Thread inspired by Live In Front Of A Studio Audience. The special about All In The Family and The Jefferrsons I didn't grow up in the seventies but i did in the eighties. Good Times before Cosby i would say was the most popular black sitcom especially among blacks. Reruns were still popular. I was never a big fan, i liked Whats Happening and Sanford and Son. I always thought Good Times was corny but that isn't what my issue is. There is no way two able responsible hardworking blacks would remain in the projects. Norman Lear's shows are revered for addressing social issues and conflict revolving around race and sex and other issues. I appreciate his efforts and respect his success as an entertainment creater with a social edge. However i feel that his message in Good Times is off. Solid families advance. Social ills regarding black poverty in the seventies werent far from segregation but i think broken homes were starting to become the overwhelming factor. Black people really did advance in the seventies due to education and civil rights laws. As far as the show is concerned as it relates to the real world obviously there were still plenty of poor black two parent families in the seventies but the situation of Good Times was over the top to the point that some of the episodes where the Evans family almost sees prosperity only to be foiled become the joke because of their ridiculousness. In all Lear's good intentions thats really not a good message.
All good jobs are in the city, city is more expensive, landlords, realtors and co-op boards are still telling black buyers and renters that every listing they saw that afternoon has been rented or sold, suburban parents are still throwing bananas at bused in black kids on the first day of school.
I live in Chicago and the bad parts of Chicago are the worst in the United States... worse than Gary or East St. Louis. Having said that, there are some middle class black people that choose to stay in the black neighborhoods that are dangerous in Chicago.
I watched Good Times as a kid, but don't remember many of the specifics now. I'm not sure I believe your version -- that a functional black family would escape the projects in the 70s -- more than his. I'd point out though that it is a show about one family and not about statistics. Even if all those black families from the projects in the 1970s were making money hand over fist, driving Cadillacs, and moving to River Oaks doesn't mean the Evans family does. Good Times didn't tell the story you want told. Make your own show.
A two income household doesn't qualify for project housing now and it probably didn't in the 70s even in Chi-Town
I don't know, and I'd be interested to hear if anyone knew for sure. Shows have holes in them all the time. Big picture, they wanted to tell a story about a poor black family and humanize them, because white mainstream America were not thinking of these people as people. They want to say these folks might be black and poor, but they work hard, they love their kids, they look out for their community, etc. But, what you seem to be telling me is that's not so, that Cabrini Green didn't have people like that. That if you lived there, you didn't have a solid marriage, you didn't try to earn an honest living, you didn't try to raise your kids up right, you didn't look after your neighbor. Do you really think that's a more accurate depiction of Cabrini Green than the one with two working adults?
@JuanValdez Since I've been back people have been taken aback by my supposed Clarence Thomas persona. Ive always had these opinions and im not Clarence Thomas. But one thing conservatives are re right about is the broken black family structure contributing to cyclical poverty. Im not trying to demonize Lear, the seventies are obviously right after civil rights. However what you say as humaize i would say we are lying to ourselves today to think more solid homes would notgo a long way to our progression and has to happen and actually i think in terms of helping poor blacks we need to turn our focus on internal problems
I wouldn't disagree with that as a general truth, that broken homes has been a significant driver for black poverty. But that's not what I'm hearing from you -- I hear you saying that solid families can't be poor. That one's poverty is a mark of a personal (or familial) moral failing.
I answered a lot of this in the previous post but its not that they can't be poor but families stuck in the projects isnt about racism and outside forces as much. That's why im pointing out how now its a joke when looking back at what kept the Evans family reasons the Evans family was stuck.
I know you believe that. We've had this argument enough times before. Let us say that there still is no consensus on the subject. My guess would be that more people believe today that racism was a major impediment to success in the 1970s than believed it back in the 1970s. The scholarship on it continues to build. Some day, I'll convince you.
John Amos was let go from the show for constantly loudly protesting the show not revolve around JJ's sterotypical ghetto kid act and wanting it revolve around the upward mobility of his siblings.
