ABC's 'Black-ish' Says American Dream Can Be Yours, 'Unless You're Black'

ABC sitcom Black-ish doubled-down on the race card again this week exclaiming that working hard and paying your dues is the best way to achieve the American Dream, that is, “unless you’re black.”

In the Feb. 1 episode of the long-running sitcom, “Ashy to Classy,” the Disney-owned series pumped out the message that black Americans cannot achieve the American dream because their path to success “is so narrow.”

Early in the episode, Dre (Anthony Anderson) exclaimed that black people have to be “the greatest” at everything they do in order to achieve the American dream.

“The American Dream says work hard, pay your dues, and anything you ever want can be yours. Unless you’re black. To get even a tiny drop of that respect we deserve, black people have to be the best. No, the greatest. And because we have to be great, that excellence oozes through everything we do — how we walk, how we talk, and especially how we look,” Dre narrated during the show opening.

“We don’t have a choice. Our path to the American Dream is so narrow that one perceived slip brings out the haters. Serena was on her way to winning another French Open, but all they could talk about was her catsuit. Barack Obama went three racks in his closet, and everyone lost their minds. So, as always, black people gotta do even more than we already do,” he concluded.

Watch below: 

This from an actor who is worth an estimated $25 million and who gets paid $400,000 per episode of Black-ish. And on a show with nearly a dozen other black actors whose lives have been similarly blessed.

The narrative that black Americans can’t make it in the U.S.A. is belied by the fact that the black middle class is still growing quickly today. Indeed, the Pew Research Center recently found that Asians had displaced black people as suffering more income inequality among their peers.

Certainly the black middle class has taken a hit with the pandemic — as have most Americans — but a recent Los Angeles Times article noted that black-owned small businesses have surged in recent years. That’s a lot of black people attaining the American Dream.

The American dream has traditionally been defined as the ability to rise to success regardless of where one is born or in what economic strata one begins life. It is the idea that upward mobility is possible for anyone in America, not necessarily the idea that everyone can become super rich.

Indeed, even the characters in Black-ish have achieved the American dream. They own cars, a home, are well educated, and the adults have good, steady jobs. Dre himself is portrayed as a wealth ad agency executive, and his wife Rainbow (Tracee Elis Ross) is a highly paid medical professional. Even the show’s characters have realized the American dream despite Dre’s proclamations that black people are barred from success.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston