Melissa Harris Perry also discusses this concept in Sister Citizen, regarding fictive kinship, defined as the reciprocal social and economic relationships within communities of color: “If one’s sense of self is connected to the positive accomplishments of other African Americans,” she says, “then it is also linked to stereotypes and other negative portrayals of that race.”  In other words, white women aren’t embarrassed when the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills behave badly, but women of color very well might be when the Real Housewives of Atlanta do the exact same thing. We see disproportionately few representations of women of color in popular television, with even fewer of wealthy women of color (the First Lady, Oprah, and a select few within the music and entertainment industries being the notable exceptions). White viewers have other images of white women to counter problematic ones. Black audiences have few such counterpoints.

The picture gets even fuzzier when you consider race and class.  Most viewers understand that the housewives in Orange County and New York City are not the “real upper class,” because we know there’s a different kind of white upper class that we see represented elsewhere.  The black upper class, though, is harder to find.  Even the fictional representations of black affluence that were on air in the 1980s and ’90s have become less visible.  Some of the most widely known and longest-running television shows featuring mostly black casts have told stories of affluence: the upwardly mobile entrepreneur on The Jeffersons, the doctor and lawyer parents on The Cosby Show, the mostly privileged college students on A Different World, the street-smart kid transplanted to a wealthy neighborhood on Fresh Price of Bel Air.  These shows didn’t ignore broader discussions of race and racism: The Jeffersons addressed the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow that had profound implications for the characters’ poor beginnings; A Different World dealt with race, class, and gender relations head on, discussing fraught subjects like date rape, the ERA, HIV/AIDS, and the Clarence Thomas hearings.  These shows set the bar high, not just in terms of diversity, but in regards to social commentary and humor generally.  Still, by virtue of their affluence, most of the characters represented a narrow facet of the black American experience.

(Source: fuckyeahfeminists)