First published on the satire site Flexx.
I’ve been telling them about this show for years now. Like way back when there wasn’t a Netflix development deal, even before it had 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, way back when Racism was not easily recordable on an iPhone or like…trending. But for real, I’m so glad they are watching now. I’m actually kind of jealous. I wish I could discover it all anew.
I have one friend who is only up to the episode “Where You Can’t Talk to Your White Friends About Any of This.” I have another friend who is two episodes behind her “Where You Realize Your Friends Come in Color.” Wait till they get to the episode “Where Even Though the Racism Doesn’t Surprise You, You Still Cry.”
They are almost up to that episode where you write about an experience of racism for the very first time and your teacher calls your story “deeply confused.” It hurts even though he’s right. Later, you see a white character touch his braids. I hope they get up to that episode when, as you and your friends are leaving an event and are all invited to the after-party by a white friend. You say yes but your friends say no. They tell you they wouldn’t be comfortable in that white space. You realize you wouldn’t be either.
Then, there is that episode (I think a season finale), that one you don’t think is about racism. It’s 45 minutes of Black and Brown folk enjoying a night at a club, the last night before a favorite club closes for good. No racism! Just dancing, the DJ spinning hits. But a fight breaks out between the only two white men there and the whole club clears out. Your Black and Brown friends shake their heads, “We can’t have nothing.”
Then there are those fun cross-over episodes (this show shares a universe with other shows). That episode when you stopped eating Indian food from ages 13-21. That episode where you constantly imitated your mom’s accent at a lunch table for your white friends. And all those episodes where you willfully Apu-ed yourself. I’ve come to see that I’ve been watching this show for a long time, longer than I first ever realized. And my parents and grandparents have been watching it too. It’s been on for that long. Who would ever have thought we were into the same stuff! And now I’ve started to catch up on Colonialism, too.
But my friends are still just starting to watch Racism. Sometimes they hold watch parties or post-show chats or the like. They are obsessed with their new show. They want to pick apart every episode. They want to weigh in. They want others to weigh in on how they’ve weighed in. They keep quoting their favorite lines, like “my Black friends…” and “what should I do?” and “what’s the right way to be anti-racist?” They want to imagine what it’s like to be on the show. But they are not in it, not in-it in it, not like you.
I’m finding it hard to talk to them. Too many surprises, too many complications: it feels like I am constantly spoiling Racism for my friends! I think they are finding it hard to be around me too. Allyship is not the same as friendship. And I’m still learning, I’m still watching, even when I think I’m not.
That’s the thing with this show is that it’s on even when no one is watching. Every day in every way systemic Racism endures even when the world-wide hype has stopped. But of course for those hardcore binge-watchers, for those that stay with it, there’s 400 more years of show ahead of them and counting.