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A Different Kind of Scandal By: Karimah Noble C2015 Imagine I am to produce a prime-time television show on a major network. The show centers on a young, rich, successful white businesswoman. Let’s just call her Susie, shall we? Susie is quick witted, well spoken, possesses the uncanny ability to manipulate anyone, and can talk her way out of every conceivable situation. She owns a consulting firm and has a handful of employees whose unquestioned allegiance to her borders on God-like reverence. Yale-educated and drop- dead gorgeous, Susie is politically connected, fiercely independent, single, no children, dresses in the finest tailor-made clothing, is completely self-made, and earns a substantial living as a professional liar. Intrigued? Suppose I spiced things up more and told you that Susie’s love interest is a married man? A little more enticed? I thought that might do the trick. But wait! Before you rush to tune in, there is a caveat: Susie’s adulterous affair is with...a black i man. Did I lose you? Stay with me; I beg you. Let’s call said lover Tyrone (because quite frankly, I cannot think of a name more unmistakably “black”). So...Tyrone is Harvard i educated, handsome, rich, and powerful. He has a beautiful, black, pregnant wife named Tammy (I considered Taneequa, but the name just seemed a bit over the top). At any rate, I digress. Tammy holds a degree from the same ivy-league institution as Tyrone, is cunning, ruthless, and will stop at nothing to ensure that her husband maintains his power and status- even if it means “sharing” him Courtesy of ABC with another woman. They have two children in boarding school, live in a sprawling white mansion, and have every imaginable luxury. In spite of this, Tyrone hates Tammy. Not just your everyday, run- in-the-mill hate, but a deep-seated genuine distain. He loathes his wife. And he makes no secret about it. Nor does he make any secret about his affair. Tammy is fully aware of his habitual indiscretions and his desire to divorce her (pregnant or not). As if that were not enough, the caveat of all caveats: Tyrone is president of the United States. Suddenly feeling “some kind of way” about the premise of my show? I would venture to say you probably are. I would also venture to say this storyline would never see the light of day. However, if by some miracle, a major network were brave enough to air such a show- one depicting a black president having an extramarital affair with a white woman- chances are Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the NAACP...shucks, everyone from the Black Panther Party to Martin Luther King Jr.’s second cousin’s nephew’s brother would stand in protest. I challenge anyone to disagree. But is this not the storyline of the hit show Scandal? Yet no one stands in protest. No angry uproars. No outcries. Is this simply because Olivia Pope is black and Fitzgerald Grant is white? Quite possibly. Nonetheless, the question remains: Same storyline, same script, slight “tweak” in casting... If “Livy” were white and President Fitz” black, would you even watch the show? The BluePrint SpelmanPaper@gmail.com Feb/March 2014 17