I've now seen every episode to date of Aaron McGruder's animated series "The Boondocks," which airs Sunday nights at 11 p.m. on the Cartoon Network of all places.
I'm not black. I don't really know that many black people. But from my perspective, this show seems to be so brutally honest and introspective into that community that it's a wonder it can get airtime at all.
Why HAVEN'T there been shows like this before? Is it too true? Too hard to swallow?
I don't know if I'm the target audience. I don't know if I have a RIGHT to watch this show, sit there and think - wow, that's how it IS.
To be fair, white people aren't spared by McGruder's wit either. When they do make an appearance, they're spot on as far as I can tell - rich folks blissfully detached from reality thanks to their ability to shape their own worlds with money. Spoiled kids trying their damnedest to be "gangsta" and coming across as the cowardly idiots they are.
But that's clearly not the main point of the show. For the most part the white people seem to exist to make the point that they're not TRYING to keep black people down - they simply don't CARE about them one way or another. To the last, a group so self absorbed that race is wholly irrelevant.