Re:The bottom is dropping out of Netflix
by otterley on Friday April 22, 2022 @01:12PM
(#31124639)
I grew up in the '80s and it was there then, too. Some example episodes from "Diff'rent Strokes," a show about a white industrial magnate who adopts a couple of Black orphans:
* A social worker investigates the boys' home life and tells Mr. Drummond that she believes black children belong in black households.
* Mr. Drummond scolds Arnold for secretly recording other people's conversations. Arnold disobeys him and records Kimberly's boyfriend Roger making racist comments about Willis to his sister.
* Arnold's poor dental checkup has Drummond suspecting that the easy availability of junk food from vending machines at school is to blame. But when Drummond begins a campaign to replace the hot dogs, cookies, potato chips and soft drinks with more healthy foods, Arnold's friends try to convince him to get his father to reconsider.
* Arnold's joy of being transferred to an all-white school (and riding a bus to get there) is shaken to its very core when a racist busing opponent calls the Drummond household warning the pro-busing family patriarch not to send his black children to the new school, or else.
* When it is learned that Drummond's upcoming construction project may be located on top of an ancient Indian burial ground, he faces protest from a Native American who threatens to go on a hunger strike if the land is built on. Arnold and Willis follow suit by going on a hunger strike of their own.
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And of course, we mustn't forget "All in the Family" from the 1970s; pretty much every episode was about politics in some way.
* A social worker investigates the boys' home life and tells Mr. Drummond that she believes black children belong in black households.
* Mr. Drummond scolds Arnold for secretly recording other people's conversations. Arnold disobeys him and records Kimberly's boyfriend Roger making racist comments about Willis to his sister.
* Arnold's poor dental checkup has Drummond suspecting that the easy availability of junk food from vending machines at school is to blame. But when Drummond begins a campaign to replace the hot dogs, cookies, potato chips and soft drinks with more healthy foods, Arnold's friends try to convince him to get his father to reconsider.
* Arnold's joy of being transferred to an all-white school (and riding a bus to get there) is shaken to its very core when a racist busing opponent calls the Drummond household warning the pro-busing family patriarch not to send his black children to the new school, or else.
* When it is learned that Drummond's upcoming construction project may be located on top of an ancient Indian burial ground, he faces protest from a Native American who threatens to go on a hunger strike if the land is built on. Arnold and Willis follow suit by going on a hunger strike of their own.
--
And of course, we mustn't forget "All in the Family" from the 1970s; pretty much every episode was about politics in some way.