Black. White.

I don't get it. I watched the show tonight and it blew my mind. We all get it Carmen is an idiot, but I really think shes trying. She is doing anything and everything she can to be black and every time she does all she gets in return is hate. She asked for help on what to wear and she was lied to. I thought this project was supposed to be about the families showing one another and teaching one another what it is to be the opposite race. Nick and Renee are black and they don't want to be anything else. They aren't even trying. Rose went out and gave of herself and worked to try and see the other side. Nick doesn't even care enough to try. I just don't understand why everything Bruno and Carmen try is crap to the Sparks. They went to church and they enjoyed it, all Brian had to say was that it wasn't real. I don't see Bruno saying that every time Brian is white. The show doest have that much credibility to me because I feel like the Spark's came into this house with the intent to show how racist white people are. They don't care about being white, they don't want to learn what its like to be white. All they want to do is show this white family what its like to be black. Carmen is lost she has no idea what to say or do around the other family and why should she ? Anytime she tries to learn how to be black they throw her in the gutter and say "Well I learned a lot from her today" they don't try and help her they don't correct her. From my point of view the Sparks are looking for a fight, not just outside the house but in the house as well. After any experience outside the house we get this commentary from the Sparks vehicle and its always criticism about how they felt hurt by something the Wurgles have said or done. I just don't think both families are trying very hard. I believe that Rose is the only one who is really getting anything out of this experience and she had to leave the house to get it. The only people who were actually real with her are the people who had no idea. For anyone to get something from this the effort has to go both ways.

I began discussions about prejudice with my high school students, before starting to show this series. My classrooms consist of equal representation of Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White races. Many of them were not aware of racism in their personal experience. Each week I've been showing the new episode of "Black, White". Each week they've been asked to write their views and comments on several questions concerning that episode. Then the next day the students are asked to share their comments, which manifests a lot of good discussion and interaction amongst the students.

Most of the students do not receive the FX Channel at home so they really look forward to each week's showing and the ensuing discussion. This lesson plan will definitely become part of my annual repertoire. I hope that this series is released on DVD, for easier setup in the future.

As a comment for further seasons, the producers could develop the racial differences between other cultural combinations (i.e.: Black and Hispanic, Gays and Straights, Jews and Gentiles, Male and Female, etc.)

Network: FX; Genre: Reality, Documentary; Content Rating: TV-MA (strong language); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (1 season)

I love FX. Even when their shows aren't very good, they are still so bold and unique that they thrash about making a formidable fight. "Black. White." is a 1-shot, 6 episode series developed by R. J. Cutler and Ice Cube - lending his celebrity name and a halfway decent theme song to "the project" - about two families who employ an elaborate Hollywood make-up regimen to "trade races", making the white family (Bruno, Carmen and daughter Rose) appear black and the black family (Brian, Renee, and son Nick) appear white. Creepy? Maybe a little, but we've never seen this before, which is always a find in the creatively dead and socially irresponsible reality genre.

It starts out fun enough. It's fascinating watching the family members react to each other's new appearance. The opportunity they are given to walk around looking like someone other than themselves, is a cathartic human curiosity that goes beyond race and ethnicity. Brian gets his white make-over and goes straight to the driving range, then gets treatment from a shoe salesman I've never heard of life-long white men getting. Bruno, on the other hand, relishes what he will do when first called the N-word while in black make-up. But after the first episode, which also includes a test group where the two races hear what others think of them (the show's provocative high point), the fun is pretty much gives way to standard reality series impulses.

From there, you can take "Black. White." one of two ways: as a reality series or as a social experiment. Taken simply as a reality show it is decidedly above the rest, and both families have enough emotional baggage to pass the mustard for simple, interesting TV. End of that review.

But like Actual Reality's other FX series, the entertaining "30 Days", Cutler and Cube want "Black. White." to be more. They want to make us think. They want to break down the wall of self-segregation that these two races erect for themselves. For the duration of the project the families are made to live together so that they will share their experiences, and, hopefully, have intellectual discussions on the state of race relations in America. Because talking is the first step toward fixing the problem - right? But it isn't long before the women are at each others throats just like in any other reality show.

For all of its good intentions, in choosing these particular people as its participants they force us to debate a false reality. Instead of showing the national battle between black and white, "Black" actually ends up showing the battle between blacks and liberals, with Carmen as the prototype for someone who thinks that because her parents where involved with the civil rights movement, that she's got the right idea about race, all the while not realize that every "tolerant", "open-minded" idea she has toward black people is rooted in a weird core belief that they are SO different that they need to be understood like "creatures" – as she puts it – and coddled in society. Renee notes that Carmen treats her like an alien.

