Like My Wife & Kids but with more racial edginess? I dunno, ABC. I do think it's good to explore and highlight the ridiculousness that one deals with as a black man or as a Latina or as someone who is generally viewed as other in America, but it's a very, very delicate dance.

Sitcoms like Living Single, Martin, The Fresh Prince, and Moesha offered a more subversive—and radical—outlook on black identity: blackness was a given, and our humanity did not have to be defined or fought for. Watching the trailer, black-ish seems to be on the defensive from the outset: Let me show you how black I am by pointing out all the crazy shit white people do to me. Or, put another way: Why is Anthony Anderson's blackness only in response to another's whiteness? Which, well, is kinda problematic.

Toni Morrison breaks it all the way down:

"The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language, so you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing."

I'll be watching, though.