NBC Will "Educate" You About Black Women

For the past few days my email in-boxes have been bursting with reminders from my fellow black women to watch NBC Nightly News every evening this week.

No, black women haven't suddenly gone all fan girl on Brian Williams and his uber-orange Mystic tan. Instead, folks have been alerting me that this week NBC News is doing a five part report on the state of black women in America.

The emails have had a tinge of excitement, a little bit of the, "Hallelujah! The mainstream media is paying attention to us!" kind of vibe. I can read between the lines and sense that there's the hope that this will be the start of our nation sitting up and paying attention to black women even when some clown like Don Imus isn't spewing his venom.

Will crimes such as the disappearance of college student Natasha Norman suddenly be reported at the level of the Stacy Peterson story? Will the atrocity that is Dunbar Village be taken up by Nancy Grace and reported on every night until justice is served?

There's also hope that maybe the NBC News series will move beyond the stereotypical. After all, we'd like to think there's only so many times it can be debated in the media whether we're video hos, nappy-headed hos, or just hos who are so controlling and demanding that our men leave us for white women the minute they get a degree and an American Express card.

The emails have also had a little bit of dread to them, a little bit of, "I'm going to watch so I can see what b.s. they say." There's been a concern that NBC News is going to screw this "in-depth" reporting up and reinforce the countless stereotypes about black women. Why? Well since the little two or three minute segment is presented as the key to understanding what makes black women tick, millions of people will go to work thinking they know a little bit more about the one black woman in their office.

And what do black women have to worry about America thinking of us:

1) We're promiscuous.
2) We're bitches with attitudes and chips on our shoulder.
3) We're superwoman. We cook, we keep our hair looking fly, we throw down in the bedroom.
4) We have really big butts. And we like to shake them. And pose on the cover of King magazine.
5) Actually, we're big all over, not just in the behind, because we're drowning our superwoman sorrows in food.
6) We're church ladies.
7) We had a baby as a teenager and our mom is watching it. OR
8) We're single mothers with a gang of kids by different men.
9) We were dateless and bitter in college because there were no black men on campus.
10) We refuse to date or marry men who are not black because we don't want to be race traitors.
11) If the black man we're with doesn't have a degree, we're settling because we don't want to be alone.
12) We talk really loudly and dress in bright colors. And we know how to pop our gum and our neck.

So would these stereotypes be reinforced and rehashed by NBC News or would they be challenged?

Well, tonight's episode started out talking about how there's an "achievement gap" between black women and men. Here we go with the statistics on how 64% of black college students are women and at some schools black women are outnumbering men seven to one.

First of all, aren't there more women in college then men, period? Second of all, isn't it a good thing that so many black women are going to college only a generation or two after Jim Crow officially ended? We'll never know because NBC News isn't going to get into that right now.

Next, we meet the black woman who went to Stanford and she talks about how a degree from Stanford's a "stamp of approval" when she's out in the working world. But forget about asking her what's underneath that comment. Gosh, this "in-depth" news report can't even pause and talk about how she got to college, whether she was the first in her family to go to college or whether her people have been going to college since Reconstruction. NOPE!

And then the story shifts to explaining the low percentage of black males in college. Elementary schools are giving up on black boys. Hip hop reinforces bad boy images so many black males get the idea that it's okay to drop out.

Ahem. Wasn't this story supposed to be about black women?

I'm thinking, hold on, we only have like two or three minutes so why are we rehashing the same media voodoo about how no black men are educated? Do I really need to see another slow-mo rap video and a bunch of pants sagging teens hanging out on a street corner?

Oh, but let's go back to another stereotype: The black woman they profiled is a single mother! No explanation if she's widowed, divorced...just another single black mother. I guess they couldn't find any black women who are married.

The good thing is that this sista's started a business. And she's putting her daughter through Stanford. But suddenly the story launches into how many billions of dollars black women control in our economy.

Hmm. I wasn't thinking about the economy. I'm wondering if this woman feels like superwoman. How does she deal with the stress of doing it all? (Or is she doing it all?) Is she proud that she's putting her daughter through college and that her daughter is going to Stanford just like she did?

But we'll never know all that because "ding" time is up. Didn't you just learn a whole lot about black women?

Thank goodness I don't need to watch NBC News to find out how black women are doing. I can read the blogs of the many black female bloggers and find out more about what's going on with black women than what NBC News told me tonight.

I can pick up the phone, call some folks up and ask them, "Hey girl, how are you doing?"

If you don't have any black women you are close enough to do that with, guess what? Find some. We don't bite. We're friendly, normal people. So, before 2007 ends, get some black female friends and really be friends with them. I'm not talking water cooler friends. I'm talking about you know her drama and her joy and she knows yours too.

Heck, I could go stand in the mirror and talk to my reflection and I'd know more truth about black women than NBC News shared.

So, trust me, don't leave your education about black women to NBC.