South

I am not able to give you the why for this particular binge on Prime Video. Actually, I do very little binging of any programs though “Grace and Frankie” on Netflix has been the one exception. Anyway, I watch the 8 seasons of the Andy Griffith Show over and over though I have have more of a preference for the black and white seasons than the last two seasons in color.

I do not know why I’m stuck on the show. I do not watch it during the day, only when I’m ready to go to sleep. In fact, I’m probably sleep before an episode is halfway done. The series cycles as I sleep and should I wake up during the night, I tap on the next episode only to fall asleep immediately.

I do wonder why I’m stuck in this Andy Griffith loop. There are so many reasons why I should not be a fan. First of all, it’s set in a small town in the South during the 60s, not a great time or space for African Americans. Secondly, there is no true representation of African Americans in small town Mayberry though I think I have caught glimpses of one or two in a crowd or perhaps one walking down a street. Actually, this is probably a true representation as Mayberry only has a population of 2,000, majority white, I’m sure. The businesses and companies would be owned by them, of course, and the black population would be peripheral to any of their stories. Thirdly, Andy Taylor is a sheriff and southern law enforcement history with African Americans is not pretty for that time period.

There is one episode in color (there’s an irony here) that features an African American man but that man has to have the credentials of being a retired pro football player who also happens to be a pianist who plays classical music beautifully, an object lesson for Andy (maybe a challenge to the view most whites had of African Americans back then). They could not bring in any old person to represent the black community, only the exception would do. This individual would have to be the exception to the perceived rule in order to have the right to be on screen with the white folks up close and personal. A kind of “that boy is a credit to his race, ain’t he!” moment for the white viewer.

But, that’s not the only issue I have with Andy and his crew. What is up with Barney Fife? This man is so full of himself, it’s embarrassing to everyone, yet everyone rushes to make sure he’s not embarrassed, that his feelings are not hurt. In doing so, Barney Fife can continue to live in his fantasy world of bluff wrapped in bravado as he struts the stuff he thinks he has. Andy does call him out from time to time but almost always circles back to apologize for nothing. I often just wish someone would lower the boom on him, that he would summon up the guts to apologize for the snafu he has caused instead of him always being the hero. I’m pretty sure a narcissist wrote the script for Barney.

Finally, the chauvinism is blatant. The women are referred to as girls, almost always. The men leer at pretty women and make sly remarks. Andy and Barney have long time girlfriends but marriage is anathema to them. Thelma Lou and Helen know this to be so and are quietly resigned to their plight. Barney is a two-timer (with Juanita at the diner) and everyone seems to know it except Thelma Lou. This would never be so in a town that small. Sooner or later, she would discover his infidelity. Maybe she does know but Barney is so clever at gaslighting that she refuses to believe the rumors. Also, the women are petty, excellent at jumping to conclusions. They withhold their favor (slight sexual innuendo, here), the pleasure of their company until they get their way. The men quickly give in to the pettiness because they don’t want the women to be upset with them and withhold their favor. Yep, men wrote their scripts too.

I have not pointed out any specific episodes because any episode will fill the bill with why I should not be binging this show, but binge I do. There is no reason I should long for those black and white moments, especially in the light of what I know about the timeline of the African American in the South. Plus, the view of women through the lens of the writers should shut me down, as well and I have run into a few Barney Fifes in my lifetime.

Yeah, there is no real reason for me to continue to watch The Andy Griffith Show.

I wonder what a therapist would make of of this!

This piece was written at least twelve years ago, but it still seems applicable to today’s cultural climate.

They tell me that Sam Cook’s proverbial and prophetic change has come to America via the election of Mr. Obama. I hear that the almost 400 years of deprivation, marginalization and disfranchisement is at long last coming to a close because America has finally elected a black man as President of the United States of America.

I am excited to hear the news, really I am. A black man is going to live in the White House! Wow! But even more Wow! than this mind boggling fact is the reality that a black woman is going to be the First Lady of the land! Does this now mean that the black woman will become the woman to validate the guest list of every simpering socialite? Will we become the women to watch and emulate (as if this were not already happening) simply because we favor (as in we look like her) our First Lady?

A thought that is a little worrisome, however, is the notion that we African American women will now have to be the standard bearer for our First Lady , and what if we drop the ball and do something dumb or ill-mannered and the effect is immediately translated to the First Lady of the land? What will I do then? After all, I have spent most of my life making sure I did nothing that would warrant the continuation of a stereotype; what am I to do now that my race and my gender is even more subject to the scrutiny of the masses?

Living Black in America comes replete with an unwritten compendium of regulations and by-laws and rules of conduct and good manners for those moments when we find ourselves in the presence of the majority culture, none of which are set in stone tablets anywhere. Nevertheless, most of my generation, as well as the generations that came before me and passed the image torch on to me, know the “shoulds” and the “oughts” of good behavior and living Black in America.

The older women who raised me (the village mentality was very much intact during my coming-of-age years) were always neatly kempt and tastefully stylish. They may have worn uniforms to clean Miz Anne’s house, but those uniforms were always crisply and starchily pressed. Every tightly wound, hard pressed curl and every stringently marcelled wave was neatly in place and the red lipstick (that always turned orange on us) stayed put even in the heat of the kitchen.

Perhaps it was the constraint of the weekly white uniform that dictated the dramatic dress of Sundays. I remember my grandmother’s faux hair, a length 0f curled hair (real or not, I do not know) that was attached to a band of elastic which she would slip onto her head and then comb her hair over it to blend the two. To handle the recalcitrant gray at her temples, she would use a black stick made of what I do not know to cover those unruly strands. It never seemed to occur to her that the goo she applied to her edges would eventually succumb to the sweltering summer heat of south central Texas to liquify into black rivulets of sweat that ran down the sides of her face.

Yes, Sunday meant dress-up and the cost of a black woman getting herself together to enter into the presence of the Lord was never too expensive or too demanding or too strenuous.

I can still “see” my mother on many a hot summer Sunday morning wrestling herself into long-line bras and latex saturated girdles. This main event of the morning was usually followed by the putting on of make-up which would then go into battle with the rapidly rising temperature usually resulting in another full application after the donning of the di regeur Sunday suit. A hat was always carefully and stylishly set upon her head, whereupon she would then hustle us into the car (if we hadn’t already walked ourselves to Sunday school) to get to church and congregate with all the stylish mavens of our Baptist Ekklesia. How these women managed not to swoon somewhere between the long-winded and rote prayers of the deacons and the whooping histrionics of the pastor is definitely a mystery.

No, denomination was not a divider when it came to Sunday morning style (unless you were of the Pentecostal persuasion and eschewed fancy dress, lipstick, powder and paint (those ancient trappings of the vile Jezebel, that wicked manipulator of King Ahaz and persecutor/prosecutor of the prophet Elijah); most of the good sisters of my southern community always dressed to the nines on Sunday.

But I digress, greatly. Change is here so I hear and we African Americans should be excited, nay, hysterical with ecstasy and unbridled joy. The long night is over! But I am a little bit concerned about this cultural leap into positive change, so I have a question. How long will it take my cultural eyes to adjust to the light of this new day? Can I really step into the sunshine of change and quickly shake the dust of the collective past of my people from my weary feet?

Have I, have we, truly overcome?