Blackish, a comedy about prosperous black people who are relatively normal gets three million viewers.

Empire, a show displaying black dysfunction, greed, and all around ratchetry gets 11 million viewers a week, and is celebrated in major black media outlets across the internet.

Take a GOOD look at the two families represented in the photos above. I think you know where I’m going with this.

And now, America’s most derelict dad is about to get his own show. You remember Jay Williams…the dude with 34 children by 17 different women that premiered on OWN on Iyanla’s Fix My Life. And at this point, black people who complain about unfair representations of black people in television just need to shut the phuck up, because they are right there clapping and cooning at nonsense that make us look like the worst people on planet Earth. Why aren’t black men uniting to keep this shit off air?? It makes them look horrible.

According to Madame Noire:

According to Variety, this time around Jay, of Atlanta, will have his own show where he will try to mend the relationships with his family, children and mothers of his children. Iyanla will be helping to guide him along the way.

While Jay certainly needs to “do the work,” to borrow a phrase from Iyanla, I do wonder if all of this fame and recognition is going to his head.

At the same time, with his track record, full of irresponsibility,  it’s doubtful that Jay would attempt to repair these relationships without the cameras around.

Which might have been what his daughter was arguing all those months ago when she said she resented Iyanla for giving her father another way to dodge his issues. 

When will we realize that black people don’t have the LUXURY to be one dimensional sociopaths on television and expect the world not to assume we’re not “like that.” And please go somewhere with your respectability politics jabs at me. My background is communications and impression management, kids. You can rail all you want about the unfairness and narrow-mindedness of people who assume NeNe comes to your family reunion, Jay Williams is your uncle, and the idea of effective black parenting is throwing your kid in the garbage or filming you beating the hell out of them for MediaTakeOut.

Let me be clear. It IS your fault. It’s your fault every time you set the DVR and watch. Its YOUR fault every time a black media outlet with a million-plus page views a week gives play-by-play recaps and you click. It is YOUR fault when you don’t organize like the AKA’s did to keep a ratchet reality show that would have tarnished their image off the air.

And the next person who dismisses this post and minimizes the impact of such things on our collective, you be sure the dance and smile when someone from China, Spain, or the Ukraine thinks you’re a baby-mama-crack-head-video-hoe.

Don’t cry the victim when you conspire with the perpetrator.