‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ and Everyday Verbal Blackface
Adopting our slang and culture won’t make you an ally
Here’s a message for my White brothers and sisters. Gather ’round the figurative community circle.
Recently, watching the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion, I thought back to the eight-year-old me who got a chance to see hip-hop on primetime TV in the ’90s. Fresh Prince might have shared the same network as The Cosby Show, but it wasn’t like its predecessor at all. (One can even make the argument that Fresh Prince was better, but I digress.) As I reflected on the show’s early episodes, I realized, sadly, how the show’s depiction of Will’s experience was a case of art imitating life.
Will stood out at the Bel-Air Academy not because of his brown skin, but because of his hip-hop-infused personality. Even his fashion cues came from the culture; he wore his hat backward and his blazer inside out. Bel-Air Academy was already a peak onscreen White institutional space — Will was threatened with expulsion when he wrote his name on a desk, even though it was already tagged by White men who had attended the school. So much of the White faculty thought Will an unruly class clown.
With every use of “bye, Felicia,” “woke,” “you feel me,” “lit,” or any other…
