have a campaign to "claim" everything that is bad. We were called "nigger,"so instead of stomping our foot down and proclaiming, "No, I am too a man" we feel the need to "take back" the word. American's dehumanization of us caused us to be in poverty, but instead of saying "I am going to fight out of this quagmire," we accept the ghetto as our home and see it as something to be celebrated. I searched "ghetto" under song title at EndlessLyrics.com and found 108 songs glorifying life in the ghetto! Dang, it's like James and Florida fighting their whole life to get out of the projects just for J.J., Themla, and Michael wanting to stay in. How African-Americans have become so content with being third class citizens is beyond unsettling. How can we get ahead when we glamorize poverty and crime--when we don't even see that we are in trouble in the first place? That is what separated the African-Americans in the 60s and earlier from us today. They recognized they were drowning and were desperate to know how to swim. People to day have their head underwater but are too ignorant to fight to keep their head above. It is as if we look at others, such as our president and the prominent figures in African-American History Month, and use them to delude ourselves that we have equal status. Is it that our eyes are so focus on the past that we cannot see where are today? Has the illusion of a post-racial America made us believe that we are at dead end-- that there is no more to achieve? And most importantly, how can we slap ourselves out of this fantasy?