This makes me afraid. Very afraid. In concept it sounds good:

Percy Miller (formerly Master P) announces the launch of Better Black Television (BBTV) a family friendly network that will provide positive content for a black and brown culture that will appeal to all races with a goal to bring people of color a choice when turning on their television.

But… Master P’s running it. Master P. I mean, come on.

Shake what you got in them jeans (them jeans)
Girl grab the wall, then shake it like a dog
Shake what you got in them jeans (them jeans)
Girl grab the wall, then shake it like a dog
Shake what you got in them jeans (oh yeah)
Girl grab the wall, then shake it like a dog
Shake what you got in them jeans (oh yeah)
From the front to the back, girl you know what I mean

From “Them Jeans”

…Hmm.

Anyway, this touched off a conversation between my cousin and myself about the state of television for PoC now versus 30 years ago. It seemed to both of us that there were more PoC on TV back when we were kids (in the 1970s, right after the Civil Rights movement) than there are now. They were not good depictions back then — one-dimensional, prone to early death, bizarrely good at martial arts — but they were depictions. These days it seems hard even to get that much. Blackarazzi noticed the change, too:

There was a time when diversity seemed to come naturally to prime time. The social consciousness of the ’70s spawned successful sitcoms like The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Sanford and Son; the ’80s brought living-in-harmony comedy Diff’rent Strokes and the ultimate breakthrough TV family on The Cosby Show. But a long fallow period (dominated by Cheers, Seinfeld, and Friends) followed until 1999, when the networks announced another particularly white fall lineup (The West Wing, Freaks and Geeks, Once and Again) — and minority groups revolted.

Thus prompting a brief resurgence in which we saw a few more brown faces appear. But that resurgence seems to have faded again.

Or has it? I’ll put the question to you folks, then. Are PoC on TV better off now than they were 30 years ago?