The subjects quickly prove themselves to be too kooky; saying things and making social mistakes that the average person really wouldn't say or do. We constantly feel like we are smarter than they are and as a result, can't learn anything from them. Is it all about skin color? Is racism perceived or indoctrinated? Any message the show was going for in the first place gets muddled, falling back on the old "there are no easy answers" line and refusing to pose any theories. Any hope of getting people to talk about race evaporates the moment Bruno showcases his own (hold on…) rap video.

The guys are pretty cool, but as guinea pigs, both Bruno and Brian are so hell bent on proving their take on racism they, frustratingly, won't even consider another view. Bruno (a pompous ass who views the world through the prism of himself), to prove that people see racism because they are looking for it, and Brian who takes the traditional line that black people are immersed in white culture and are constantly being sized up every where they go (like teenagers) by whites. When racist things don't happen, Brian and Renee assume that it would have happened had they not been in white make-up. For her part, Renee befriends a white women outside the project, deciding that she can be friends with her - not because she has learned anything about "the white experience", but because of the understanding way the women treats her. It is still all about her.

The show completely falls apart as an experiment when it starts to obviously take Brian's side. The last half of the series is less about two different ethnicities learning about each other and becomes a cliché, sanctimonious sermon, the yardstick for success of which is how well it can beat into Bruno, Carmen and us how victimized black America is. "Black" has a view of race no deeper than surface-level stereotypes.

What does work about "Black.White" are the kids. Rose, the overly emotional daughter, is ripped apart having to lie to her new friends in a black poetry group. A bond forms between her, Brian and Renee and the series rightly climaxes at Rose's poetry showcase.

Nick, who in white face looks like Michael Jackson but hilariously won't change the way he speaks, is equally hell bent, but on learning absolutely nothing. The most fascinating storyline in the show involves Nick's disrespect for money, his ignorance over the use of the N-word and the fact that he doesn't see things in terms of race until his parents train him to see it.

* * / 4

The adults in that house aren't really great representatives of either race. The white adults are just really awkward and sheltered (especially the wife), and the black adults are extremely stubborn and too judgmental. I live in Chicago and the city and suburbs here are pretty diverse but at the same time very segregated. I don't think there is anything wrong with a person of any color finding comfort being in their own community, that's just how people are and that's not racist. This isn't a culture clash, this is a room full of idiots clashing. It didn't even take one episode to realize that these people just didn't like each other and weren't going to get along at all…Bruno is an oaf, his wife Carmen couldn't be more sheltered and naive, Brian and Renee are both stubborn and far more closed minded than Bruno and Carmen, which is ironic because they constantly accuse Bruno and Carmen of being closed minded. I think the most interesting thing about this show was when Bruno told Brian that he believes black people are conditioned to look for racism and misinterpret a lot of things as racism. I think that this is a fair statement, but I also think it's fair for black people to feel that way. I grew up hating the Green Bay Packers because my Dad is a Bears fan and Bears fans always hate Packers fans…Brian's parents grew up in the times of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., they experienced some really ugly racism first hand! Is it implausible to have that sentiment passed down a few generations? Take a look at the teenagers in this show, they're the only ones who appear sane because they're so far displaced from that type of behavior because they just don't really have that type of experience anymore. I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist anymore, the truth is as long as there are people on earth there are going to be idiots, and as long as there are idiots, there is going to be racism. I honestly just wish that we had better representation all around on this show, the show definitely would be easier to watch if they had people who weren't such idiots.

I thought this was a very well developed idea that works on many different levels. First, we have the two "average" families composed of two parents and a child. The white family seems a little more offbeat with the overly accepting mother and the father who doesn't seem to see the racism in anything that happens around him. The daughter seems to be the only member of the family that is learning anything somewhat valuable during the whole transition. The black family seems to be more down-to-earth and likable. The father enjoys being "treated" as a white man and using the "white" talk that is often used as a hyper reality mockery of the formal talk that dave chapelle is usually found using when imitating/mocking the way white people talk. The mother is somewhat easygoing but gets irritated when listening to the ditsy white mother imitate "black" talk. The son is just a normal, shy kid who doesn't feel like he has to "act white" because he feels like he will be accepted for who he is. The way ideas clash between the families during their ventures out into LA are very interesting and sometimes comical. This is a great show for everyone and I hope that more people take to such a good thought provoking show about racial tension in the modern day.